Complit 391: Dreams, Visions, and the Supernatural

Nicole Bates

The tradition of female mysticism molded a new space for women to participate in the patriarchal medieval church. In the medieval world, women had limited opportunity to contribute to their communities, and the only way they could be active in the church was by becoming a nun. Therefore, female mystics held great power because of their transcendent connection to God. This power gave them authority to speak with and amongst the men in the church. From a modern-day feminist perspective, it may seem these female mystics failed to empower each other in their male-dominated society; however, it is not productive to criticize medieval female visionary literature from a modern lens. The literature of medieval women visionaries cannot be interpreted according to contemporary standards of feminism, because the society they lived in cannot be compared to modern day. Though female mystics demanded their voices be heard, they still had an internalized sense of the patriarchal order of society.

When it comes to the tradition of medieval visionary literature, women are clearly the favored sex to receive visions of God. A woman’s heightened ability to see visions was often tied to qualities associated with the female body. Hence, the tradition of mysticism was linked to femininity. There was a certain softness about the female body that made them more impressionable to divine forces. Female mystics, like Hildegard of Bingen and Angela of Foligno, describe the experience of their visions as full body experiences. They would often ache and fall ill as a symptom of their visions, because it was difficult for their bodies to endure the power of divine forces. Their extreme physical manifestations of visions created a paradox surrounding the visionary experience, because within divinity was abjection. These women suffered greatly due to their intense desire to please God but, in their suffering they felt the joy of God’s “divine sweetness.” They had a direct connection with God that male religious leaders relied on when in need of divine intervention. Female mystics may not have been taken seriously as proper theologians, but their exegetical visions made them an asset to the church.

Even respected female visionaries who spoke from within the institution as nuns, such as Hildegard of Bingen, were never given a proper place in the leadership of the church. Thus, female mystics like Angela of Foligno, who attempted to share their visions from outside the institution, struggled further to have their visions written and shared. These women had to fight vigorously to be heard, whilst taking no pride in their supernatural ability. Men discredited women’s authority as vessels of God by condemning them for their frenzied behavior. The hysteria women demonstrated in connection with their visions was often interpreted as a sort of dark force that possessed their bodies. However, in these “dark” physical manifestations of visions, the women continued to dedicate their lives to serving others. Once again, this illustrates the paradox of seeing God in a tormented state. These women felt they needed to suffer bodily and spiritually in order to serve God. Despite the physical suffering, they never wavered in their commitment to carry out God’s will.

Female mystics worked within the confines of their unlearned and simple lives as women, but they were still vital to the church. They were firm in their commitment to a life of selfless humility, whilst sharing their visions and inspiring a following of women. They led the way for women to engage further in the church, and therefore in society. Despite the hysteria, asceticism and suffering caused by their enlightenment, it was ultimately their vulnerability and self-punishment that made them the preferred sex to receive God’s messages. In the lens of medieval times, despite their submission to the patriarchal system, female mysticism opened up a space for women to have a voice in society during a period where there was no distinction between the religious and the secular.

The Female Body: A Vessel for the Divine

Medieval women were believed to be more in touch with their physical bodies, and this is why much of female spirituality was rooted in embodiment (Elliot 14). However, while grounded in their carnal form, this association with the body also made them a liability due to the profane nature of the human body. Many believed that the body was composed of two parts: the physical body and the soul. However, the way religious leaders and philosophers viewed these two separate parts varied. Some believed that “both aspects had been created by a good God and were thus themselves intrinsically good”; however, others believed that the body was a “kind of prison for the soul” (Elliot 14). In Hildegard of Bingen and Angela of Foligno’s somatic visionary experiences, both beliefs about the relationship between body and soul are present. It is the women’s compassionate souls that free their bodies to receive divine visions.

