UCLA UCLA Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title The Saints of the Crusader States: Legends of the Eastern Mediterranean in Anglo-French Vernacular Culture, 1135-1220 Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/8cf8g10n Author Politano, Cristina Publication Date 2018 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Los Angeles The Saints of the Crusader States: Legends of the Eastern Mediterranean in Anglo-French Vernacular Culture, 1135-1220 A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in French and Francophone Studies by Cristina Politano 2018 ã Copyright by Cristina Politano 2018 ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION The Saints of the Crusader States: Legends of the Eastern Mediterranean in Anglo-French Vernacular Culture, 1135-1220 by Cristina Politano Doctor of Philosophy in French and Francophone Studies University of California, Los Angeles, 2018 Professor Zrinka Stahuljak, Chair A corpus of Anglo-French hagiography composed between 1135 and 1220 tells the lives of Biblical and Late Antique women with origins in the eastern Mediterranean: the Virgin Mary and Mary Magdalene who lived in Jerusalem, Margaret of Antioch, Catherine of Alexandria, and Mary of Egypt. These narratives circulated and gained a popular audience in twelfth- and thirteenth-century Normandy, England, and France. Hagiography scholars have focused on the ways in which vernacular portrayals of female saints reveal medieval ideas of gender; this study evaluates the extent to which ideology is indexed through both the gender and the geographical origin of the saints in question. It considers how the contexts of pilgrimage and crusade offer a new framework for the larger discussion of these texts. What is the nature of the link that twelfth- century Anglo-Norman hagiographers sought to establish with the wider, non-western world? ii An inquiry into the provenance of these legends reveals that their underlying ideology often complicates or contradicts orthodox theological definitions of sainthood elaborated by twelfth- century Christian theologians. They maintain instead a connection to much earlier traditions developed in the southern and eastern Mediterranean. An examination of the departures from Latin source texts reveals the desire to appeal to the sensibilities of a vernacular audience composed of a nobility whose aspirations of conquest were increasingly trained on the lands of the southern and eastern Mediterranean. Drawing on modern critical theory, as well as recent research in Mediterranean studies, The Saints of the Crusader Saints revisits the foundational moments of Anglo-French vernacular culture, in which distinctive modes of difference mediate definitions of sainthood. The legends of saintly women from the opposite shores of the Mediterranean participate in the ideological process that aimed for the Christian recovery of the Holy Land. By offering narratives that linked early Christian women with their medieval audience, hagiographers bolstered the claims of western Europe's feudal rulers who sought to position themselves as legitimate heirs to this land. Depictions of early Christian saints as ladies of the western European gentry appeal to the target readers and listeners as members of a feudal society eager to see their own nobility reflected in the heroines of sacred narratives. The members of this audience were equally ready to see themselves cast as the children of this sacred lineage, successors to a genealogy with direct roots in heaven. iii The dissertation of Cristina Politano is approved. Jean-Claude Carron Christine N. Chism Eleanor K. Kaufman Zrinka Stahuljak, Committee Chair University of California, Los Angeles 2018 iv DEDICATION This study is dedicated to the memory of Maria Carmella Magliaro and Louise Mary Politano. " Only take care, and keep your soul diligently, lest you forget the things that your eyes have seen, and lest they depart from your heart all the days of your life. Make them known to your children and your children's children—" Deuteronomy 4:9 v TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements......................................................................................................................viii Vita..................................................................................................................................................ix Introduction......................................................................................................................................1 Chapter One: Wace's Conception Nostre Dame: Our Lady on the Eve of the Second Crusade...10 The Conception Nostre Dame............................................................................................18 The Establishment..............................................................................................................22 The Scene of the Flowering Rod.........................................................................................42 The Incarnation..................................................................................................................50 Questions of Patronage.......................................................................................................66 Chapter Two: Margaret of Antioch and Catherine of Alexandria: Crusader State Patrons.............62 Margaret the Obscure.........................................................................................................71 The Antioch Appeal...........................................................................................................75 Pearls on Crusade...............................................................................................................80 The Dragon Episode...........................................................................................................89 Clemence of Barking's Vie de sainte Catherine..................................................................95 Catherine's Alexandria.....................................................................................................100 The Body, Divided...........................................................................................................103 Chapter Three: Across the Grecian Sea: Jerusalem, Egypt, and a Tale of Two Mary's.................115 Sinner Saints.....................................................................................................................117 The Romanz of Saint Mary Magdalene.............................................................................122 The First Sea Voyage.......................................................................................................128 The Second Sea Voyage...................................................................................................134 vi The Crusader Context.......................................................................................................142 Mary the Egyptian............................................................................................................147 Meretrix Mary..................................................................................................................153 The River Jordan..............................................................................................................156 The Body, Transformed...................................................................................................160 The Desert Tradition........................................................................................................163 Chapter Four: Contemporary Critical Theory and the Vernacular Hagiographic Tradition..........167 The Challenge of Narrative History..................................................................................171 Sainthood and Mysticism According to Simone de Beauvoir...........................................179 Post-Structuralist Theory: Lacan, Cixous, Irigaray, Kristeva...........................................183 The Saints of the Crusader State and the Critical Tradition...............................................191 Conclusion...................................................................................................................................205 References....................................................................................................................................208 vii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This dissertation has become a reality thanks to the help and support of many individuals. I would like to extend my sincere gratitude to each one of them. I would like to express my deep gratitude to my advisor, Professor Zrinka Stahuljak, who guided me through every step of the process, as well as to each member of the committee, Professors Eleanor Kaufman, Chris Chism, and Jean-Claude Carron. I would also like to thank Professor Andrea Moudarres of the Department of Italian at UCLA who oversaw the prospectus defense. This research would not have been possible without travel grants from the Lenart and Borchard Travel funds generously offered through the Department of French and Francophone Studies at UCLA. My sincere thanks as well as to the faculty and staff at the Center of Medieval and Renaissance Studies at UCLA and the Mellon Summer Institute of French Paleography at the Newberry Library in Chicago. In particular, I extend my thanks to Richard and Mary Rouse of the History Department at UCLA and to Marc Smith and Frédéric Duval at the École nationale des Chartes, who provided vital manuscript support. My gratitude is also extended to my colleagues, friends, and careful readers, Ani Honarchian and Nanar Khamo, for the valuable feedback they provided at every stage along the process; to friend and reader Chris R. Morgan for his notes on the introduction; to Jacqueline Palmore, who helped me settle on a title; to Daniel Yepes, Jézabel Roy, and Marnie, for their generous hospitality during my various research trips to Paris. Finally, to Frank, Maria, and Giuliana Politano, who kept me (mostly) sane. To Peter, Suzie, Tuffy, Monkey, and Magenta, who mostly just distracted me but made it all worth it. viii