Candidate Number: 999136

Word Count: 7, 983

‘Seeing through a glass darkly’: Vision and Visual Limitation in The Wooing Group

‘For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as I am known’ 1 Corinthians 13:12

In The Oxford Bible Commentary, John Barton and John Muddiman note how this famous Pauline phrase,

‘see[ing] through a glass darkly’, reflects the inescapable partiality of Christian understanding, which

Paul discusses at length in 1 Corinthians. Writing to unify a church torn by doctrinal disagreement, Paul

reminds the Corinthians that all knowledge will appear ‘childlish’ when compared to the perspective in

the final revelation(1 Corinthians 13:11).1 According to Paul, while we are connected to God through

Christ’s redemptive act on the cross, our vision of God will always be obscured on earth.

By looking at the image of Mary Magdalene washing the feet of Christ in the twelfth-century St.

Albans Psalter (Christina of Markyate’s Psalter), one can see that human perceptual limitation continues

to be a concern in the medieval period.2 In this picture, Mary does not look up at Christ with confidence.

Her face is angled upon his feet, with an expression of tentative concentration, but the object of her gaze

is indeterminate. It is not certain whether she looks directly downwards, or if her eyes glance warily

upwards towards Christ’s face. She certainly is not given direct sight, unlike John in the same image, nor

is she fully included within the picture. Like the servant behind Christ, she is an outside figure, her body

excluded beneath the table, her foot treading upon the page’s frame. Mary’s kneeling position is

commonly found in contemporary donor portraits, wherein the donor who commissioned the portrait is

drawn into a biblical scene as a bystander, present yet forever on the outskirts of what they view.3 This

image in the St. Albans Psalter contradicts the typical symbolism of Mary Magdalene in medieval

Christian thought. Mary Magdalene and Mary of Bethany are frequently conflated within medieval

exegesis, combining to become an exemplum for ideal Christian contemplation, kneeling with

unadulterated adoration next to the one they love.4 Indeed by associating the twelfth-century visionary,

Christina of Markyate, with the biblical Mary, her biographer elevates her perceptive ability.5 The world

1 J. Barton and J. Muddiman, The Oxford Bible Commentary (Oxford, 2001), p.1129.2 Image is included as appendix. 3 J. Caskey, ‘Whodunnit? Patronage, the Canon and the Problematics of Agency in Romanesque and Gothic Art’, A Companion to Medieval Art, ed. Conrad Rudolph (Oxford, 2006), pp. 193-212, p. 202.4 G. Constable, Three Studies in Medieval Religious and Social Thought (Cambridge, 1995), p. 8.5 During a disguised visitation from an angel, Christina was acutely aware that her guest was divine, as opposed to her maidservant. The biographer states: ‘Christina paid more attention to the man, whilst Margaret was busily moving…if it had been possible to see Jesus sitting down you would recognise another Mary and another Martha.’ The Life of Christina of Markyate, a Twelfth Century Recluse, ed. and trans. C. H. Talbot (Oxford,1987), p. 183.

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is blind to glory ‘since we see it only through a glass’, yet recordings of Christina’s visionary experiences

and her intuitiveness place her perception above that of the populace still seeing in obscurity. 6 However,

ironically the image in Christina of Markyate’s Psalter reveals that even for those replicating the ideal

contemplative life, as Christina does, visual limitation and subsequent access to the divine continues to be

an anxiety.

The Wooing Group (a term coined by its editor Meredith Thompson, 1958) is a collection of

lyrical prose probably written for an originally anchoritic audience which embodies the contemplative

ideal in its enclosure, like the biblical Marys.7 Thompson lists six works in her edition: On wel swuðe God

Ureisun of God Almihti, On Ureisun of Ure Louerde (which is an incomplete version of Ureisun of God

Almihti), On Lofsong of Ure Louerde, Lofsong of Ure Lefdi, Þe Oreisun of Seinte Marie (which is a

variant of Lofsong of Ure Lefdi), and Þe Wohunge of ure Lauerd. To this list, scholars often add. A

Talkyng of the Loue of God, written in the 14th century with Wohunge and Ureisun of God Almihti as

sources, and On God Ureisun of ure Leafdi, found in the same manuscript as many of the Wooing Group

texts but the only work with a specified male speaker.8 Dating back to the early thirteenth century,9 the

manuscripts containing the Wooing Group texts also include various other works which are alike in style

and religious outlook, united by the fact that they were most likely written with a similar anchoritic

readership in mind.10 The Wooing Group prayers are distinctly Christocentric, even those directed to

Mary, being the only English prose lyrics in the early thirteenth century which address the marriage union

between Christ and his church, a motif that became popular with Rolle and the later mystics.11 They

potentially offer the modern scholar a rare insight into thirteenth-century female readership as all of these

works, with the exception of On God Ureiun of Ure Leafdi, were apparently written for (and possibly in

some cases by) devout, religious women.12 Mostly notably Wohunge, as Catherine Innes-Parker

highlights, presents a distinctively female first-person speaker.13 Nicolas Watson argues that unlike

Ancrene Wisse which is a guide for anchoresses, the Wooing Group is a selection of optional prayers to

6 Christina, p. 188. 7 T. Licence, Hermits and Recluses in English Society, 950-1200 (Oxford, 2011), p. 13. The figure of Mary, listening at the foot of Christ, is so engrained within anchoritic calling that this passage in Luke frequently features within the anchoritic enclosure ceremony. See, D. Renevey, The Moving of the Soul: the Functions of Metaphors of Love in the Writings of Richard Rolle and Antecedent Texts of the Medieval Mystical Tradition (Thesis (D.Phil),1995), p. 72.8 S. Chewning, ‘Introduction’, The Milieu and Context of the Wooing Group (Cardiff, 2009), pp. 1-17, p. 3. 9 Ann Warren describes the early thirteenth century as a period where there was a flourishing of the anchoritic lifestyle in England. See, A. Warren, Anchorites and their Patrons in Medieval England (Berkeley, 1985), p. 20. 10 A. Savage and N. Watson, ‘Introduction’, Anchoritic Spirituality: Ancrene Wisse and Associated Works (New York, 1991), pp. 7-32, p. 8. 11 W. Thompson, Þe Wohunge of Ure Lauerd, EETS, O.S. 241 (London, 1958), p. xvi.12 C. Innes-Parker, ‘Þe Wohunge of Ure Lauerd and the Tradition of Affective Devotion: Rethinking Text and Audience’, Milieu (Cardiff, 2009), pp. 96-115, p. 100. 13 C. Innes-Parker, ‘Ancrene Wisse and þe Wohunge of Ure Lauerd : the Thirteenth-century Female Reader and the Lover-knight’, Woman, the Book and the Godly (Cambridge, 1995), pp. 137-147, p. 138.

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be read ‘on eise’, and ‘not designed to be authoritative or definitive of the way of life they portray’.14 This

essay will explore the Wooing Group’s sensitivity towards vision and visual limitation within meditation,

focussing specifically on the texts’ preoccupations with the inadequacies of meditative ‘seeing’ in the

contemplative life. Therefore, while these texts may be peripheral, as Watson argues, they do address

issues within the anchoress’s devotion to God which subsequently affect all aspects of anchoritic

vocation.

Recalling Mary Magdalene’s tentative gaze in the St Albans Psalter, I will argue that spiritual

vision encouraged through using the Wooing Group prayers is similarly indeterminate. While the speaker

expresses a desperate desire to ‘see’ Christ clearly, this desire is offset by the unsettling realisation of

their visual incompetency. Unlike the many reclusive figures within Christian history that retreat from

society to undergo intensive visionary training, the anchoress is not required by the Wooing Group to

become a mystical visionary.15 The texts do help develop the skills of meditative sight, yet for the

anchoress, the ‘glass’ which causes them to ‘see darkly’ is not removed, nor do these texts present a

method of removing it. Meditative ‘seeing’ within the Wooing Group is grounded within what Paul

teaches to the Corinthian church: while on earth, complete and uncompromised visual access to God will

never be granted. However, instead of undermining the anchoress’s meditation, this essay will also

demonstrate how the Wooing Group texts can still be used as textual tools (a term used by Ayoush

Lazikani) to cultivate greater affective devotion for the anchoress, despite continually reminding her that

spiritual vision is limited.

