Divinity Manifest in a Female Body
Guglielma of Milan as the Holy Spirit, Female Deity and Female Leadership in the Later Middle Ages
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/bsor.v41i2.27Keywords:
heresy, female godlanguage, the Middle AgesAbstract
The article investigates a medieval heretical group, the Guglielmites, who worshipped their founder Guglielma of Milan (d. 1281) as the Holy Spirit incarnate and expected another woman, Maifreda da Pirovano, to become pope, the vicar of the Holy Spirit, at Guglielma's second coming in the year 1300. This event was prevented, however, by Dominican inquisitors, but we know that Maifreda's priestly activities had been going on for years. The article argues that the theology and practice of the Guglielmites developed gradually on a background of mysticism, eschatological expectations, imitation of Christ, and Eucharistic devotion. However, contrary to much female godlanguage in the Middle Ages, which was symbolic, female divinity was seen as taking flesh in a woman, and for that reason also her vicar on earth had to be a woman. The feminizing of the Holy Spirit justified a change in the gender system of the Church.
References
Primary Sources
Processus ab inquisitoribus haereticae pravitatis confecti Mediolani anno Domini MCCC contra Guillelmam Bohemam, vulgo Gulielminam, eiusque sectam: et alia quaedam paucula, ad eandem Guillelmam, et ad Dulcinum Haeresiarcham Novariensem, et ad Sancti Petri Veronensis Martyris caedem pertinentia. Milano, Biblioteca Ambrosiana, MS A 227 inf..
Benedetti, Marina, ed. 1999. Milano 1300. I processi inquisitoriali contro le devote e i devoti di santa Guglielma. Milano: Libri Scheiwiller.
Tocco, Felice. 1899. “Il processo dei Guglielmiti.” Reale accademia dei Lincei, memorie delle classe di scienze morali, storiche e filologiche, Rendiconti 5, Vol. 8 (Roma), 309-342, 351-384, 407-432, 437-469.
Secondary Works
Abels, Richard and Ellen Harrison. 1979. “The participation of women in Languedocian Catharism,” Medieval Studies 41: 215–51.
Amadou, Christine. 1995. “Christianity and the Collapse of Androcentrism: An Interview with Kari Elisabeth Børresen.” In Børresen, Kari Elisabeth. Subordination and Equivalence. The Nature and Role of Women in Augustine and Thomas Aquinas, xxiii-xxix. Kampen, the Netherlands: Kok Pharos.
Benedetti, Marina. 1998. Io non sono Dio. Guglielma di Milano e i Figli dello Spirito santo. Milano: Edizioni Biblioteca Francescana.
Børresen, Kari Elisabeth. 1991. “Birgitta’s Godlanguage: Exemplary Intention, Inapplicable Content,” In Birgitta, her Works, and her Five Abbeys in the Nordic Countries, edited by Tore Nyberg, 21-72. Odense: Odense Universitetsforlag,
———. (1968), 1995. Subordination and Equivalence. The Nature and Role of Woman in Augustine and Thomas Aquinas. Kampen, the Netherlands: Kok Pharos.
———. 1983. “God’s Image, Man’s Image? Female Metaphors describing God in the Christian Tradition,” Temenos 19: 17-32.
Bynum, Caroline Walker. 1987. Holy Feast and Holy Fast: The Religious Significance of Food to Medieval Women. Berkeley: University of California Press.
———. (1984) 1991. “Women Mystics and Eucharistic Devotion in the Thirteenth Century.” In Fragmentation and Redemption. Essays on Gender and the Human Body in Medieval Religion. 119-150. New York: Zone Books.
———. 1982. Jesus as Mother: Studies in the Spirituality of the High Middle Ages. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Costa, Patrizia Maria. 1985. Guglielma la Boema. L’”erotica” di Chiaravalle. Uno scorcio di vita religiosa Milanese nel secolo XIII. Milano: Nuove Edizioni Duomo.
Istoft, Britt. 2002. The Vicaress of the Holy Spirit. A Study of the Thirteenth-Century Cult of Guglielma of Milan as the Holy Spirit Incarnate, with Special Emphasis on the Cultic Activities of her Representative on Earth, Maifreda da Pirovano. PhD diss., University of Copenhagen.
———. 1997. “’For hendes ansigt skinnede som solen…’: Det kvindeligt guddommelige hos Hildegard af Bingen,” Kvinder, køn og forskning 3, 31-52.
