Category: Departments & Disciplines

Posted on

Elisabeth Achler von Reute, I: The Expected Saint

Naturally, reformist Augustinian prior Konrad Kügelin opens his hagiography of Elisabeth Achler (1386-1420) by talking about himself.[i] After that, though, he launches into an ode to the name “Elisabeth” lifted straight from the Legenda aurea’s entry on St. Elisabeth of Hungary. In his initial versions of the vernacular vita, Achler’s father is a weaver. Later, Kügelin turns him into a dyer—like Catherine of Siena’s father.[ii]  In fact, the Lebenof Achler has so many similarities to Raymond of Capua’s Legenda of Catherine that one almost has the impresion Kügelin was disappointed when his exemplar turned thirty-four and could no longer die at the same age.

Kügelin chose strategically. Elizabeth was one of the most popular patrons of hospitals and communities run by beguines.[iii] Catherine was the shining exemplar of the Dominican Third Order. And in the vita, Kügelin was not subtle abut his intention of using Achler’s sanctity to promote his vision of religious life for Franciscan tertiary women.

To this end, the Augustinian had done his homework. According to the text, our major surviving source, Achler was born in a village that lay within the diocese of Constance (and modern-day Baden-Württemberg) to two upstanding, humble parents. Her father died during her childhood, and her mother entered a convent and lived out a life of piety as any good widow ought. Achler was very beautiful but shunned the attention of boys. When she was fourteen, the Holy Spirit compelled her to seek out the local Augustinian prior, Konrad Kügelin, as her confessor in the sense of the sacrament as well as spiritual direction. He placed her with an independent religious woman for several years to learn the values of poverty and work while he took the time to found his model cloister at Reute.

Achler’s adulthood was, if anything, even more stereotypical for a late medieval holy woman.[iv] She received permission from the Holy Spirit and from her confessor to fast extensively, used her daily work to imitate Christ, experienced religious raptures and ecstatic visions, received a mystical Eucharist from Christ himself, met Mary in heaven, saw the fates of souls in purgatory, announced prophecies related to the Great Schism, received stigmata. Her life, as told by Kügelin, is a parade of topoi. So much so, in fact, that scholars have considered it as a lump sum. To some, the vita is a straightforward account of a saint’s life (whether in the biographical or hagiographical sense).[v] To others, Kügelin added or glossed a layer of mystical tropes on top of a pious but ordinary life to promote his vision of reform.[vi]

These perspectives come from an alignment with Kügelin’s perspective as hagiographer, indeed, almost as creator of Achler and her sanctity. To move beyond his particular role yields several curious aspects of this holy woman’s life.

First, Achler’s death in 1420 means that the height of her public reputation in life, and the entrenchment of her cult after her death, occurred at a time scholars have identified as increasingly dangerous for charismatic religious women. People were beginning to doubt that the source of visions and prophecies was divine by default.[vii] Even Joan of Arc, a visionary herself, denounced Catherine de la Rochelle as a fraud.[viii] In other cases, theologians explicitly tied women’s visions to deception by Satan. That environment, according to Jeffrey Hamburger and Tamar Herzig, was especially dense north of the Alps. German translations of Catherine of Siena’s vita—so important to Kügelin as a model—tended to mitigate out the more extreme and somatic examples of her spiritual exercises as mystical or metaphorical.[ix] Hagiographies and chronicle accounts of women connected to fifteenth-century monastic reform movements, too, de-emphasize women’s ecstatic spirituality.[x] Against this tide, Achler’s vita takes a traditional but threatened path.

But even to place her on the well-trod path is not enough. A simple checklist of representative topoi misses the degree to which the vita slots Achler into them. Lots of saints ate very little and had a devotion to the Eucharist. Achler eats nothing but the Host for three years—and then for twelve years.[xi] She doesn’t just receive stigmata as open wounds that don’t heal even after a month under gloves, but her stigmata bleed so heavily the sisters have to do laundry every day.[xii] Temptation by the devil is standard fare in hagiography, and of course there is plenty of that in Achler’s hagiography. But on top of that, a demon also invades her room and beats her physically so hard that everyone can see her bruises.[xiii] Throughout the vita, therefore, Kügelin does not merely utilize the discourse of sanctity. He pushes it further and further, beyond even the more extreme elements of his own hagiographic models.