I will be discussing four works of the Wooing Group, Þe Wohunge of ure Lauerd found in MS

Titus D.xviii and the lyrics found in MS Nero A. xiv: On wel swuðe God Ureisun of God Almihti,

Lofsong of Ure Lefdi, and On Lofsong of Ure Louerde.16 In order to situate these texts within anchoritic

literary context, this study will refer to two guides for the recluse: Ancrene Wisse, which is found within

both manuscripts,17 and shares many similarities with the Wooing Group in period, audience and dialect.18

Alongside this, I will be looking at Aelred’s De institutione inclusarum (1160-62), which influenced the

structure and content of the latter guide. I will also briefly consider the works of Anselm of Canterbury,

where the metaphorical withdrawal into an inner chamber within the Anselmian pattern of prayer is

14 N. Watson, ‘Afterward: On Eise’, Milieu (Cardiff, 2009), pp. 194-209, p. 208.15 B. Newman, ‘What Did It Mean to Say “I Saw”? The Clash between Theory and Practice in Medieval Visionary Culture’, Speculum, 80 (2005), 1-43, 25. 16 From here, I will be referring to these texts in their abbreviations, which will be: N(U) for On wel swuðe God Ureisun of God almihti, N(Le) for On lofsong of ure lefdi, N(Lo) for On Lofsong of Ure Louerde, and T(Wo) for Þe Wohunge of ure Lauerd. 17 A. Savage and N. Watson, Anchoritic Spirituality, p. 7.18 For a coherent discussion of the language in the AB texts, see R. Dance ‘The language of AB: the Recluse, the Gossip and the Language Historian’, A Companion to Ancrene Wisse, ed. Y. Wada (Woodbridge, 2003), pp. 57-82.

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mirrored within the Wooing Group. Lastly, I will also refer to the Latin biography of Christina of

Markyate who, despite never being formally enclosed, experienced a lifestyle of enclosure similar to the

supposed anchoritic audience of the Wooing Group.19

This essay will firstly examine the type of spiritual vision encouraged by the Wooing Group, and

how, paradoxically, the texts define the vision’s inadequacies. Secondly, I will consider how the Wooing

Group’s preoccupation with visual restriction aids the development of an alternative way of accessing and

‘seeing’ Christ during meditation. Through this, I hope to demonstrate that the Wooing Group emphasises

the impossibility of distinct visual access to Christ on earth, yet simultaneously challenges their reader to

cultivate a devotional experience intimately similar to physically seeing and beholding their subject of

worship.

Meditative ‘Seeing’ and its Limitations

In a vision recorded by Christina of Markyate’s biographer, Christina sees Geoffrey of St. Albans

standing in an enclosure:

I saw a kind of enclosure surrounded by high fences which were transparent: it resembled a cloister without doors or windows, but it was round, and the grass in the garth was greener than ordinary grass. Overjoyed at this, I saw you […] within this enclosure, standing happily enough with an enviable degree of pleasure […] this enclosure which [I saw] has but one doorkeeper, God.20

In this vision, Geoffrey has direct access to God, who is his doorkeeper, and Christina is granted complete

visionary access into the enclosed space. Visually speaking, despite Christina being unable to enter the

dwelling, both she and Geoffrey have the same level of perceptive competency. The link between this

imagined enclosure and the actual cell inhabited by Christina is not difficult to find, and Denis Renevey

describes Christina’s vision as a ‘utopian depiction of the anchorhold’.21 Thomas Licence in his historical

account of anchorites and recluses in England notes how the community surrounding the anchorhold

regards it as a golden standard for spiritual perfection, similar to how Christina views Geoffrey’s

enclosure.22 Like Geoffrey, the anchoress is also to see God as her sole provider, protector and the

foundation of her promise to stay away from the outside world. However, the literal anchorhold is also

contradictory to this idyllic version. The anchoress does not live within transparent walls, nor can the 19 For the purposes of this essay, I will use English translations of the Latin texts. However, the Latin versions will be included as appendix.20 Christina, p. 165.21 D. Renevey, p. 87. 22 T. Licence, Hermits and Recluses in English Society, 950-1200 (Oxford, 2011), p. 114.

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community see into it. Likewise, I would argue that visual access to God within the anchorhold can also

contrast Geoffrey’s position within Christina’s vision.

The anchorhold is attached to a church and therefore, despite the anchoress being hidden from

view, the community is continually made to ‘see’ the anchoress because of her central location. Ann

Warren, writing a historical survey of anchoritic life, characterises the anchorite’s existence as:

Enclosed yet exposed, hidden yet visible, shadows behind the curtains of access windows, medieval English anchorites were daily reminders of the proper focus of Christian existence. Martyr, penitent, ascetic, mystic, miles Christi—the recluse was all of these.23

One can see from this statement that despite merely seeing a wall or a thickly curtained window, the

community views the anchoress with a multiplicity of interpretation. This visual experience is completely

different to Christina’s as she clearly sees into Geoffrey’s enclosure, but is reminiscent of Aelred’s De

institutione inclusarum when he asks the recluse to imaginatively ‘see’ and interpret a blank white altar

sheet:

Let it be in these [virtues] that you glory and find your happiness […] not in paintings or statues. Your altar should be covered with white linen cloths. Their whiteness will betoken chastity and display simplicity […] Let these be the thoughts which the furnishings of your oratory suggest to you.24

Simply to gaze physically at either the blank white sheets or the walls of the anchorhold is abortive

because their symbolic potential lies in the perceiver’s imaginative vision. The blank sheets can

symbolise chastity, purity and many Christian virtues by being ‘seen’ through imagination. Similarly, the

walls of the anchorhold can become the physical ‘golden standard’ in the community’s imagination for

any and all spiritual acts the concealed anchoress performs but which the community may not. This is

perhaps why the anchoress’s intercessory prayers were of such value.25 Warren describes the anchoress as

living ‘a threshold existence’ because she has entered into a double life, one which symbolises both life

and death.26 Therefore, one can also call the community’s sight, and to an extent how Aelred asks the

recluse to see their altar, a ‘threshold vision’, because both must see with a double perspective. They are

to perceive the object, but through the object itself, the perceiver ought to simultaneously extract

signification for what the object hides. However, it is a vision which continually seeks, but is never

granted, complete visual access to what is sought.

23 A. Warren, p. 7.24 Aelred, ‘A Rule for the Life of a Recluse’, trans. Mary Paul Macpherson, Treastises: the Pastoral Prayer, ed. M. Basil Pennington (Kalamazoo, 1982), pp. 44-102, p. 72-3. 25 A. Warren, p. 42.26 A. Warren, p. 95.

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The manuscripts containing the Wooing Group are plain, small and without images, unlike

medieval psalters or the Book of Hours, which were also used for devotional purposes.27 Their neatness

and simplistic beauty recalls the pure and unadorned altar sheets owned by the recluse in Aelred’s guide.

