(no subject)

[tree_and_leaf]

It's really extremely difficult to read more than a little of the mystic Elsbeth von Oye, I find. Not so much because the language is difficult, but because all this stuff about self-crucifixion, belts with nails on, God instructing her to keep torturing herself so that he can feed from her inner marrow and above all the bits about the maggots actually makes me feel ever so slightly physically sick.

I'm also having difficulty - at least partly because I find the underlying theological assumptions so questionable and repellent - not emulating the attitude of an early C 20th scholar and just stamping it as 'pathological' and turning, with relief, to something less icky. Not every male scholastic labling of a female text as 'sick' is necessarily the reslut of sexism as such, though it may well result in a failure to find a meaningful way to read the text.

Sometimes one wonders if such a way exists. I certainly don't think that, looking at it with a modern Christian hat one (whatever that may look like!) rather than a mortar-board, that E v. O is one of the mediaeval mystics who modern believers will get much from. And even from a more academic point of view, it's difficult not just to view it as a train wreck...

One thing which I do very much admire about many mediaeval female religious writers is the ability to find meaning in their suffering, to use it as a means of imitatio Christi and as a way to God; but it becomes very problematic for me when it's self inflicted (rather than as a result of illness or problems arising from the active service of others). Of course, looked at historically, women were very circumscribed in how they could serve God, and they became more limited into the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Elsbeth probably didn't even have the option of a more active life, even had she wanted it, in the same way that (say) Elisabeth of Thuringia did. So perhaps these are texts of 'sickness' in a different sense to that which one is inclined to think - the 'sickness' is primarily in the church of the time and its unholy structures, and less so in the women, or only secondarily so. I have sometimes wondered if the female religious writers who were so obsessed with the Sacrament of the Altar weren't 'really' experiencing something that a modern liberal would identify with a call to the priesthood rather than to the nunnery (here endeth the a-historical reflections which doubtless interest nobody bar me - and certainly wouldn't please my supervisor!)

Comments

[lareinenoire.livejournal.com]

I'm actually not at all familiar with Elsbeth von Oye but your description probably explains why. Out of curiosity, where was she in terms of social class? I don't know that much about female mystics, but based on Margery Kempe and Dorothea of Montau and a few others that I have read about a little, they were able to afford things like pilgrimages and scribes and so forth. Maybe this was, as you seem to be saying, the only way Elsbeth could demonstrate her piety?

But I have to say, eww, maggots.

[tree_and_leaf]

Oh, I'd be very surprised if you HAD heard of her - there isn't an edition of the text†, with the inevitable results.

She was a Dominican nun - AFIAK nothing is known of her origins, but she certainly couldn't gad about on pilgrimages like Margery Kempe did. She did, however, have access to a scribe or may have written her book herself (it's first person, which makes it more immediate and therefore more disturbing). There are other instances of other people roughly contemporary to her going in for self-mutilation as a devotional practice (including at least one man, the Dominican friar Heinrich Seuse) - but Elsbeth is much more extreme, both in terms of what she describes and the extent to which it's foregrounded in her book - most texts which refer to extreme austerities only give it a few paragraphs or chapters, but there's really nothing else in Elsbeth.

And yeah, ewww, maggots.

†although one is forthcoming at some unspecified future date.

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

I suppose that maggots aren't, really, any worse than drinking Leper's pus or whatever it is that St Catherine [of Siena?] did, except that, well, maggots. And really maggots were probably quite a good thing if you were going to be mortifying your flesh under unhygienic conditions. If nothing else it sounds as if this woman had a quite remarkable immune system.

No, it's no good, I just can't beyond "yuck" (and the God feeding from the inner marrow bit, just wierd).

[tree_and_leaf]

I don't get what's going on with the marrow at all - it's not as if it's a usual symbol, either biblically or in mediaeval mysticism (or secular love poetry).

The positive side of the maggots had occured to me, but it's still rather revolting...

The pus was indeed Catherine of Sienna, which is also utterly disgusting, though I think it seems slightly more - acceptable, I suppose - was because at least one of the reasons given for it was that she was apparently trying to get over her disgust at the symptoms of leprosy that was making her an inefficient nurse. I'm sure there are more hygienic methods fo doing this and it's not one I'd recommend, but it did have a pragmatic justification involving the needs of others, over and above 'I am a wicked person and must mortify my flesh', though that was part of it too. But again, she must have had a very efficient immune system too!

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

Well, leprosy isn't that infectious so it may be that what Catherine needed was a well-controlled gag reflex.