And where the topoi of sanctity meet the daily life of Elisabeth Achler, we can almost see the late medieval vision of sainthood snap right back in her face.

To be continued…

[You can find part 2 here].

Cait Stevenson, PhD Candidate
University of Notre Dame

~~

[i]Karl Bihlmeyer, “Die schwäbische Mysterikerin Elsbeth Achler von Reute (d. 1420) und die Überlieferung ihrer Vita,” in Hermanea: Ausgewählte Arbeiten aus dem deutschen Seminar zu Halle, ed. Georg Baesecke and Ferdinand Joseph Schneider (Halle: Max Niemeyer Verlag, 1932), 88-109. The hagiography itself is found on 96-109 and will be cited as Leben.

[ii]Werner Williams-Krapp, “Frauenmystik und Ordensform im 15. Jahrhundert,” in Literarischen Interessenbildung im Mittelalter, ed. Joachim Heinzle (Stuttgart: Verlag J. B. Metzler, [year]), 309.

[iii]Walter Simons. Cities of Ladies: Beguine Communities in the Medieval Low Countries, 1200-1565(Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2001), 88.

[iv]Williams-Krapp, 308-309.

[v]Siegfried Ringler, “Kügelin, Konrad,” in 2VL Bd. 5 (1985), 427-428; Williams-Krapp, 308.

[vi]Leben6.

[vii]See, for example, Dyan Elliott, Proving Woman: Female Spirituality and Inquisitional Culture in the Later Middle Ages (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004).

[viii]Daniel Hobbins, ed. and trans., The Trial of Joan of Arc (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2005), 83-84.

[ix]Jeffrey Hamburger, The Visual and the Visionary: Art and Spirituality in Late Medieval Germany(New York: Zone Books, 1998), 460-464.

[x]Tamar Herzig, “Female Mysticism, Heterodoxy, and Reform,” in A Companion to Observant Reform in the Late Middle Ages (Leiden: Brill, 2015), 261.

[xi]Leben7-9.

[xii]Leben12.

[xiii]Leben17.

Posted on

Poetic form and the matter of the Virgin

This piece accompanies CJ Jones‘ sung recitations and translation of Ave virginalis forma. Jones‘ contribution to our Medieval Poetry Project marks another exciting expansion as she bring a number of firsts to the project: the first Latin poem, the first Middle-High German poem, and the first song. She does not disappoint. Jones not only translates the song into modern English, she sings Ave virginalis forma in all three languages (Latin, Middle High German and modern English).

“Ave virginalis forma” from Munich, Bavarian State Library, cgm 716

Translator’s preface:

“Ave virginalis forma” (Analecta Hymnica, vol. 54, p. 379ff.) was composed in the first half of the fourteenth century and is attributed to an otherwise unattested Jacob, priest of Mühldorf. It was a highly complex and difficult poetic endeavor, both with regard to its poetic form and its classicizing and Greek vocabulary. Nevertheless, in the latter half of the fourteenth century the prolific songster known as “Der Mönch von Salzburg” (the monk from Salzburg) undertook to translate it into a German verse that maintained the poetic structure of the original Latin and could be sung more or less to the same melody. In attempting the same with modern English, I discovered just how difficult that is.