However, imaginative vision encouraged by the Wooing Group operates differently because the

anchoress is given images through words rather than a wall or a blank sheet. Nevertheless, a similar type

of ‘threshold vision’ can be found. I will firstly demonstrate that like the community’s vision, the Wooing

Group texts encourage spiritual vision which ‘seeks’. Rather than providing images which can be directly

used within meditation, the prayers aid the cultivation of imaginative sight which blossoms from the

images presented. They are to ‘see’ by ‘seeking’ a fuller image on which to meditate. Secondly I will

explore how the meditative space created by these images continually places the anchoress on the

outskirts. She is never able to participate in the scenes presented in the texts, or even given meditative

visual clarity. Like Mary in the St. Albans Psalter, the Wooing Group places their anchoritic audience on

the frame, teetering between the desire to access Christ and their inability to do so. Imaginative vision,

while encouraged, is also defined as inadequate.

Anne Savage notes how the Wooing Group prayers were used by the anchoress to be remembered

and spoken aloud, not only read.28 This fulfils what Rachel Fulton describes as the purpose of written

prayers, to eventually allow the meditator to pray without the text.29 I will demonstrate that not only does

the Wooing Group utilise mnemonic techniques to aid memory, as Savage argues, it is this memorability

which distances the anchoress from the written words, thus freeing and developing their imaginative

vision.

N(Le), an intercessory prayer for Mary to reconcile the speaker’s relationship with Christ, breaks

apart the events of Christ’s passion into small ‘memory-sized chunks’:30

bi his blodieswote. Bi his eadi beoden in hulles him one.bi his nimunge(45-7)

The use of ‘bi’ recalls Aelred’s instruction to the recluse beside the altar. Similar to the white cloth used

to evoke Christ’s virtue, meditation can be gained and developed by using these images in N(Le), instead

of meditating on them directly. The anchoress must pause at each short description so that the head, from

27 A. Savage and N. Watson, p. 7.28 A. Savage, ‘The Wooing Group: Pain, Pleasure and the Anchoritic Body’, Milieu (Cardiff, 2009), pp. 165-177, p. 171. 29 R. Fulton, ‘Praying with Anselm at Admont: A meditation on Practice’, Speculum, 81 (2006), 700-33, 708. 30 Ibid, 708.

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which sweat drips, and the stark Gethsemane hill, on which the lonely prayers were said, are formed

within meditative imagination. By liberating these ‘chunks’ of images from structured syntax, Vincent

Gillespie argues that ‘it becomes possible to handle the image in more complex ways, to read into the

image more profoundly by using it as a catalyst’.31 The Wooing Group provides the anchoress with many

such images which can be taken away from a unified narrative structure to be used as a single evocative

entity for prayer. This is demonstrated in another section of N(Le)’s passion scene:

bi his cloðes wrixlunge. Nu red. nu whit. him on hokerunge(48-9)

The red and white could refer to both Christ’s bloodstained clothes divided into strips between the

soldiers, or the lines of lashes upon his back. ‘Red’ also refers to the long list of sins which at the

beginning, the voice laments as having committed: ‘mis i loked Mis ihercned./Mis ifeled’(20-1).

Likewise, ‘whit’ refers to the idea of healing and ointment which the voice also asks before Christ’s

passion scene is narrated: ‘þu beo mi leche’(15). While the present tense ‘nu’ in this line sharpens and

intensifies the anchoress’s meditative moment every time she remembers this phrase, the moment is not

‘cinematic’.32 Rather it is catalystic, an intense burst of colour which continues to stir the mind

afterwards, similar to Mary Carruther’s description of Anselm’s prayers and meditations.33 The image

divides into many images to be savoured within the anchoress’s meditations.

N(U), a penitential prayer where the speaker continually questions why they are unable to devote

themselves fully to Christ, similarly provides many images which can be easily separated from the wider

narrative structure. One question: ‘hwi ne behold ich hu/þu streihtest þe for me on þe rode’(47-8)

reiterates the phrasing and challenge of the another: ‘hwi nam ich iþin/ermes so istreihte. 7 ispred on

rode?’ (57-8), creating a circular segment within the narrative which can be singularly meditated upon.

Encapsulated within these questions is an image of Christ hanging on the cross which can be divided and

developed into many smaller images during meditation:

hwi ne worpe ich me bi tweonen þeoilke ermes so swiðe wiðe to spredde. 7 i openeð so þe moder deðhire ermes. hire leoue child for to bi cluppen?(48-51)

31 V. Gillespie, Looking in Holy Books: Essays on Late Medieval Religious Writing in England (Turnhout, 2012), p. 223. 32 S. Chewning, ‘Speaking of the Flesh and Soul: Linguistic and Spiritual Translation in the Wooing Group’, Milieu (Cardiff, 2009), p. 48. 33 M. Carruthers, The Craft of Thought: Meditation, Rhetoric and the Making of Images, 400-1200 (Cambridge, 1998), p. 121.

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Christ cannot only be divided into martyr and mother, his arms are simultaneously imagined to be fixed

upon the cross and embracing the anchoress. However, this can be divided even further. Because Christ’s

arms are nailed down, the anchoress must also imagine herself embracing Christ to complete the image in

meditation. One can almost describe this not only as a segment but as an embryonic cell, dividing and

multiplying within itself so that while still united, each progeny within the cell is unique. Fulton describes

the act of prayer not only as performing devotion but creating devotion.34 In this way, the anchoress is

encouraged to look at the images provided, all the while being stimulated to imaginatively seek and create

new images on which to meditate. Elizabeth Robertson describes the anchoritic cell as a womb, 35 an

image which is also found in Ancrene Wisse:

þeos twa þing limpeð to ancre, nearowðe ant bitternesse; for wombe is nearow wununge þer ure Lauerd wes relus […] Marie wombe ant þis þruh weren his ancre-huses. (VI.13.417-25)

N(Le) and N(U) create a meditative space which literally parallels this image. The texts are fertile and

organic, giving birth to new images when used in meditation. Although E. A. Jones describes the

anchorhold as an ‘anti-womb’ because it symbolises death, the anchoress can also retreat into her cell and

create life when meditating with these texts.36 Through the Wooing Group, the anchoress’s prayers

become the ‘cwic bone’(III.31.694), living prayers, desired within Ancrene Wisse. Imaginative vision is

here not only encouraged but cultivated and grown.

N(U) and N(Le) are written in such a way that memorisation is arguably irresistible, enabling the

anchoress to use and develop her imaginative vision. In this way, Anna McHugh’s description of Ancrene

Wisse as possessing ‘a tiny but very concentrated landscape’ can also apply to these Wooing Group

texts.37 However, while the texts do provide images which evoke meditative vision through imagination,

they simultaneously place the anchoress in a position where the images are out of reach and where she is

continually reminded of her meditative imagination’s inadequacies.

While both N(Le) and N(U) allow the anchoress to meditatively ‘see’ Christ through imagination,

they also stress the incompleteness of imaginative vision. C. M. Woolgar notes that in medieval culture,

an object’s lustre and brightness are central to its visual pleasure, 38 something which Christ has in

abundance in the Wooing Group:

34 R. Fulton, 733. 35 E. Robertson, Early English Devotional Prose and the Female Audience (Knoxville, 1990), p. 58. 36 E. Jones, ‘Ceremonies of Enclosure: Rite, Rhetoric and Reality’, Rhetoric of the Anchorhold: Space, Place and Body within the Discourses of Enclosure, ed. Liz Herbert McAvoy (Cardiff, 2008), pp. 34-49, p. 43. 37 A. McHugh, ‘Inner Space as Speaking Space in Ancrene Wisse’, Rhetoric (Cardiff, 2008), pp. 83-95, p. 92. 38 C. Woolgar, The Senses in Late Medieval England (New Haven, 2006), p. 157.