These women’s unfaltering desire to please God motivated them to live utterly selfless lives and spread goodness in the world in the name of God. It was their physical bodies that trapped them in the suffering that accompanies such selflessness. Women’s bodies may have been considered weak because of their susceptibility to possession; but, to endure such suffering to fulfill God’s will actually demonstrates an incredible amount of strength. It was their extreme self-control that purified their souls. The human body leads people into temptation; therefore, in resisting bodily temptations, the women proved their faith to God. Through severe self-discipline, these women forged a clearer path to salvation.

During medieval times, women had severely limited life choices, and those life choices were wholly dictated by men. There were two options for women: to become a mother or a nun (Dickens 25). Hildegard of Bingen chose to become a nun and Angela of Foligno became a mother. However, it was not until Angela’s whole family died, and she was liberated from all her earthly ties that she began to practice self-restraint in service of God. Though Hildegard and Angela began on different paths, both women demonstrated extreme physical restraint in service to God. In a further attempt to fight their earthly forms, both women practiced abstinence. Chastity was a virtue believed to make a woman more pure and receptive to God’s love. By becoming a nun, Hildegard of Bingen committed to lifelong chastity from a young age. According to Wilson-Kastner as referenced in Medieval Women’s Visionary Literature, “Virginity, in both its physical and spiritual manifestations, its most perfect form, is the highest form of the deifying life” (Petroff 33). This idea is reaffirmed in the Gawain Poet’s literary vision, Pearl, as the dreamers’ most “perfect pearl” ascends to heaven a virgin, and is rewarded by marriage to God. The daughter says to the dreamer: “Unblemished am I, my peers among; / So much I claim with honor here, / But matchless- there you have it wrong. / We all are brides of the Lamb so dear” (Gawain Poet 782-785). Virginity, the most perfect human form, meant the guarantee that the soul would find its place, wed to the Lord, in the beautiful kingdom of heaven. The dreamer sees his daughter wed to “the Lamb” because of her chaste life on earth. Both Angela of Foligno and Hildegard of Bingen were motivated in their self-determination on earth by the promise to be wed to God in their eternal lives in heaven.

Hildegard of Bingen and Angela of Foligno’s faithful service to God liberated their bodies and souls to experience glimpses of his “divine sweetness” during their time on earth. Hildegard of Bingen developed her “second sight” in childhood (Kerby-Fulton 343), showing mystic ability even before she devoted her life to the church by becoming a nun. Her visions resolved mysteries of religion, making her a valuable resource to the church: “from my fifteenth year, I felt in myself a wonderful way the power of mysteries of secret and wonderful visions” (Hildegard 151). In her commitment to serve God, her life on earth was one of great influence. Hildegard was unable to accept any praise for her piety because God commanded her to live humbly in order to achieve salvation:

For I guarded her heart from danger lest her mind should be elated by pride and vainglory, but rather that she should feel fear and grief than joy or wanton pleasure. (Hildegard 152)

God affirms that in order for her actions to remain pure, she must take no pleasure in them. Like Hildegard’s humility, Angela also denies all praise for her positive actions. Everything Angela does, she does in penance for her sins. Her self-punishment is intense, yet God affirms that her actions please him: “All your life, your eating and drinking, sleeping and all your living is pleasing to me” (Angela 263). Her mystical ability comes from her self-control, but because God confirms her life pleases him, she continues to live in that way.

Whilst promising God her “perpetual chastity” Angela says, “I stripped myself of all my clothing and offered myself completely” (Angela 255). Her actions have been referred to as masochistic and eroticized by contemporary feminists. She seems to feel that her purpose is to give her whole self over to the Lord. In a never-ending attempt to cleanse herself of her sins, Angela does all she can to give herself to others, therefore giving herself to the Lord. She wants to be stripped of all earthly associations so she can feel God’s love, so when her whole family dies she says, “I felt great consolation at their deaths” (Angela 256). She also goes to St. Peter “seeking poverty” (Angela 261) so that she “could give to the poor” (Angela 259). In her mission to fight her human needs, she “wished that it were not necessary to eat, so that [she] might remain in prayer” (Angela 259). She prays for something incarnate, because she feels her obligations as a human keep her from ultimate submission to God. Like in Pearl, where the dreamer’s desire to be reunited with his daughter has him begging for death, Angela longs for the day that she can leave her human body and fall infinitely into the “divine sweetness” of the Lord. It is the promise of the ever-lasting light of the Lord in the kingdom of heaven that drives these women to continue suffering on earth.