The chant is a sequence, a liturgical genre that was sung before the Gospel reading at Mass. (As far as I know, there is no evidence that “Ave virginalis forma” was actually sung liturgically, but formally it belongs to this genre.) Early sequences have very loose or no poetic form, but as the genre evolved, composers began to prefer texts with strict metrical forms and rhyme schemes. The first few verses of “Ave virginalis forma” fit the most popular poetic structure of the “new sequence” that was popular by the thirteenth century. The most significant characteristic that differentiates the sequence from the hymn is that sequence verses are paired, but the melody is through-composed. This means that verses 1 and 2 are sung to the same melody, but 3 has a new melody, repeated in verse 4, before yet a new melody is heard in verses 5 and 6, and so on. Within this overarching rule, there is some flexibility to repeat smaller melodic units and phrases. Jacob was sensitive to the relationship between the melody and the poetic form: for example, the closing line of the R and S verses is repeated for the following T and V pair and, accordingly, Jacob used the same end rhyme for all four verses. (Der Mönch von Salzburg did not notice the recycled melodic material and used different end rhymes for the two pairs; I tried my hardest to maintain the same rhyme for all four).

Jacob imposed an extra poetic constraint on himself: Ave virginalis forma is an abecedarium. Each verse begins with a letter of the alphabet (Ave, Botrus, Chere, Dei…). Der Mönch von Salzburg did follow this poetic constraint but for difficult letters simply took over the first word of the Latin verse and then set in with the German translation (Karissima / liebst aller lieb; Quis / wer). I permitted myself the same liberty. I should also note that both Jacob and der Mönch von Salzburg used the chi rho spelling of “Christ” for verse X, and I followed suit. Jacob also accomplished some real feats of poetic structure, which I was not able to imitate. The first and third lines of verses J and K rhyme both the first and second word, which neither the German nor the English manage (see also P and Q). Lines 2 and 4 of the L and K verses all end with internal double rhyme; der Mönch von Salzburg did a better job rendering this than I did. I settled on using rhyming syllables at the beginning and end of those lines. Finally, the paired N and O verses each incorporate an extraordinary sequence of internal rhyme, which neither der Mönch von Salzburg nor I were able to reproduce in German or English, although each of us gave it the old college try.

For the melody, I used two manuscripts of related provenance, Munich, Bavarian State Library, cgm 715 and cgm 716. Both manuscripts were produced in Bavaria toward the end of the fifteenth century and both were owned by the monastery of Tegernsee, although it is unlikely that either was produced there. I had to supplement and extrapolate from another manuscript for the German version because, due to an extraordinary eye-skip (from “vrowe” to “vrowe”), the scribe of cgm 715 left out the entirety of verse Q. The melody of the German differs slightly from the Latin – as do the melodies in other manuscripts containing the Latin sequence. If I were being true to medieval practice, I would have been looser with the melody for my English translation, as well.

I do not think that I have done justice to the beauty and complexity of the Latin sequence, neither in my sung recording nor in my translation. Still, in the process, I learned an enormous amount about stress and melodic shape, poetic flexibility, and Old Testament allegories for Mary. I owe thanks to Richard Fahey for encouraging me to take on this project, to Sean Martin for helping me record it, and to Christopher Miller for helping me edit the audio files.

Claire Taylor Jones
Assistant Professor of German
University of Notre Dame

Posted on

Undergrad Wednesdays – Food for Thought: The Alt-Right and the Prioress’s Tale

[This post was written in the spring 2018 semester for Karrie Fuller's course on Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. It responds to the prompt posted here.]

In many of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales,there exist the specters of fourteenth-century social attitudes, whether these be about religion, gender, or any other topic now carefully studied by literary critics. Even amongst all of these numerous tales, however, the “Prioress’ Tale” and its blatant, vicious anti-Semitism stands out as particularly troubling. Troubling, and, unfortunately, as relevant now as it was so many centuries ago due to a curious movement among the modern alt-right supporters of America. Social and political movements, including violent or radical movements, often justify themselves with appeals to authority, wherein they use literature of the classic Western canon, from the Bible to Aristotle to Dickens, to validate their ideologies. The modern alt-right movement that has recently gained some infamy in the United States in the wake of the 2016 presidential election and the Charlottesville rally is no different.