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Iesu al feir. a 3ein hwam þe sunne nis butenase a scheadewe(N(U),11-2)

However because the concept of ‘brightness’ can only be gauged through physical sight, the anchoress is

refused the fullness of visual pleasure. This is exacerbated because the Wooing Group concurrently

reminds the anchoress that there are many in heaven with unrestricted visual access to Christ:

…ðet ich iseoin syon þe heie tur of heouene. þene louerdof leome. þet te engles euer biholdeð. (N(Le) 80-3)

Here at the end of this prayer, the anchoress looks forward to a time of unmediated visual access to

Christ: ‘ðet ich iseo/in syon’(80-1), which she currently does not have. Therefore, while confidence is

placed in Christ’s redemptive act: ‘for min bileue is þet ich schal þu/ruh ham beon iboreuwen’(73-4), the

anchoress needs to acknowledge the fact that her meditative sight is prone to failing: ‘þer min offrin/ge

wonteð’(72-3). Indeed, while the broken images of Christ’s passion allow for greater memorability, their

very abstractness highlights the incomplete and fragmented nature of imaginative memory: ‘bi his blodi

Rune þet ron inne monie/studen’(56-7). Despite being perfectly capable of memorising the prayer, the

anchoress is literally unable to re-member the members of Christ into a distinct unity because she is not

actually present at Christ’s crucifixion: ‘olast in his side þurlunge wið ute so/re wunde. 3et ase halewen

weneð’(60-1). These scenes are passed down from the saints who did witness them, although ironically,

the passion in N(Le) is narrated in the present tense for the anchoress’s meditations. Therefore, the

anchoress is placed in an uncomfortable position temporally. While she looks forward to a time when

Christ can be clearly seen, she is made to meditate, in her present, an event from the past which she has

no capability of remembering, as reminded by the text. Michael Baxandall writing on paintings in

fifteenth century Italy contends that ‘to impress the story of the Passion on your mind and to memorise

each action of it more easily, it is helpful and necessary to fix the places and people in your mind.’39

However, this is precisely what N(Le) does not allow because the anchoress is not given a stabilised place

on which to meditate. Temporally they are destabilised, and Christ’s fractured body and passion sequence

also renders a physical place to fix one’s gaze upon impossible. Barbara Newman notes that while

monastics developed a wide range of meditational techniques, nearly all began with speculatio, which

literally means ‘to see in a mirror’.40 Prayer begins by focussing the meditative gaze upon a certain object

39 M. Baxandall cited in G. Ehrstine, ‘Passion Spectatorship Between Private and Public Devotion’, Thresholds of Medieval Visual Culture: Liminal Spaces (Woodbridge, 2012), pp. 302-322, p. 304.40 B. Newman, 15.

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or image which eventually leads to inner ecstasy and intimacy towards God.41 However in N(Le), while

there are numerous images for the anchoress to remember and develop new images from, these images

are fractured, as if looking through a broken glass, or arguably ‘through the glass darkly’. While N(Le)

encourages meditative imagination, clarity of this imaginative sight is not granted.

This visual inadequacy is also demonstrated in N(U) where the cellular structures both create

more images for the anchoress to meditate upon and define the images as unreachable, as if confined in a

circular boundary. This is first shown through the image of Christ on the cross which is encased between

two laments, both mourning an inability to view or partake in Christ’s passion: ‘hwi ne behold ich hu/þu

streihtest þe for me on þe rode?’(47-8). This segment, or cell, simultaneously presents Christ’s crucifixion

and reminds the anchoress, like the passion scenes in N(Le), that she was not actually present. A similar

cell is found directly after this as the speaker contemplates how heaven must be achieved by embracing

Christ in his humblest and lowest form: ‘He mot delen wið þe/þine pine on eorð’(68-70). However, this

action is encapsulated between two statements which emphasise heaven as an unattainable goal,

especially taking into consideration the depiction of Christ’s crucifixion beforehand:

to beon bi clupped bitweonen þine blisfulle ermes in heouene. bute he worpe erhim her. bi tweonen þine rewðful ermes(59-61)

Ne wene nomon to stihen wið esteto þe steorren(76-7)

Similar to the previous cell, the anchoress is on the outskirts of what she imagines. While she can picture

sharing Christ’s burdens on earth, she is not guaranteed a secure heavenly reward for her meditative acts

of devotion. Paradoxically of course, the anchoress is visualising what the speaker says she cannot

visualise or achieve, yet N(U) continually undermines her imaginative visual ability, thus placing her out

of reach of what she meditatively tries to ‘see’.

In the prayers of Anselm the speaker also expresses an anxiety over meditative ability: ‘Why

could you not bear to see/the nails violate the hands and feet of your Creator?’(Prayer to Christ 83-5).42

However, the purpose of meditation is never undermined, as demonstrated in the certainty of Anselm’s

devotional desire: ‘I thirst for you, I hunger for you, I desire you, I sigh for you, I covet you’(56-7).43 This

is not the case in N(U) when the voice asks: ‘hwi ne con ich wown þe?’(86). The question frustrates not

41 Ibid, 15. 42 Anselm, The Prayers and Meditations of St. Anselm, trans. Benedicta Ward (Harmondsworth, 1973), p. 95. 43 Ibid, p. 94.

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only the words of love it points back to at the beginning ‘Iesu min holi luue, Mi si/kere spetnesse. Iesu

min heorte’(2-3), but also the very act of meditation in seeking to embrace and intimately access Christ.

His distance from the anchoress is made even more prominent as directly after this question is a clarified

image of sin as a wall, thick and murky, which apprehends spiritual vision: ‘alle mine attri sunnen is þe

lettunge./Mine sunnen beoð wal bi tweonen me’(89-90). Cynthia Hahn notes how blindness in early

Christian thought represents a state of sin, shown in Paul’s Damascus journey.44 Here, the text literally

evokes a sinful blindness, a ‘mental block’ towards Christ, denying visual access. Comparing this to the

crucifixion scene which Aelred asks his sister to meditate upon in De institutione inclusarum, the

separation of the anchoress from Christ in N(U) is even more explicit:

Hasten, linger not, eat the honey-comb with your honey, drink your wine with your milk[…] wounds have been made in his limbs, holes in the wall of his body, in which, like a dove, you may hide while you kiss them one by one.45

Michelle M. Sauer argues that the Wooing Group cultivates a meditative space where the bodies of Christ

and the anchoress can merge.46 While this can be readily applied to the passion scene described by Aelred,

the Wooing Group texts posit a different space of meditation: one which inspires the anchoress to imagine

an even deeper, affective devotion to Christ by imagining herself enfolded in his arms as he dies on the

cross, but ultimately does not allow her to be fully satisfied in her search for this intimacy. Like all

threshold visionary experiences, the voice is untiringly seeking, and even at the end this prayer the call is

active: ‘hwuder schal ich fleon/hwon þe deouel hunteð efter me bute to þine rode’(162-3). However, like

Christina of Markyate looking into the transparent enclosure, the anchoress is also placed on the outskirts

of what she views. She seeks to ‘see’ but rarely is allowed to participate fully in the varying images which

arise from these written prayers, and unlike Christina of Markyate, the anchoress is not given meditative

visual clarity.

Meditative ‘Seeing’ through Imitation

Within these two Wooing Group texts, visual and comprehensive access to God will always be limited

while trapped within sinful earthly bodies, which creates a barrier towards the divine: ‘þe bitter/nesse of

alle mine attri sunnen is þe lettunge’(N(U) 88-9). However Jill Stevenson, in her study of mystery plays,

argues that medieval laity is expected to understand a devotional image, object, play or book through the

44 C. Hahn, ‘Vision’, A Companion to Medieval Art, ed. Conrad Rudolph (Oxford, 2006), pp. 44-64, p. 44. 45 Treastises, p. 90-1.46 M. Sauer, ‘Þe blod þ[at] bohte”: The Wooing Group Christ as Pierced, Pricked and Penetrated Body’, Milieu, (Cardiff, 2009), pp. 123-147, p. 130.