Suffering, masochism and hysteria: symptoms of divine intervention

Both Angela of Foligno and Hildegard of Bingen fully embody their mystic abilities. At the time, men believed women were more easily influenced because of their frailty. However, this “frailty” allowed them to see and understand God in a way that other earthly beings could not comprehend. In spite of this, it cannot be denied that these visions brought female mystics endless pain. Their behaviors were masochistic, because they took no joy in their actions yet, they felt a sense of purpose in pleasing God. Hildegard expresses, “The world had no joy nor pleasure in her, nor recreation in the things that pertained to her” (Hildegard 152). However, she felt fulfillment in being God’s servant:

But the Spirit of God in the great strength of His love, sometimes raised her up by this infirmity from death, as a refreshing dew, so that she was able to live in the world as a servant of God. (Hildegard 156)

Hildegard and Angela both suffered for God, but in doing so they were granted the ability to see his “splendid light,” which gave them glimmer of what they would one day feel when they unite with God in heaven.

In order to see a divine vision, a woman’s body was possessed by a godly force, so it was inevitable the woman would suffer. The power of the divine is beyond human; therefore, it would be excruciating for human forms to endure: “it ought to be so great a joy that my soul ought not be able to endure it” (Angela 262). However, in suffering these women do not fight the pain, but they welcome it and it pleases God. Their ability to endure suffering distinguishes them from other men and women.

In both Angela and Hildegard’s visions, God describes to them the qualities that make them capable of seeing him. The women renounce their human impulses for greed and gluttony, and perform acts of penance “at the edge of the human experience” (Mazzoni 589). God praises Angela in her extreme penance and offers her reward: “Make haste, for as soon as you have finished what you are doing, the whole Trinity will come to you” (Angela 259). Hildegard was born a servant of the Holy Spirit, and God sought her out for her mystical powers: “I sought out according to what pleased me in her wonderful gifts” (Hildegard 152). She showed that she had an affinity for the divine and that she could handle the power of God within her soul:

For she appears a servant, with the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, and has an affinity with the air, and so she was susceptible to this same air, and to the wind, and to the rain, and to every kind of tempest. (Hildegard 156)

God continues to refer to Hildegard’s humility as reason for her divine ability: “she never had any confidence in herself…otherwise the inspiration of the Holy Spirit would not have dwelt in her so powerfully” (Hildegard 156). The lack of confidence in Hildegard and Angela’s devotion is what makes them perfect receptacles for the Holy Spirit.

Being charged with delivering God’s messages to people on earth was certainly no simple task, and it led to immense pain and suffering for Angela and Hildegard. However, both these women persevered through the pain, because they had been chosen by God to deliver these messages, and that was boundlessly more important to them than their comfort on earth. Hildegard faced a number of aches and illness because of her power to see visions: “entangled in a net of suffering and illnesses, so that she was vexed with continual pains in all her flesh to the very marrow…in the interior of her rational soul she saw spiritually certain mystical things of God” (Hildegard 156). Her suffering is a symptom of her supernatural ability. Angela, who acts more frantic than Hildegard, almost begs to suffer more just so she can continue to please God:

I disposed myself and determined that even if it were necessary for me to die of hunger or nakedness or shame, as long as God were pleased by it or could be pleased, I would in no way omit doing this…For even if all these evils happened to me, I would die happy in God. (Angela 256)

Many viewed these extreme behaviors as ecstatic, suggesting that these women may have been “demonically possessed” (Angela 259). However, in the dark manifestations of celestial visions, these women saw something more spectacular than they could express.

