¹ This article developed out of a lecture first given at the Episcopal Chaplaincy, Saint Aidan's, on the campus of Western Michigan University in March 1989. I owe a debt of thanks to the chaplain, Susan Creighton, for inviting me. I would also like to thank the participants in a seminar at UCLA in April 1989 in memory of our friend and colleague John Benton. Here I was given further comments and my only regret is that John himself, who was deeply sceptical about mediaeval female visionaries but always fascinated by them, was no longer with us.

² For a detailed review of the subject, see James A. Brundage, Law, Sex and Christian Society in Medieval Europe (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987), especially chapter 5, pp. 214–223. I do not want to indicate that women before the eleventh century were officially allowed to perform sacramental rites. The point is that the presence of women as wives of priests gave them an access to the sacramental life of the Church that they lost in the reform period.

³ As in “The Cistercians and the Transformation of Monastic Friendships” Analecta Cisterciansia 37 (1981): 1–63 which, in a revised and abbreviated form, will appear in The Cistercian Monastic Woman: Hidden Springs, ed. John A. Nichols and Lillian Thomas Shank, vol. 3 of the series Medieval Religious Women.

⁴ Friendship and Community: The Monastic Experience 350–1250, Cistercian Studies Series 95 (Kalamazoo: Cistercian Publications, 1988). See the index under the heading “women.”

⁵ Bynum's approach can be seen as one point of departure for a wealth of studies about women's inner lives: Caroline Walker Bynum, Jesus as Mother: Studies in the Spirituality of the High Middle Ages (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982). It might be added, however, that men such as Peter Brown, Peter Dronke and Rudolph Bell are also contributing studies of direct relevance for a deeper understanding of mediaeval women's spirituality: Peter Brown, The Body and Society: Men, Women and Sexual Renunciation in Early Christianity (New York: Columbia University Press, 1988), Peter Dronke, Women Writers of the Middle Ages (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984) and Rudolph Bell, Holy Anorexia (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985).

⁶ As points of departure for this question, see Herbert Grundmann, Religiöse Bewegungen im Mittelalter (1935; rpt. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1977), especially ch. 5: “Die Eingliderung der religiösen Frauenbewegung in die Bettelorder” and Ernest W. McDonnell, The Beguines and Beghards in Medieval Culture (1954; rpt. New York: Octagon Books, 1969), especially ch. 11: “Older Monachism and the Cura Monialium.”

⁷ The classic work here is Micheline Pontenay de Fontette, Les Religieuses à l'Age Classique du Droit Canon (Paris: J. Vrin, 1967).

⁸ For example, we find Ida of Nivelles — a cloistered nun — who is described without any special explanation as returning from the town of Louvain with an abbess of the Cistercian Order. The trip is by no means considered as having been an extraordinary event (Vita Idae Nivellensis, ch. 15 in Chrysostom Henriquez, Quinque Prudentes Virgines (Anvers, 1630): pp. 237–239.

⁹ This is the suggestion of Dr. Rozanne Elder of the Cistercian Institute to my query concerning the relative wealth of male houses in the reformed Cistercians (OCSO) as compared to female houses.

¹⁰ Most easily accessible in English translation in C. H. Talbot, The Anglo-Saxon Missionaries in Germany (1954: rpt. London: Sheed and Ward, 1981). See my Friendship and Community, pp. 107–112.

¹¹ Aelred of Rievaulx, Treatises, The Works of Aelred of Rievaulx 1; Cistercian Fathers series 2 (Kalamazoo: Cistercian Publications, 1971): pp. 52-53.

¹² The Life of Christina of Markyate, ed. C. H. Talbot (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1959), pp. 173–175): “Before they had become spiritual friends, the abbot's well–known goodness and the maiden's holy chastity had been praised in many parts of England. But when their mutual affection in Christ had inspired them to greater good, the abbot was slandered as a seducer and the maiden as a loose woman.”

¹³ For a summary of the current discussion on women's houses and the Cistercians, see Constance M. Berman, “Men's Houses, Women's Houses: The Relationship Between the Sexes in Twelfth–Century Monasticism” in The Medieval Monastery, ed. Andrew MacLeish (St. Cloud MN: North Star Press, 1988): pp. 43–52. Berman is now engaged in an important study of Cistercian abbeys for women in northern France.

¹⁴ At the Cistercian conference at Kalamazoo in 1989, John A. Nichols presented an intriguing paper based on a hitherto unknown list in Keble MS 36, “How Many Cistercian Nunneries Were There Anyway?”

¹⁵ As seen in the Vita Prima I: vi. 30 = PL 185.

¹⁶ The Vita Abundi was published in Cîteaux in de Nederlanden (now Cîteaux Commentariii Cistercienses) 10 (1959): pp. 5–33 and has been translated in a private edition by Martinus Cawley of Guadalupe Abbey, Lafayette OR. Father Martinus and I are working on an introduction and translation to the lives of three thirteenth-century saints, including Abundus. I quote from his translation of ch. 12 in the vita.

¹⁷ Vita Abundi, ch. 12.

¹⁸ Louis Lekai, The Cistercians: Ideals and Reality (Kent OH: Kent State University Press, 1977): pp. 351–352.

¹⁹ As expressed in the Chronica Villariensis Monasterii in its description of the abbacy of Walter of Utrecht (1214–1221) in Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Scriptores 25, ed. G. Waitz (Leipzig, 1925): p. 199.