11

body.47 Stevenson’s argument is based upon medieval intromission vision theory, where an object emits

light, drawing the eyes of the perceiver.48 Therefore, the act of perception is almost parallel to physical

touch, leading to the belief that sight lasts beyond a purely visual encounter.49 Stevenson argues that for

the medieval audience, perception occurs on both a physical and spiritual realm, therefore it is an act

which can alter the perceiver’s way of being in the world.50 When one applies this theory to audience

perception and medieval passion plays, the audience is understood to mirror subconsciously the

experiences which they perceive on stage, if in a less intense way.51 Imitation is therefore a vital part of

sight in the medieval period, not simply as the result of seeing, but a way in which vision can be

completed and intensified. While it is somewhat anachronistic to discuss the passion plays in reference to

thirteenth-century anchoritic literature, I would argue that similar to the passion play audiences,

meditative ‘seeing’ in the Wooing Group is realised most profoundly through placing the reader in a

position to imitate in prayer their object of worship. By looking specifically at N(Lo) and T(Wo), I will

demonstrate that while sight is still figured as something inadequate, imitation in the place of clarified

spiritual vision allows the anchoress to access Christ more intimately during devotion.

Giles Constable argues that there are two forms of imitatio Christi within medieval Christian

thought, one which imitates Christ in action, and another that recreates Christ’s spirit within the inner

man.52 One can see both forms of imitation in the Pauline epistles. To the Colossians, Paul describes his

physical imitation of Christ: ‘[I] now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up those things that are

wanting of the sufferings of Christ in my flesh’(Colossians 1:24). When addressing the Corinthian

church, he also presents a spiritual imitation: ‘But we are all beholding to the glory of the Lord with open

face, are transformed into the same image from glory to glory, as by the Spirit of the Lord’(2 Corinthians

3:18). I would argue that N(Lo) and T(Wo) takes the anchoress through both forms of imitatio Christi, the

combination of which paves the way for a greater affective devotion to Christ.

Jennifer Brown, in her analysis of T(Wo), argues that in the title, the writer deliberately intended

the ambiguity of the wooer’s identity. Christ woos the anchoress through his salvific act and the

anchoress similarly woos Christ using love words, making this lyric a dialogue between two lovers rather

than a monologue.53 While I would emphasise, alongside Brown, the duplicity of the wooer’s identity, I

would argue that the anchoress imitates Christ not only in words but through something far more

47 J. Stevenson, Performance, Cognitive Theory, and Devotional Culture: Sensual Piety in Late Medieval York, (New York, 2010), p. 32. 48 D. Lindberg, Science in the Middle Ages (Chicago, 1978), p. 352. 49 C. Woolgar, p. 148. 50 J. Stevenson, p. 26.51 Ibid, p. 21.52 G. Constable, p. 165. 53 J. Brown, ‘Subject, Object and Mantra in þe Wohunge of Ure Lauerd’, Milieu (Cardiff, 2009), pp. 66-83, p. 67.

12

physical. She not only imitates Christ in her inner devotions, but her body is made to imitate his within

her enclosure.

Part of Christ’s sacrificial wooing occurs when his body is gradually opened to mockery and

assault. Being born into a ‘waheles hus’(326) he eventually dies completely naked and exposed upon the

cross:

nehafdes in al þis world hwer wiððat blisfule blodi bodi þu mihteshule 7 huide.(347-50)

In a similar way, the anchoress’s body is also figured as being open and vulnerable within this cultivated

meditative space. The speaker in T(Wo) is also being watched and subsequently attacked by Satan and the

foes of this world because of her sins:

me swa wak 7swa forhuhande 7 buhandetoward ham. þei swiðre sohten uppo me(282-5)

Here, the anchoress mirrors Christ as he hangs exposed on the cross, the ‘waheles hus’ where he was born

is transferred into the anchoress’s enclosure as she prays, exposed before Satan.

Christ’s painful and violated body is even more significant because of the emphasis on his purity:

flesch hwit underschrud makes moni mon beoluued te raðer. (13-6)

This description reiterates the virgin’s body within Ancrene Wisse which every anchoress ought to

embody: ‘þe hwite limpeð ariht to hwit meidenhad ant to cleannesse, þet is much pine wel forte

halden’(II.2.30-1). Therefore, not only does the anchoress within T(Wo) mirror Christ in spirit as she

faces the demons which torment her, but in that process, Christ’s virginal, and arguably feminised, body

is mirrored in the anchoress’s own.54 Through these connections to Christ, the speaker at the end of the

prayer associates herself so fully with him that she imagines her body hanging with Christ’s on the cross:

54 A. Bernau, R. Evans and S. Salih ‘Introduction’ in Medieval Virginities ed. A. Bernau, R. Evans and S.Salih (Cardiff, 2003) pp. 1-13, p. 5.

13

Mi bodi hengewið þi bodi neiled o rode. sperred querfaste wið inne fowrwahes(590-3)

This image once again reinstates the anchoress’s physicality, her inhabited cell is the cross and Christ is

present as she imitates him ‘hanging’ within her four walls. Paradoxically, the hidden anchoress in her

enclosure is different to the visibility of Christ crucified. However, this paradox becomes a distinct

example of how imitation can transform threshold vision so that it can still be utilised for affective

devotion. The anchoress’s visual access to Christ is always prohibited by differing walls within the

Wooing Group texts. Indeed, Lazikani argues that the imagined wall of sin in N(U) draws from the walled

anchoritic cell to reinforce God’s distance from anchoress.55 However, the anchoress can also use the

walls which obscure vision as a way to access Christ, if she were to imitate him within them. This is what

she does in T(Wo) as both her anchoritic cell and her vulnerability, despite being caused by sin, reflects

Christ’s sacrifice for her on the cross. While the community’s threshold vision attempts to see the

symbolic significance of the walled anchorhold in order to connect in some way with the anchoress

inside, the anchoress can use what prohibits her sight to not only imaginatively connect to Christ, but to

become more like him.

The anchoress’s imitation of Christ’s exposure is felt even more poignantly within N(Lo), another

penitential prayer, because at the beginning of the text, the speaker seeks to be hidden:

ne bihold þu ham nout leste þuwreoke ham in me iwodschipe of þine þredðe(37-9)

Lazikani argues that the process of penance in this text functions on a concealment-connection paradox:

the more the anchoress conceals her sins from God behind the actions of Christ, the more her sins are

revealed.56 The voice cries out for the open wounds of Christ to heal and wash away sin, only to have

their own sins openly displayed before God:

þuruh þine fif wunden iopened o rode […]hel me uor-wunded þuruh mine fif wittes(48-51)

55 A. Lazikani, p. 115. 56 A. Lazikani, p. 125.

14

This display of the anchoress’s five sinful senses, to a certain extent, imitates Christ’s own wounds on the

cross as he bore the sins of mankind. This imitation is reinstated in the following phrase:

7 opene ham heouenliche king touward heouenliche þinges(52-3)

Like Christ’s open wounds, the voice prays that their five senses can be opened to receive from and

adhere to God. Directly after this plea, the speaker imagines that they are driven through by the arrows of

Satan and asks Christ to be a shield:

beo mi sheld 7 mi warant oneuche half. a3ein þes feondes flon þat he scheot to me on euche halue þe swike(54-5)

Christ is here imitated in two ways, the most obvious being that he too was pierced through the side. The

second is similar to T(Wo), where the anchoress can imagine herself as being exposed like Christ on the

cross. In this passage, Satan’s darts mirror precisely the arrows shot into the anchoress by the eyes of

lechery in Ancrene Wisse:

werreð Lecherie, þe stinkinde hore, vpon þe lauedi Chastete—[…] Earest scheot þe arwen of þe licht enchnen, þe fleoð lichtliche forð ase flaa þet is iuiðered (II.9.164-7)

If one were to read the sexual connotations behind Satan’s piercing arrows and the eyes of lechery, it

means that, like T(Wo), the anchoress’s physicality is also emphasised in her imitation of Christ as he is

pierced, mocked and violated by men. Here, not only does the anchoress imitate Christ, but Christ in this

text imitates the anchoress. She has laid her body bare to Satan, like all humanity before her, but Christ

saves the anchoress from her ultimate physical damnation in hell by having the abuses transferred upon

his virginal body: ‘þine pinen buruwen me from/þe pinen of helle’(58-9). Reflecting N(Le), the brief and

incantatory way the passion is narrated in N(Lo) does not provide the anchoress with a clarified image.57

However through imitation, the anchoress creates within herself an intimate and almost tangible image of

Christ’s love and passion.