Some twentieth century feminists have criticized medieval female mystics for failing to fully assert their position amidst the men of the medieval church, saying female mystics represent “an unsuccessful expression of women’s ambition within the patriarchal order” (Feminism, Abjection, Transgression Mazzoni 63).  They disapprove of the masochism and ecstasy in these women’s actions, seeing it as a surrender to the patriarchy. They believe that because these women could not speak with confidence, they did not make strides for women. However, to apply modern-day feminism is anachronistic. These critics frequently fail to recognize that, even in their mania, female mystics managed to find a “voice” in the male-dominated church, which was not only highly unusual for the time, but was likely all that could have been achieved at the time.

Female visionaries’ position in the medieval church

Regardless of the contemporary feminist debate about female mystics’ lack of authority in the medieval church, the men in the church still relied on these women for their supernatural ability. Whether they spoke to the men in hysteria or with authority, these women served as a vehicle for God to send messages to followers on earth, which was an invaluable role in the church. Therefore, regardless of their frantic behaviors, religious leaders had to listen to these women. The tradition of mysticism created a space for women to speak, where they could not be ignored. Also, these female mystics uplifted other women in society, by connecting with communities of women. Both Angela and Hildegard reached out to women and formed groups of followers. Hildegard, who was able to establish more of a place for herself in the church than Angela, became the first published female. By gaining respect in society, she was able to connect to other women and teach them. According to Kerby-Fulton, “Hildegard…had great confidence in them [women], musically and spiritually” (355). Though she acted by the rules of the patriarchy, considering the oppression they faced prior to the emergence of the female mystic tradition, this sense of female comradery was a step forward for women. It gave women a way to be involved with religion amongst other women in these communities.

The powers of female mystics traversed boundaries between the sexes. In their visions, both Angela and Hildegard describe gaining an inexplicable understanding of God. Though they dictated what they saw to men who wrote it down, they express that the experience of the vision could never truly be understood in writing. It was the message they received from the vision that needed to be written and shared. Both women showed an affinity with the incarnate that a carnal man would never experience. According to Angela “The experience of the truly faithful proves, sees, and touches the Incarnate World of life” (254). Though these women lacked confidence in their ability, it was the image of God’s words ingrained in their brains that assured the men that these visions were God-given and must be heard. For Angela, God “placed the paternoster in [her] heart with such a clear understanding of the divine goodwill and of [her] unworthiness” (257). Hildegard describes the “fiery light” as “coming from the opened heavens” and pouring “all in [her] brain” (151). Rather than portraying these visions as something they hear, it is more something they feel and receive directly from God.

Because the nature of these visions is more sensual, these women express difficulty in being able to articulate what they experienced in words. Both women exclaim that God specifically called upon them to share his word with the people of their community. Hildegard is called upon to “cry aloud…and write thus” (152). God gives her a higher understanding of something that “foolish” man cannot fathom:

Thus understand, O man, One God in three Persons. But thou in the foolishness of thy mind thinkest God to be so impotent, that it is not possible to Him to subsist truly in three Persons. (Hildegard 155)

With this knowledge and understanding, Hildegard is elevated in society because she possesses information that men of the church need to know to properly lead their people.

Unlike Hildegard, Angela struggled more to have her voice heard and her visions written. However, she too saw God and was called upon to deliver a message: “And I give you this sign: try to speak with your companions ” (Angela 262). Like Hildegard she “felt compelled to get these revelations into written form” (Angela 261). Because Angela was not of the same esteem as Hildegard, a nun, she is turned away by a friar in Assisi when he deemed her as possessed by evil: “I told her that never again in the future should she dare to come to Assisi where this evil overtook her” (Angela 260). However, Brother Arnaldo sees the vitality in her visions and records them to the best he can without having a complete understanding: “I honestly could not understand everything she said…I wrote, I consider that it was a divine miracle what I wrote and could put in order” (261). Though less established than Hildegard, Angela too made an impact on her contemporaries. She had a number of disciples while she was still living, one being Ubertino of Casale who said she was “central to his spiritual rebirth” (Mazzoni 595). Angela’s influence in the church was a paradoxical one, because though she possessed the power of God, it was manifested hysterically. She was always weeping and screaming as a result of her mystic ability.

