2008-01-24 The medieval world's cultural upheavals patiently revealed

Southern is a classic guide to cultural change in the Middle Ages. The book exposes a host of social turning points that would reshape Western society for centuries. For example, Southern explains the massive rise of religious idealism and diversified holy orders starting after 1000 AD. Such an upsurge of sentiment had at least some potential to inspire deeper love between men and women. And perhaps the popular cults of Mother Mary or of courtly love did indicate some deepening of human relations. But by its context and structure, the Western church made it seem that all real holiness required chastity. The effect was to channel religious aspiration away from family or secular community life, till both men and women commonly believed that Christianity stood for the separation, not the partnership of sexes.

Southern shows the movement for holy chastity affecting women and men equally. And a church which generally discouraged any kind of religious initiative from females now faced a surge of women hoping to "flee the world". By the early 1100s, women were flocking to any religious order that might accept them. As word spread that the Premonstratensian Order was accepting nuns, a canon in Leon reported that "10,000" women flooded in between 1118 and 1125. (p. 313) The results involved both economic and moral problems for the male hierarchy. A convent of enclosed nuns near a monastery was commonly both an expense and a spiritual peril to male monastics. Many orders found their patience with both problems wearing thin. Shortly before 1200, the General Chapter of the Premonstratensians decided on budget cuts for nunneries. The cuts were so severe that many women took to the roads as wandering, begging nuns. Abbot Conrad of Marchtal insisted that no more females be admitted, explaining,

"We and our whole community of canons, recognizing that the wickedness of women is greater than all the other wickedness of the world, and that there is no anger like that of women, and that the poison of asps and dragons is more curable and less dangerous to men than the familiarity of women, have unanimously decreed for the safety of our souls, no less than that of our bodies and goods, that we will on no account receive any more sisters to the increase of our perdition, but will avoid them like poisonous animals." (p. 313-14)

As the demand for religious vocation overflowed the male-managed church's institutional capacity, women in growing numbers turned to forming their own independent religious communities. So Southern cites Matthew Paris from 1243,

"At this time and especially in Germany, certain people -- men and women, but especially women -- have adopted a religious profession, though it is a light one. They call themselves "religious", and they take a private vow of continence and simplicity of life, though they do not follow the rule of any saint, nor are they as yet confined within a cloister. They have so multiplied within a short time that two thousand have been reported in Cologne and neighboring cities." (p. 319)

In this and many other themes, Southern's account of clashing trends, ideals, and powers makes a fascinating study.