Due to the intimacy achieved through imitation, the voice asks forgiveness for climbing so high

in prayer and implores: ‘heie heli/nde beih þe to me.7 buh to mine bonen’(78-9). In doing so, another

form of imitation is achieved because as Christ leans down, the anchoress physically imitates his action in

57 A. Lazikani, p. 123.

15

her prayer as she bows in supplication. The repetitive ‘h’ and ‘b’ in this line are also highly rhythmic,

which give this text a persistent beat if read aloud, highlighting the orality of the Wooing Group as argued

by Savage.58 Rhythm is highly physical because it speaks to the movement and beats of the body,

something elaborated in the works of Henri Lefebvre: ‘Rhythm appears as regulated time, governed by

rational laws, but in contact with what is least rational in human being: the lived, the carnal, and the

body.’59 Therefore, as the anchoress bends down to pray, potentially speaking the words to herself, her

physicality is brought ever further to the surface while she imagines her body replicating Christ in her

prayer. Fulton argues that because written prayer develops meditative skills, we have to ‘recognise the

body, its location in space and time, its movement, its breath, its sensory impressions, as itself as

important a tool as the mind for “making thoughts to God”’.60 In this moment within N(Lo), the

anchoress’s body becomes not only a tool for ‘making thoughts to God’ but becomes the gateway to

which God can be accessed. For Watson, the characteristic movement of anchoritic literature is not ‘away

from the reader’s imprisoned state but back into it.’61 As demonstrated in N(Lo) and T(Wo), the text

recalls the very presence of Christ, not by removing the anchoress from her body but by reinstating her

external realities. The anchoress is still far away from ‘seeing’ Christ closely in the text as she is one who

‘ligge so lowe’(N(Lo) 71), but as she physically imitates him, she is brought intimately closer to the one

she meditates upon. Her external realities are therefore not an ‘imprisonment’ but a way in which her

devotion to Christ can be freed from restraint.

Writing in De Genesi ad litteram Augustine argues that the most superior vision is the

‘intellectual vision’ because it is distanced from the corporeal realm. The other two ways of seeing in De

Genesi, the physical and the spiritual, can be easily deceived by the changeability of human nature

because they navigate in the physical realm, translating earthly images for mental viewing.62 Therefore, it

is only through ‘intellectual vision’ that man can commune with God:

the region of intellectual or intelligible, where transparent truth is seen without bodily likeness, his vision is darkened by no cloud of false opinion[…]In such a vision God speaks face to face to whom he has made worthy of this communion, and here we are speaking not of the fact of the body but that of the mind.63

58 A. Savage, 2009, p. 171. 59 H. Lefbvre, Rhythmanalysis: Space, Time and Everyday Life, trans. Elden, Stuart and Moore, Gerald. (London, 2004), p. 9. 60 R. Fulton, 720.61 N. Watson, ‘The methods and Objectives of thirteenth-century anchoritic devotion’, The Medieval Mystical tradition in England, ed. Marion Glasscoe (Cambridge, 1985), pp. 132-153, p. 141. 62 Augustine, The Literal Meaning of Genesis, trans. John Hammond Taylor (New York, 1982), p. 19763 Literal Meaning, p. 216.

16

In both De institutione inclusarum and Ancrene Wisse, the body and the mind are treated in a similar way,

where the inner body is superior to the outer body: ‘Ah ancre, as ich habbe iseid, ah to beon al gastelich

3ef ha wule wel fleon as brid’(III.12.316-7). Christopher Cannon also notes how all anchoritic texts are

involved in discourse that negotiates the paradox of the inner and outer body as both intimately

interconnected and entirely distinct from each other.64 This is found structurally within the two guides

where there is one rule for the outer body and another for the inner. However, Savage argues that

anchoritic texts, while participating in this discourse, show the ‘anchoritic life striving towards a united

understanding of the embodied spirit…[the texts] chronicle the anchoritic project as knitting them

together again.’65 I would argue that the Wooing Group plays an essential part in this project. While the

prose lyrics are inevitably influenced by Augustinian thought, given his pervasive influence in medieval

western Christianity, they demonstrate that clear mental vision is not always essential for intimate

communion with God. Indeed, the texts continually stress the impossibility of such visual clarity. Rather,

in allowing the anchoress to imitate their subject of worship during prayer, they are simultaneously drawn

towards God and drawn back into their physicality. The anchoress’s meditative sight will always be

limited. However through imitation, both in a physical and spiritual sense, a bridge is built between God

and the anchoress’s threshold vision.

Meditative ‘seeing’ within the texts of the Wooing Group is continually frustrated. The question

remains for the anchoress not ‘what do you see’, but rather ‘why do you not see’. Like Paul who rebukes

the Corinthians for their foolishness in relying upon human wisdom and insight, the Wooing Group

reminds their readers of the inevitability of incomplete visual access to God when still entrapped within

their human state. However, through the act of imitation, the texts also present a possible solution to the

anchoress’s visual limitation. This is once again reflected in the St. Albans Psalter, by the image of Christ

washing his disciples’ feet, just one leaf away from Mary Magdalene washing his own.66 Unusually, this

image contains a lower and upper row of disciples. Christ kneels on the lower row holding Peter’s feet,

mirroring Mary’s position, and like Mary, Christ’s feet also rest upon the page’s frame. In the previous

image, Mary’s indefinite gaze towards Christ may question her closeness to him. However, in the image

of Jesus washing the feet of his disciples, he is brought intimately closer to Mary in his low and humble

position as a maidservant rather than a glorified king. Mary’s imitation of Christ within the page’s frame

links to McHugh’s own description of the enclosed chamber as ‘miming the containment of God’s nature’

and providing a place where the human seeks and finds the divine.67 Similarly, the Wooing Group 64 C. Cannon, ‘Enclosure’, The Cambridge Companion to Medieval Women’s Writing, ed. Carolyn Dinshaw and David Wallace (Cambridge, 1998), pp. 109-123, p. 112. 65 A. Savage, ‘From Anchorhold to Cell of Self-Knowledge: Points along a History of the Human Body’, Rhetoric (Cardiff, 2008), pp. 157-172, p. 157. 66 Image is included as appendix.67 A. McHugh, p. 85.

17

cultivates a meditative space where God’s presence is searched for through imitation within the confines

of the anchoress’s walls. Anselm writes in Proslogion:

Enter into the inner chamber of your soul, shut out everything except Godand that which can help you in seeking him. Now, my whole heart, say to God ‘I seek you face, Lord it is your face I seek’.68

The Wooing Group likewise presents meditation as the process of ‘seeking’ after Christ, rather than

meditating with the confidence of visual clarity. Within the anchorhold, meditative life is as much

preoccupied with an anxiety over how and how much one can ‘see’, as it is with the fulfilment of visual

access.

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Ancrene Wisse=Guide for Anchoress: a Translation based on Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 402, trans. Bella Millett (Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 2009)

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Aelred, Saint, of Rievaulx., ‘A Rule for the Life of a Recluse’, trans. Mary Paul Macpherson, Treastises: the Pastoral Prayer, ed. M. Basil Pennington (Kalamazoo: Cistercian Publications, 1982), pp. 44-10268 Prayers and Meditations, p. 239.