²⁰ Vita Abundi, ch. 12.

²¹ See my Friendship and Community and Barbara Newman, Sister of Wisdom: Saint Hildegard's Theology of the Feminine (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989): pp. 77–78.

²² Vita Abundi, ch. 15.

²³ Ibid., ch. 17.

²⁴ The Vita Mariae Oigniacensis, ed. D. Papebroeck in Acta Sanctorum Iunii 5 (Paris, 1867): 542–572 (cited as VMO). I use the translation by Margot H. King, The Life of Marie d'Oignies, Matrologia Latina series 2 (Saskatoon: Peregrina Publishing Co., 1986).

²⁵ For background, see Brenda M. Bolton, “Vita Matrum: A Further Aspect of the Frauenfrage” in Medieval Women, ed. Derek Baker, Ecclesiastical History Society (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1978): pp. 253–273 and McDonnell, The Beguines and Beghards, Part 1: “A Case Study in the Vita Apostolica.”

²⁶ VMO ch. 18, trans. King, p. 19.

²⁷ Ibid. ch. 105, p. 100.

²⁸ See the Dialogus Miraculorum, ed. Joseph Strange (1851; rpt. New Jersey: Gregg Press, 1966): Distinctio nona, “De Corpore Christi.”

²⁹ Here I have been immeasurably helped by the work of the Danish philologist/historian Karen Glente, whose work for the most part is not available in languages other than Danish. See her Hellige Kvinder: Om Kvindebillede og Kvindebevidsthed i Middelalderen [On the Image of Woman and Female Consciousness in the Middle Ages] (Copenhagen: Middelaldercentret, 1985), especially pp. 44–48.

³⁰VMO, ch. 90, p. 87. Margot King comments in a note on this passage (n. 132, p. 135) that “despite Marie's vision, I have little sense of Saint Bernard in this life.” I think the absence of references to St. Bernard would indicate that Jacques de Vitry only included him because he as biography wanted to exalt his subject, not because his contemporaries saw a connection between the holy woman and the Cistercian saint.

³¹ VMO, ch. 47, p. 48.

³² In VMO, ch. 69, p. 48 Jacques says that while he preached Marie would say the “Hail Mary” one hundred times, but in ch. 79, p. 77 he explains that he turned to Marie for an evaluation of his sermons.

³³ VMO, ch. 47, p. 48 shows Marie as being drawn to help her friends, while ch. 65, pp. 64–65 shows her as forcing herself to be available to others.

³⁴ VMO ch. 63, p. 63.

³⁵VMO ch. 109, p. 105.

³⁶ Vita Lutgardis in Acta Sanctorum Junii 3 (1867): 187–209 (cited as VLA). I have used the privately printed translation of Martinus Cawley of Guadalupe Abbey. Now available from Peregrina Publishing Co. is Margot H. King's translation (1987) with a full bibliography.

³⁷ VLA 3, 19; Cawley, p. 83; King, p. 97.

³⁸ VLA 2, 23; Cawley, p. 46; King, p. 53.

³⁹ VLA 2, 38; Cawley, p. 55; King, p. 65–66.

⁴⁰ VLA 3, 1; Cawley, p. 63; King, p. 73.

⁴¹ VLA 1, 2; Cawley, p. 22; King, p. 25.

⁴² VLA 3, 5: Erubescat ille vilissimus obtrectator, qui dixit et scripsit debere profanos intelligi qui muliercularum scriberent phantasticas visiones (Cawley, p. 67; King, p. 79).

⁴³ Vita Beatricis, ed. L. Reypens (Antwerp: Ruusbroec-genootschap, 1964). See Roger de Ganck, “The Cistercian Nuns of Belgium in the Thirteenth Century” Cistercian Studies 5 (1970): 169–187 and “Chronological Data in the Lives of Ida of Nivelles and Beatrice of Nazareth” Oons Geestelijk Erf 57 (1983): 14–29. Martinus Cawley and I are preparing a new translation of the Life of Ida of Nivelles to be published by Cistercian Publications.

⁴⁴ Vita Beatricis, para. 211–212.

⁴⁵ See Roger de Ganck and Jerome Kroll, “The Adolesence of a Thirteenth Century Visionary Nun” Psychological Medicine 16 (1986): 745–756. Father Roger has kindly informed me that another article on Beatrice's adult life is forthcoming. Cistercian Publications is issuing his great three volume work on Beatrice which will include an English translation of her vita.

⁴⁶ As the author himself indicates, his goal is to show her monastic life through her association with women religious companions: Sic denique devota christi famula, devoto incorporata collegio, qualem conversationem inter socias moniales ex eo tempore ducere ceperit, quam integre totam ordinis observantiam exercuerit ... sequens lectionis series explanabit (Vita Beatricis, para. 49).

⁴⁷ The brief biographies made by women about their sisters in Unterlinden from the end of the thirteenth century shed more light on this question. See Jeanne Ancelet–Hustache, “Les Vitae Sororum d'Unterlinden” Archives d'Histoire Doctrinale et Littéraire du Moyen Age (Paris, 1931): 317–513.

⁴⁸ Holy Feast and Holy Fast: The Religious Significance of Food to Medieval Women (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987).

⁴⁹ See my essay, “Monks and Tears,” forthcoming in a collection of articles on Bernard of Clairvaux.