[tree_and_leaf]

This is true. Though it's probably best to make sure it is really Hansen's Disease first, and not, say, tertiary syphillis!

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

Is pus involved in tertiary syphilis? But I do see your point. *imagines Catherine lying in fevered bed as the fellow nun says, “Really sorry, we thought it was leprosy, but actually it was Ebola virus."*

I was Sekritly Afraid of getting leprosy as a child, thanks to the headmistress's assemblies on the subject. It was a relief to grow up, read up on it, and learn that this was an Unlikely Fate, though Thomas Covenant was a setback. Hurrah for the BCG vaccine.

[tree_and_leaf]

Sores are involved at some point, though now I come to think of it, it may be primary and not tertiary.

I remember a Sunday school teacher pointing out that leprosy wasn't particularly catching, but I did develop something of a fear of TB. I blame the Chalet School....

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

I admit that my acquaintaince with syphilis is largely Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Karen Blixen (and a Poppy Z. Brite story I read about 13 that really confused me). I'm afraid I was one of those people who thought that swanning around in a white nightgown with TB was quite glamorous.

(Ilike the Secret Water icon).

[tree_and_leaf]

Oddly enough, I just looked up syphillis on Wikipedia, and some historians of medicine believe that some of the things described as 'lepra' in the middle ages may well have been syphillis, so perhaps Catherine was luckier than we realised.

Syphillis does indeed include weeping sores - it's the main vector of transmission, other than mother-child via the placenta. (Hence gloomy plays by Ibsen, which was why I looked the symptoms up originally. or maybe it was something in Thomas Mann...)

The icon's nice, isn't it? It's by keswindhover - she's done a whole lot of them, but I thought that one worked best.

[carlanime.livejournal.com]

I've never in my life heard of E v O (and the phrase "all the bits about the maggots" has left me glad about that), but more than anything that reminds me of the numbers of teenage anorexics one sees online, who insist they're "stronger" than people who don't suffer the way they do. Which makes me wonder how, exactly, the meme of spiritual-strength-through-physical-suffering got passed on to current-day North American teens; it certainly got passed on stripped of context...

[tree_and_leaf]

It's an interesting question: there's been some work comparing modern day anorexia, the most important being Rudolf Bell's "Holy Anorexia" (googling 'holy anorexia' produces some interesting links). The term has also been quite heavily criticised, eg. by Caroline Bynum, as overly pathological and in ignoring or obscuring the quite different culture and 'philosophical' context. Bynum's theory is that the mediaeval savage fasting arose because refusing food (and/ or practicing other austerities) was virtually the only freedom the women could take that didn't involve open rebellion against all the structures and beliefs of their society (though it did often lead to bitter conflict within families). Possibly with modern anorexics mainstream dieting and the beauty culture is performing the same function as ascetic Christianity, and in the same way produces results that aren't quite what the ideological arbiters (beauty editors, the Catholic church) actually intended or particularly like?

[carlanime.livejournal.com]

I'm slightly afraid to google "holy anorexia," but I suppose sticking the author's name in the search field will narrow that down safely.

[tree_and_leaf]

The first page of results is perfectly safe, anyway :)

[tree_and_leaf]

And I'm also slightly reminded of the golems in 'Feet of Clay' and Vimes' reflections on 'dumb obedience' as the only form of rebellion available to them....

[dameboudicca.livejournal.com]

(To sound very un-academic, but I blame it on a head-ache and not having read much on the subject for a couple of years): It sounds very interesting! I've been interested in female mystics (and female saints too) for quite some time - the problem being that it has never been a top priority which has made my study of them very superficial...
I really should do something about that!

[tree_and_leaf]

Thank you. There are an awful lot of female mystics who are more rewarding (and less nauseating!) than Elsbeth, thankfully. Though I still think that no-one (even my Mechthild!) can hold a candle to Julian of Norwich.

[scionofgrace.livejournal.com]

Hello! Nothing much to add - as a Mennonite, I am almost wholly unfamiliar with saints/mystics of any kind - but I find your paragraph at the end very intriguing. It's an interesting philosophical point that the ideological sickness of a religion (as practiced) can work itself out into physical sickness in its adherents.

That and I find I absolutely must friend somebody going by the name "Tree and Leaf".

[tree_and_leaf]

Hi, it's nice to meet you!

It's an interesting philosophical point that the ideological sickness of a religion (as practiced) can work itself out into physical sickness in its adherents.

But for me the even more interesting point is that the sickness in the individual can itself be productive spiritually. Though in a lot of cases it just breaks people, so I'm not trying to justify it on those grounds. But it's ... interesting. Or grace. Or, most likely, both.