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Bynum, Caroline Walker., Holy Feast and Holy Fast: the Religious Significance of Food to Medieval Women (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987)

Cannon, Christopher., ‘Enclosure’, The Cambridge Companion to Medieval Women’s Writing, ed. Carolyn Dinshaw and David Wallace (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), pp. 109-123

—.‘The Place of the Self: Ancrene Wisse and the Katherine-group’, The Grounds of English Literature (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004)

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Carruthers, Mary., The Craft of Thought: Meditation, Rhetoric and the Making of Images, 400-1200 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998)

Caskey, Jill., ‘Whodunnit? Patronage, the Canon and the Problematics of Agency in Romanesque and Gothic Art’, A Companion to Medieval Art, ed. Conrad Rudolph (Oxford: Blackwell, 2006), pp. 193-212

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Constable, Giles., Three Studies in Medieval Religious and Social Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995)

Dance, Richard., ‘The language of AB: the Recluse, the Gossip and the Language Historian’, A Companion to Ancrene Wisse, ed. Yoko Wada (Woodbridge: D. S. Brewer, 2003), pp. 57-82

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Fulton, Rachel., ‘Praying with Anselm at Admont: A Meditation on Practice’, Speculum, 81 (2006), 700-33

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—. ‘Þe Wohunge of Ure Lauerd and the Tradition of Affective Devotion: Rethinking Text and Audience’, The Milieu and Context of the Wooing Group, ed. S. Chewning (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2009), pp. 96-115

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Lazikani, Ayoush Sarmada., Cultivating the Heart: Suffering and Language in Ancrene Wisse, the Wooing Group and the Katherine Group (Thesis (D.Phil.)--University of Oxford, 2013)

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Lefebvre, Henri., Rhythmanalysis: Space, Time and Everyday Life, trans. Stuart Elden, and Gerald Moore (London: Continuum, 2004)

Licence, Thomas., Hermits and Recluses in English Society, 950-1200 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011)

Lindberg, David. C., Science in the Middle Ages (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978)

McAvoy, Liz. Herbert, Rhetoric of the Anchorhold: Space, Place and Body within the Discourses of Enclosure (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2008)

—. Medieval Anchoritisms: Gender, Space and the Solitary Life (Woodbridge: D.S. Brewer, 2011)

McHugh, Anna., ‘Inner Space as Speaking Space in Ancrene Wisse’, Rhetoric of the Anchorhold: Space, Place and Body within the Discourses of Enclosure, ed. Liz Herbert McAvoy (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2008), pp. 83-95

Miri, Rubin., Corpus Christi: the Eucharist in Late Medieval Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991)

Newman, Barbara., ‘What Did It Mean to Say “I Saw”? The Clash between Theory and Practice in Medieval Visionary Culture’, Speculum, 80 (2005), 1-43

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Sauer, Michelle., ‘Þe blod þ[at] bohte”: The Wooing Group Christ as Pierced, Pricked and Penetrated Body’, The Milieu and Context of the Wooing Group, ed. S. Chewning (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2009), pp. 123-147

Savage, Anne., ‘The Wooing Group: Pain, Pleasure and the Anchoritic Body’, The Milieu and Context of the Wooing Group, ed. S. Chewning (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2009), pp. 165-177

—.‘From Anchorhold to Cell of Self-Knowledge: Points along a History of the Human Body’, Rhetoric of the Anchorhold: Space, Place and Body within the Discourses of Enclosure, ed. Liz Herbert McAvoy (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2008), pp. 157-172

Stevenson, Jill., Performance, Cognitive Theory, and Devotional Culture: Sensual Piety in Late Medieval York, (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010)

Warren, Ann. K., Anchorites and their Patrons in Medieval England (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985)

Watson, Nicholas., ‘Afterward: On Eise’, The Milieu and Context of the Wooing Group, ed. S. Chewning (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2009), pp. 194-209

21

—. ‘The methods and Objectives of thirteenth-century anchoritic devotion’, The Medieval Mystical tradition in England: Exeter Symposium III: Papers read at Darington Hall, July 1984, ed. Marion Glasscoe (Cambridge: D.S. Brewer), pp. 132-153

Wooglar, C.M., The Senses in Late Medieval England (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006)

Appendix I: Images from the St. Albans Psalter

These images are taken from the public online edition of the St. Albans Psalter:

http://www.abdn.ac.uk/stalbanspsalter/english/index.shtml

a) Christ in the House of Simon the Pharisee (pg. 36)

Luke 7: 36-50

b) The Washing of the Feet (pg. 38)

John 13:8-9

22

a) Christ in the House of Simon the Pharisee (pg. 36) [Copyright of the image belongs to

the Dombibliothek Hildesheim]

b) The Washing of the Feet (pg. 38) [Copyright of the image belongs to the Dombibliothek Hildesheim]

23

Appendix II: Latin Texts

5. Cristina tamen attencius assidet viro. Margareta laboriosius circa necessaria discurrit, ita ut aliam Mariam. aliam videres et Martham. si Ihesum dis cumbentem daretur conspicere. [The Life of Christina of Markyate, a Twelfth Century Recluse, ed. and trans. C. H. Talbot (Oxford,1987), p. 182. ]

6. Hec namque in presenti nobis est illa gloria. qui de illa non nisi per speculum videmus. [The Life of Christina, p. 187. ]

20. In oracionbibus namque constituta vidi ambitum quemdam de lignis candidissimis. Et his perspicius circumsteptum ostio fenestrisque carentem ad modum claustri sed rotundum. cuicus interioris herba pratelli communium virorem excedebat herbarum: delectata super his vidi te sollicitundinis mee causam. Infra ambitum iocende satis et cum quadam amplectenda dulcedine consistent. Cumque sollicitarer adhuc ne forte vel suffodiendo vel alia qualibet arte qua evaderes haberes: dictum est michi. huius quem cenis ambitus Deus solus claviger est. [The Life of Christina, p. 164. ]

24. In his glorieries, in his delecteris, intus non forios, in veris virtutibus, non in picturis et imaginibus. Panni linei candidi tuum illud ornent altare, qui castitatem suo candour commendent, et simplicitatem praemonstrent […]Haec tibi oratorii tui ornamenta repaesentent, non coculos tuos ineptis varietatibus pascant. [La vie de Recluse; La Prière Pastorale, ed. and trans. Charles Dumont (Paris, 1961), p. 102-4.]

41. sic et ego non quantum debeo, sed quantum queo, memor passionis tuae, memor alaparum tuarum, memor flagellorim, memor crucis, memor vulnerum tuorum, memor qualieter pro me occisus es, qualieter conditus, qualiter sepultus, simul memor gloriosae tuae resurrectionis et admirabilis ascensionis. [S. Anselmi Cantuariensis Archiepiscopi Opera Omina, ed. Franciscus Salesius Schmitt, 6 Vols, II (Stuttgart: F. Frommann, 1968), p. 7]

42. Cum vdere nequieres violari clavis manus et pedes tui plasmatoris? Cum horreres effndi sanguine tui redemptoris?[ S. Anselmi Cantuariensis Archiepiscopi Opera Omina, III, p. 7]

43. Te sitio, te esurio, te desidero, ad te suspiro, te concupisco. [S. Anselmi Cantuariensis Archiepiscopi Opera Omina, p. 7]

45. Tunc unus ex militibus lancea latus eius aperuit, et exivit sanguis et aqua. Festina, ne tardaveris, comede favum cum melle tuo bibe vinum tuum cum lacte tuo. Sangius tibi in vinum vertitur ut inebrieris, in lac aqua mutatur ut nutriaris. Acta sunt tibi in petra flumina, in membris eius vulnera, et in maceria corporis eius cavern, in quibus instar volumbae latitans et deosculans singular ex sanguine eius fiant sicut vitta coccinea labia tua, et eloguium tuum dulce. [La vie de Recluse; La Prière Pastorale, p. 140.]