———. 1996. Den inkarnerede Visdom. En undersøgelse af Hildegard af Bingens visioner af det kvindeligt guddommelige i De operatione Dei. MA thesis, University of Copenhagen.
Jansen, Katherine Ludwig. 1988. ”Maria Magdalena: Apostolorum Apostola”, in Women Preachers and Prophets through Two Millennia of Christianity, edited by Beverly Mayne Kienzle and Pamela J. Walker, 57-96.Berkeley: University of California Press,
McNamara, Jo Ann. 1993. “The Rhetoric of Orthodoxy: Clerical Authority and Female Innovation in the Struggle with Heresy.” In Maps of Flesh and Light. The Religious Experience of Medieval Women Mystics, edited by Ulrike Wiethaus, 9-27 Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press,.
Muraro, Luisa. 1987. Vilemína und Mayfreda: Die Geschichte einer feministischen Häresie. Translated by Martina Kempter. Freiburg: Kore.
———. 1985. Guglielma e Maifreda. Storia di un’eresia femminista. Milano: La Tartaruga edizioni.
Newman, Barbara. 2003. God and the Goddesses. Vision, Poetry, and Belief in the Middle Ages . Philadelphia: Pennsylvania Press.
———. 1995. From Virile Woman to WomanChrist. Studies in Medieval Religion and Literature. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
———. 1989. Sister of Wisdom. St. Hildegard’s Theology of the Feminine. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Petroff, Elizabeth Alvilda. 1994. Body and Soul. Essays on Medieval women and Mysticism. New York: Oxford University Press.
Reeves, Marjorie. 1992/1969. The influence of Prophecy in the Later Middle Ages. A Study in Joachimism. Notre Dame, London: University of Notre Dame Press.
Simons, W. and J.E. Ziegler. 1990. “Phenomenal Religion in the Thirteenth Century and Its Image: Elisabeth of Spalbeek and the Passion Cult,” in Women in the Church. Papers read at the 1989 Summer Meeting and the 1990 Winter Meeting of the Ecclesiastical History Society, edited by W.J. Shields and Diana Woods, 117-126. Cambridge, Mass.: Basil Blackwell.
Wessley, Stephen E. 1976. Enthusiasm and Heresy in the Year 1300: Guglielma of Milan, Armanno Pungilupo of Ferrara and Gerard Segarelli of Parma. PhD diss., Columbia University.
———. 1989. “The Thirteenth-Century Guglielmites: Salvation through Women.” In Medieval Women. Dedicated and Presented to Professor Rosalind M.T. Hill on the Occasion of her Seventieth Birthday, edited by Derek Baker, 289-303. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Processus ab inquisitoribus haereticae pravitatis confecti Mediolani anno Domini MCCC contra Guillelmam Bohemam, vulgo Gulielminam, eiusque sectam: et alia quaedam paucula, ad eandem Guillelmam, et ad Dulcinum Haeresiarcham Novariensem, et ad Sancti Petri Veronensis Martyris caedem pertinentia. Milano, Biblioteca Ambrosiana, MS A 227 inf..
Benedetti, Marina, ed. 1999. Milano 1300. I processi inquisitoriali contro le devote e i devoti di santa Guglielma. Milano: Libri Scheiwiller.
Tocco, Felice. 1899. “Il processo dei Guglielmiti.” Reale accademia dei Lincei, memorie delle classe di scienze morali, storiche e filologiche, Rendiconti 5, Vol. 8 (Roma), 309-342, 351-384, 407-432, 437-469.
Secondary Works
Abels, Richard and Ellen Harrison. 1979. “The participation of women in Languedocian Catharism,” Medieval Studies 41: 215–51.
Amadou, Christine. 1995. “Christianity and the Collapse of Androcentrism: An Interview with Kari Elisabeth Børresen.” In Børresen, Kari Elisabeth. Subordination and Equivalence. The Nature and Role of Women in Augustine and Thomas Aquinas, xxiii-xxix. Kampen, the Netherlands: Kok Pharos.
Benedetti, Marina. 1998. Io non sono Dio. Guglielma di Milano e i Figli dello Spirito santo. Milano: Edizioni Biblioteca Francescana.
Børresen, Kari Elisabeth. 1991. “Birgitta’s Godlanguage: Exemplary Intention, Inapplicable Content,” In Birgitta, her Works, and her Five Abbeys in the Nordic Countries, edited by Tore Nyberg, 21-72. Odense: Odense Universitetsforlag,
———. (1968), 1995. Subordination and Equivalence. The Nature and Role of Woman in Augustine and Thomas Aquinas. Kampen, the Netherlands: Kok Pharos.