In order to gain real traction, radical movements must appear to be steeped in legitimacy. This can come in many forms, such as the pseudoscience, phrenology, perpetuating racist attitudes, but often it comes in the form of (mis)interpreting the literary canon to fit a radical ideology. For the alt-right and very far-right, a favorite author to discuss is, strangely, Jane Austen. If read and analyzed in the way that most people would, Austen is not an ardent supporter of the alt-right, but they use her works in multiple ways. For one, she becomes a symbol of sexual purity, as part of a mythological age that ended with the 1950’s in which women were pure and chaste. Austen’s novels, as do many of the titles alt-right movements use, also hearken to a nostalgic ‘better world’ of the past, where white, Christian males had the most social power. For example, in a speech at the University of Colorado Boulder, controversial conservative firebrand Milo Yiannopoulos references Austen in his speech extolling the dangers of feminism: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTBafIj-ay0 (link removed to reduce the traffic to his site; please use only if needed for research purposes to avoid supporting intolerance). Austen is just one of many authors that the alt-right has picked up as validation; they are, for example, also very fond of ancient Greek Stoicism, using this philosophy to justify their beliefs.

Chaucer’s “Prioress’ Tale” is a good example of the kind of literature that alt-right groups could use to justify their positions on anti-Semitism. It is a story that totally villainizes the Jewish people, putting them in bed with Satan, saying, “Oure firste foo, the serpent Sathanas/ That hath in Jues herte his waspes nest/ Up swal and seide, “O Hebrayk peple, allas!” (VII. 558-560). It not only casts Jews as villains, but also perpetuates stereotypes that have followed them for centuries, as the Prioress’s statement that the Jewish community is, “Sustened by a lord of that contree/ For foul usure and lucre of vileynye/ Hateful to Christ and to his compaignye” (VII. 490-492). In other words, they are villainous money-lenders. In addition, they hate Christians for their love of Mary, and conspire (a stereotypical favorite pastime for Jews) to murder a Christian child: “Fro thennes forth the Jues han conspired/ This innocent out of this world to chace/ An homycide therto han they hyred” (VII. 565-568). Because of its similarity to the problems that the modern alt-right movement has with the Jewish people, this tale could be made into an easy example of how Jews have been the way that they are for centuries, and are unlikely to change. It could easily be used to fuel hatred.

The use of canonical literature to inspire hatred, of course, raises many problematic questions. What is the correct way to approach literature that deals with sensitive issues in insensitive ways? Is it best to attempt to teach it, giving the caveat that it is insensitive? Or is it best to ignore it, or ban it, because of the idea that even with the caveat there will be, here and there, people who use such literature to justify hatred? Is literary merit always worth that risk? This hearkens to the perennial debate about whether Huckleberry Finn should be banned; some people have moved to ban it for ‘inciting racial hatred’ in high schools. All this, of course, despite the fact that many critics do not think that Huck Finn is a racist book, and its author almost certainly wasn’t- just the possibility that it could incite hatred, due to ignorance and misinterpretation, is enough for some to want it banned. Perhaps some of the Canterbury Tales, such as the “Prioress’ Tale,” are even worse than Huck Finn, because of authorial intent. Mark Twain seems to not have been a racist; Chaucer, on the other hand, might have been terribly misogynistic or anti-Semitic. Should authorial intent matter? Indeed, should a book with literary merit be banned or restricted because its author had radical or violent views, or should it be read to try to understand and counter those views, despite the risks?

Upon reading the “Prioress’ Tale” and seeing the anti-Semitism therein, these questions must be asked. For ideals that most consider dangerous and grotesque, like neo-Nazism, radical Islam, or misogyny, classic literature can be a powerful tool for trapping the mind, just as it can be a powerful tool for liberating the minds of others. The question is, which use is going to take precedence; in other words, how can the liberating be maximized while the trapping is minimized?

James DeMaio
University of Notre Dame

Work Cited

Chaucer, Geoffrey. The Canterbury Tales. Edited by Robert Boenig and Andrew Taylor, Broadview Press, 2012.