63. quasi regionem intellectualium uel intellegibilium subuehatur, ubi sine ulla corporis similitudine perspicua ueritas cernitur, nullis opinionum falsarum nebulis offurscatur[…] ut os ad os loquatur dues ei quem digum tali conloguio fecerit, non os corporis, sed mentis, sicut , intellegendum arbitror [Sancti Aureli Augustini De Genesi ad litteram, recensuit Josephus Zycha (Vindobonae, 1894), p. 419-20.]

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68. Intra in cubiculum mentis tuae exluse omnia praetor deum et quae te iuvent ad wuaerendum eum, et clause oistio quaere eum. Dic numc, totum cor meum, dic nunc deo: Quaero vultum tuum vultum tuum, domine require. [ S. Anselmi Cantuariensis Archiepiscopi Opera Omina, II, p. 97. ]

Appendix III: Translations from Middle English

Page 6

bi his blodieswote. Bi his eadi beoden in hulles him one.bi his nimunge (N(Le), 45-7)[By his bloody sweat, by his blessed prayers along on the hill, by his capture]

Page 7

bi his cloðes wrixlunge. Nu red. nu whit. him on hokerunge(N(Le), 48-9)[By his change of clothes, now red, now white, that hung on him]

mis I loked Mis ihercned.mis ifeled. (N(Le) 20-1)[I miss-looked, I miss-heard, I miss-felt]

þu beo mi leche (N(Le), 15)[Be you my physician]

hwi ne behold ich huþu streihtest þe for me on þe rode(N(U), 47-8)[Why do I not behold how you stretched yourself on the cross?]

hwi nam ich iþinermes so istreihte. 7 ispred on rode?(N(U), 57-8)[Why am I not in your arms so spread and stretched out on the cross?]

hwi ne worpe ich me bi tweonen þeoilke ermes so swiðe wiðe to spredde. 7 i openeð so þe moder deðhire ermes. hire leoue child for to bi cluppen?(N(U), 48-51)[Why do I not throw myself between those arms spread so very wide and opened like a mother does to enfold her darling child?]

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Page 8

þeos twa þing limpeð to ancre, nearowðe ant bitternesse; for wombe is nearow wununge þer ure Lauerd wes relus […] Marie wombe ant þis þruh weren his ancre-huses. (Ancrene Wisse, VI.13.417-25)[These two things belong to the anchoress: narrowness and bitterness. For the womb is a narrow dwelling, where our Lord was a recluse…Mary’s womb and his tomb were his anchorhouses.]

Page 9

Iesu al feir. a 3ein hwam þe sunner nis butenase a scheadewe(N(U),11-2)[Jesus all fair, beside whom the sun is only a shadow]

…ðet ich iseoin syon þe heie tur of heouene þene louerdof leome. þet te engles euer biholdeð. (N(Le), 80-3)[…until I see—in Zion, the high tower of heaven—that Lord of light whom the angels look upon forever]

for min bileue is þet ich schal þuruh ham beon iboreuwen(N(Le), 73-4)[For I believe that I shall, through them, be saved]

þer min offringe wonteð(N(Le), 72-3)[Where my offering fails]

bi his blodi Rune þet ron inne moniestuden(N(Le), 56-7)[By his streaming blood which ran in many places]

olast in his side þurlunge wið ute sore wunde. 3et ase halewen weneð(N(Le), 60-1)[Lastly in the piercing through his side, without the sore wounding, which as the saints believe…]

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Page 10

hwi ne behold ich huþu streihtest þe for me on þe rode(N(U),47-8)[Why do I not behold how you stretched yourself on the cross?]

He mot delen wið þeþine pine on eorð(N(U),68-70)[He must first deal with your pain on earth]

to beon bi clupped biweonen þine blisfulle ermes in heouene. bute he worpe erhim her. bi tweonen þine rewðful ermes(N(U),59-61)[Does anyone believe they will be embraced between these joyful arms in heaven, unless they first throw themselves between your pitiful arms on the cross?]

Ne wene nomon to stihen wið esteto þe steorren(N(U),76-7)[Let no one climb with confidence to the stars]

Page 11

hwi ne con ich wown þe? (N(U),86)[Why can I not woo you?]

Iesus min holi luue, Mi sikere spetnesse. Iesu min heorte (N(U),2-3)[Jesus my holy light, my sure sweetness, Jesus my heart]

alle mine attri sunnen is þe lettunge.Mine sunnen beoð wal bi tweonen me(N(U),89-90)[All my poisonous sins are the barrier. My sins are a wall between you and me]

Page 12

hwuder schal ich fleonhwon þe deouel hunteð efter me bute to þine rode(162-3)[Wither shall I flee when the devil hunts after me but to your cross?]

27

Page 13waheles hus (T(Wo), 326)[Wall-less house]

nehafdes in al þis world hwer wiððat blisfule blodi bodi þu mihteshule 7 huide(T(Wo), 347-50)[When you so pitifully hung for me on the cross, in all this world you had nothing with which to cover and hide that blessed bloody body]

me swa wak 7swa forhuhande 7 buhandetoward ham. þei swiðe sohten uppo me(T(Wo), 281-4)[They saw me so weak, so desperate and yielding to them, they attacked me even harder]

Page 14

flesch hwit underschrud makes moni mon beoluued te raðer. 7 te mare(T(Wo), 14-6)[A body, white under clothing, make many men beloved all the sooner and all the more]

þe hwite limpeð ariht to hwit meidenhad ant to cleannesse, þet is much pine wel forte halden(Ancrene Wisse, II.2.30-1)[The white cross is rightly proper to white maidenhood and to purity, which is very hard to keep well]

Mi bodi hengewið þi bodi neiled o rode sperred querfaste wið inne fowrwhaes(T(Wo), 590-3)[My body will hang with your body, nailed on the cross, fastened, transfixed within four walls]

Page 15

ne bihold þu ham nout leste þuwreoke ham in me iwodschipe of þine þredðe

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(N(Lo), 37-9) [Do not look on them lest you avenge them on me in the fury of your rage]

þuruh þine fif wunden iopened o rode. wið neiles uor driuene7 seoruh fulliche fordutte. hel me uor-wunded þuruh mine fif wittes(N(Lo), 48-51)[Through your five wounds, opened on the cross, driven through and sorrowfully filled up with nails, heal me, sorely wounded through my five senses]

7 opene ham heouenliche king touward heouenliche þinges(N(Lo), 52-3)[And open them, heavenly king, toward heavenly things]

beo mi sheld 7 mi warrant oneuche half. a3ein þes feondes flon þat he scheot to me on euche halue þe swike(N(Lo), 54-5)[Be my shield and my protection on every side, against the darts of the devil which the deceiver shoots at me from every side]

werreð Lecherie, þe stinkinde hore, vpon þe lauedi Chastete—þet is, Godes spuse. Earest scheot þe arwen of þe licht enchnen, þe fleoð lichtliche forð ase flaa þet is iuiðered ant stiketh i þere heorte(Ancrene Wisse,II.9.164-7)[This stinking whore lechery wars with the lady’s chastity, who is God’s spouse. First she shoots arrows from wanton eyes, which fly lightly forth like a feathered shaft and stick in the heart]

Page 16

heie heli/nde beih þe to me. 7 buh to mine bonen (N(Lo), 128-9)[high and holy God, bend to me, and bow to my prayers]

Page 17

ligge so lowe (N(Lo) 71)[Lies so low]

Ah ancre, as ich habbe iseid, ah to beon al gastelich 3ef ha wule wel fleon as brid (Ancrene Wisse, III.12.316-7)[Dear anchoress, as I have said, you must be all spirit if you wish to fly as a bird]

29