Gender and Christianity in Medieval Europe THE MIDDLE AGES SERIES Ruth MazoKarras, SeriesEditor EdwardPeters, FoundingEditor Acompletelistofbooksin the seriesisavailablefrom the publisher. Gender and Christianity in Medieval Europe New Perspectives EDITED BY LISA M. BITEL AND FELICE LIFSHITZ PENN UniversityofPennsylvaniaPress Philadelphia ISBN: 978-0-8122-2013-1 ToJo Ann McNamara magistra doctissima et mater omnium bonarum This page intentionally left blank Contents Introduction ConventRuins and ChristianProfession: Towarda Methodology for the HistoryofReligion and Gender 1 LisaM. Bitel 1. Tertullian, theAngelic Life, and the Bride ofChrist 16 DyanElliott 2. OneFlesh, Two Sexes,Three Genders? 34 JacquelineMurray 3. ThomasAquinas'sChastityBelt: Clerical Masculinityin Medieval Europe 52 RuthMazo Karras 4. Women's Monasteriesand SacredSpace: The Promotion of Saints' CultsandMiracles 68 Jane Tibbetts Schulenburg 5. PriestlyWomen,VirginalMen: LitaniesandTheirDiscontents 87 FeliceLifshitz Notes 103 Bibliography 129 ListofContributors 145 Index 147 Acknowledgments 159 This page intentionally left blank Introduction Convent Ruins and Christian Profession Toward a Methodologyfor theHistory ofReligion and Gender LISA M. BITEL Near Tuam in the west ofIreland, a partial wall stands in an otherwise emptyfield (Figure 1). Itforms an arch ofbig, rough rocks. A passerby who looks through the arch will see more fields marked by a recent low wall meant to keep in the cattle. If she looks through the other way, shewill also glimpse fields. The farmer who owns the land has nei ther knocked down the arch nor preserved it. Cows graze around it. Nineteenth-century surveyors noted it on ordnance survey maps. Mod ern touristswho strayinto the field to confrontthe arch-and there are notmany-cannotpossiblymake much ofit. The broken arch is all that remains ofthe medieval convent ofCell Craobhnat, also known through the medieval centuries as Kilcreevanty, Saint Mary of Casta Silva, Kilcreunata, Cill-Craebhnat, and Kilcrevet.1 Only a few written records marked the birth and death ofthe convent. Its foundation documentfrom around 1200, along with a petition sub mitted to Pope Honorius III by the first generation ofnuns, hint at the diverse devotional practices and spiritualities ofwomen who once lived there. CellCraobhnat'snunsbegan asBenedictines, decided to become Cistercians, and then, atthe orderofa localbishop,wereforced to turn Arrouasian, a more restrained order oftheAugustinians popularin Ire land. A brusque account ofthe convent's dissolution in the Tudor pe riod three hundred-someyears laterreveals thatCell Craobhnathad by thenbecome the motherhouse ofatleastfifteen moreArrouasian com munitiesinwesternIreland.When KingHenryVIII emptiedandexpro priated Irish monasteries in the earlysixteenth century, Cell Craobhnat stillowneda thousandacres.1Together, however, the textsmention only four women who lived at Cell Craobhnat over the course ofmore than three centuries, all of whom were abbesses descended from the con vent'sfounding familyof0 Conors.