Both women use imagery of some kind of divine light or warmth that suggested an unearthly brightness in what they were seeing. The shared imagery across female visionaries created a tradition in female mystic literature. The language they used in describing their visions caught the attention of men, because they explained something so great, an unworthy man could never endure it. Though they lacked true authority, and their humble response to praise for their positive action upheld the patriarchy, men would still turn to them “when terrible happenings required divine intervention” (Dickens 6). Therefore, female influence reached further than it would have if women did not possess the ability to receive magic through God’s intervention. The “splendid light” and “divine sweetness” these women were able to experience, because of their vulnerability and femininity, empowered them to speak in the church. It may have come from a place of submission, but this manic pursuit to share their visions forced men to listen to women.

Conclusion

Even with all the suffering, self-punishment and lack of vainglory in the medieval female mystic tradition, it still carved out a place for women to be more involved in society. They were never elevated to the position men held in society, but their supernatural power to receive messages directly from God gave them an upper-hand to the men of the church. These few special women had the ability to see things most could never understand. It was actually women’s connection to their bodies that allowed them to build a transcendent relationship with their human form that allowed them to see the incarnate world. In service to God, these women denied their position as being pure and devout, because they did not want praise for doing God’s work. Angela spent her whole life devoted to surrendering herself to help others in penance for her sins. Hildegard did the same, and she gained enough esteem to communicate with leaders of the church, writing to “popes, archbishops, priors, abbots and abbesses” (Dickens 27). She shared her knowledge with all of society and specifically provided women with a forum in which to find their voices. Prior to the female mystic tradition such a forum did not exist.

Though these women have been criticized for their extreme humility and inability to take pleasure in their faith, they did so all in service of God, which in a way made them happy. They were pious servants above all others on earth, and it would be inaccurate to try and condemn their behavior using modern-day standards of what defines an empowered woman. Though in modern day it may seem that these women’s eroticism and hysteria in relation to their visions took away from their authority in the church, in medieval times it was these same behaviors that empowered them to speak out. Therefore, when looking at the female mystic tradition through the lens of modern society, it does seem they allowed the patriarchy to control them; however, it cannot be looked at that way. These women did ascend above their inferior position to men simply because the men listened to them. To these women, serving God in pain, brought them a sublime level of joy. Their service to God held the promise that they would rise up to an eternal life with the lord after their time on earth was up. In medieval times, this was the highest level of joy and fulfillment available to women.

Works Cited

Dickens, Andrea Janelle. The Female Mystic: Great Women Thinkers of the Middle Ages. I.B. Tauris, 2009.

Elliot, Dylan. “Flesh and Spirit: The Female Body.” Medieval Holy Women in the Christian Tradition C.1100-C.1500, by A.J Minnis and Rosalynn Voaden, Brepols, 2010, pp. 13–36.

“Introduction.” Medieval Women’s Visionary Literature, by Elizabeth Alvilda. Petroff, Oxford University Press, 1986, pp. 3–53.

Kerby-Fulton, Kathryn. “Hildegard of Bingen.” Medieval Holy Women in the Christian Tradition C.1100-C.1500, by A.J Minnis and Rosalynn Voaden, Brepols, 2010, pp. 343–365.

Mazzoni, Christina M. “Feminism, Abjection, Transgression: Angela of Foligno and the Twentieth Century.” Mystics Quarterly , vol. 17, no. 2, June 1991, pp. 61–70.

Mazzoni, Cristina. “Angela of Foligno.” Medieval Holy Women in the Christian Tradition C.1100-C.1500, by A.J Minnis and Rosalynn Voaden, Brepols, 2010, pp. 581–596.