———. 1983. “God’s Image, Man’s Image? Female Metaphors describing God in the Christian Tradition,” Temenos 19: 17-32.
Bynum, Caroline Walker. 1987. Holy Feast and Holy Fast: The Religious Significance of Food to Medieval Women. Berkeley: University of California Press.
———. (1984) 1991. “Women Mystics and Eucharistic Devotion in the Thirteenth Century.” In Fragmentation and Redemption. Essays on Gender and the Human Body in Medieval Religion. 119-150. New York: Zone Books.
———. 1982. Jesus as Mother: Studies in the Spirituality of the High Middle Ages. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Costa, Patrizia Maria. 1985. Guglielma la Boema. L’”erotica” di Chiaravalle. Uno scorcio di vita religiosa Milanese nel secolo XIII. Milano: Nuove Edizioni Duomo.
Istoft, Britt. 2002. The Vicaress of the Holy Spirit. A Study of the Thirteenth-Century Cult of Guglielma of Milan as the Holy Spirit Incarnate, with Special Emphasis on the Cultic Activities of her Representative on Earth, Maifreda da Pirovano. PhD diss., University of Copenhagen.
———. 1997. “’For hendes ansigt skinnede som solen…’: Det kvindeligt guddommelige hos Hildegard af Bingen,” Kvinder, køn og forskning 3, 31-52.
———. 1996. Den inkarnerede Visdom. En undersøgelse af Hildegard af Bingens visioner af det kvindeligt guddommelige i De operatione Dei. MA thesis, University of Copenhagen.
Jansen, Katherine Ludwig. 1988. ”Maria Magdalena: Apostolorum Apostola”, in Women Preachers and Prophets through Two Millennia of Christianity, edited by Beverly Mayne Kienzle and Pamela J. Walker, 57-96.Berkeley: University of California Press,
McNamara, Jo Ann. 1993. “The Rhetoric of Orthodoxy: Clerical Authority and Female Innovation in the Struggle with Heresy.” In Maps of Flesh and Light. The Religious Experience of Medieval Women Mystics, edited by Ulrike Wiethaus, 9-27 Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press,.
Muraro, Luisa. 1987. Vilemína und Mayfreda: Die Geschichte einer feministischen Häresie. Translated by Martina Kempter. Freiburg: Kore.
———. 1985. Guglielma e Maifreda. Storia di un’eresia femminista. Milano: La Tartaruga edizioni.
Newman, Barbara. 2003. God and the Goddesses. Vision, Poetry, and Belief in the Middle Ages . Philadelphia: Pennsylvania Press.
———. 1995. From Virile Woman to WomanChrist. Studies in Medieval Religion and Literature. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
———. 1989. Sister of Wisdom. St. Hildegard’s Theology of the Feminine. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Petroff, Elizabeth Alvilda. 1994. Body and Soul. Essays on Medieval women and Mysticism. New York: Oxford University Press.
Reeves, Marjorie. 1992/1969. The influence of Prophecy in the Later Middle Ages. A Study in Joachimism. Notre Dame, London: University of Notre Dame Press.
Simons, W. and J.E. Ziegler. 1990. “Phenomenal Religion in the Thirteenth Century and Its Image: Elisabeth of Spalbeek and the Passion Cult,” in Women in the Church. Papers read at the 1989 Summer Meeting and the 1990 Winter Meeting of the Ecclesiastical History Society, edited by W.J. Shields and Diana Woods, 117-126. Cambridge, Mass.: Basil Blackwell.
Wessley, Stephen E. 1976. Enthusiasm and Heresy in the Year 1300: Guglielma of Milan, Armanno Pungilupo of Ferrara and Gerard Segarelli of Parma. PhD diss., Columbia University.
———. 1989. “The Thirteenth-Century Guglielmites: Salvation through Women.” In Medieval Women. Dedicated and Presented to Professor Rosalind M.T. Hill on the Occasion of her Seventieth Birthday, edited by Derek Baker, 289-303. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Published
2012-04-12
Issue
Section
Articles
How to Cite
Istoft, B. (2012). Divinity Manifest in a Female Body: Guglielma of Milan as the Holy Spirit, Female Deity and Female Leadership in the Later Middle Ages. Bulletin for the Study of Religion, 41(2), 27-35. https://doi.org/10.1558/bsor.v41i2.27
