Divine Femininity and the Propagation of Women’s Gender Roles in Medieval Literature
Mae Liu
24 April 2022
It goes without saying that most major medieval religions operated under a patriarchal structure. From Christianity’s foundation in the “Father and Son” or Islam’s in the divine prophet Muhammed, the prevalence of male narratives in theological doctrine is undeniable. Yet these same religions also depended on using prominent female figures as touchstones to solidify archetypes and embodiments of their core values. Hence, the influence and shaping of women’s identities in ecclesiastical spheres has been subject to debate for centuries, begging the question: how might the portrayal of women in theological literature have reflected and influenced their expected roles in medieval society? If theological literature can be defined as texts used for worship (such as the Bible and Qur’an) as well as those that drew upon religious themes and garnered significant popularity, three central examples may come to mind: Margery Kempe’s account of a woman’s religious experience, Beatrice guiding Dante to salvation in his Divina Commedia, and the glorification of familial ideals through Fatima in the Qur’an. Though medieval literature showed that religiosity could somewhat elevate women’s social standing through visionary abilities, it mostly saw a male-centric authorship whose female characters heavily propagated motherhood, purity, and piety as ideal virtues for women to follow while ultimately upholding patriarchal authority in society.
To begin, the hagiographies of holy women and visionaries shed valuable light on women’s access to and treatment in clerical contexts. Despite not being considered scripture, like the Bible, these accounts nonetheless preserve cultural memory by exemplifying dominant social groups’ practices as “arbiters of religious truth or belief” (Mcavoy 4). Specifically, The Book of Margery Kempe—an autobiography of a middle-class townswoman-turned-mystic—depicts
women’s ability to transcend societal doctrines regulating their agency, but also the additional scrutiny they face in comparison to men. Ultimately, the dependence on male validation to maintain status remains dominant.
Kempe’s moderate successes can be seen in her pilgrimages, while trying to gain the respect of priests and monasteries—in Chapter 12, for instance, a monk who initially “[despises]” her has a change of heart after she preaches (Kempe 80). Upon identifying his sins and compelling him to confess and repent, the monk “warmly [receives her] and mightily [blesses] God that he had ever seen her”(81). Her growing visionary reputation permits her to “boldly [scold]...squires and yeomen” as well as the clerics, whom she deems “thoughtless men”—actions considered audacious for women at the time (91). Moreover, Kempe regularly draws upon powerful models of female wisdom, including Saint Katherine, Saint Margaret, and Birgitta of Sweden, incidentally sustaining the legacy of other holy women (19). Nonetheless, these achievements pale in comparison to the tribulations she endures, excessively slandered and made a laughing-stock for her outspoken behaviour. She is repeatedly abandoned by her companions and husband, townspeople cutting her gown and “[making] her put on a white canvas…so that she should be held a fool”(119). This treatment is a shared experience of female saints navigating a male-dominated community, where ambivalence and suspicion towards spiritually powerful women forced them to be “over-zealous in their mortification of the flesh” in order to prove their legitimacy through “surviving…harrowing forms of asceticism” (Petroff 4). This instigated their journey of personal transformation, at the end of which they finally merited clerical approval. As medieval Professor Elizabeth Petroff clarifies, the “contrast between goodness and
exceptional power was resolved by visionary experience” as prophetic ability upheld Christian values of self-knowledge and healing (3).
This concept of needing male validation is pervasive in both Kempe’s private and public spheres. For many years, her husband “[has] his way with her, and she [obeys] with great weeping and sorrowing” (62). Unable to defy her husband, she punishes herself—wearing a haircloth for a sin she has no agency over abstaining from—illustrating men’s ability to undermine women’s choices (63). She is only protected from defamation by a Vicar in Norwich, who gives her communion (notably, only after she proves her abilities) and “[rescues] her from the malice of her enemies” (95). Hence, the expansion of Kempe’s sphere of influence is ultimately dependent on male and divine authority. In a time where familial connections constructed social identity, her self-advocated connections to Christ and Mary as daughter, sister, wife, and mother extended these domestic categories that “[enabled] and [empowered] Kempe to create a world of public activity” (Ross 8). It was through these socially acceptable self-definitions that secured Kempe’s status—operating within patriarchal constructs oncemore. Even the book's transcription depended on two male priests, one of which “avoided and deferred” the task for “almost four years or perhaps more” (Kempe 53). Contrasting his indifference, Kempe was “compelled” to follow whatever instruction he had for her, for fear that “he would not otherwise…[follow] her intention to write this book” (53). This blatant power dynamic solidifies the prevailing advantage men held regardless of the female saint’s achievements. Therefore, although Margery Kempe demonstrates the possibility of spiritual women gaining influence through visionary abilities, the consolidation and maintenance of this power is controlled by patriarchy—be it through adopting a model of male-approved sainthood or seeking their endorsement.
In Italy, however, the dismissive representation of women in divinely-inspired literature is illustrated by Dante Alighieri’s Divina Commedia—first in the generalisations of women’s moral inferiority, and the glorified function of his beloved Beatrice. Beliefs regarding the treatment of women can be gleaned from the numerical classification Dante consistently draws from cultural synesthesia, a phenomenon in medieval Italy in which certain numbers were associated with widely understood ecclesiastical concepts (Corbett 66). As Italian literature scholar Victoria Kirkham explains, Dante assigns and orders female souls “in parallelism with [his perception of] their place on the Great Chain of Being” (2). A major example of this is the association of women and men with four and three respectively. Women (with the exception of Beatrice) are not depicted in Paradiso above its third sphere—kept as if “outside of heaven,” as opposed to man, “whose better nature makes him an entity intellectual, rational, and virtuous” (Kirkham 14). According to common Christian motifs of the time, the body’s number was four, while the soul’s was three, paralleling this gendered hierarchy (14). There are four humours in the body, just as the earth—the body’s macrocosm—has four elements, while the anima or soul was believed to comprise three parts (animal, vegetative, and intellectual) (14). In this way, “woman is body, man the soul,” underscoring the systematic exclusion women faced in religious texts (14). Another dichotomy lies in the polarised distribution of women amongst the three realms—most lie in either Inferno or Paradiso, the moral extremes, and only two are depicted in the relatively morally complex Purgatorio. This two-dimensional representation of women is further illustrated in verses spotlighting those like Electra in Inferno—named simply because of her son Dardanus’ foundation of Troy and his lack of a known father, Dante’s depiction implies that she is foremost memorable as a mother or tribute to the Aeneid (Virgil, another male author’s legacy) (IV, l.121).
Only Beatrice’s recurring character is more developed—solely due to her divine duty of guiding Dante to Paradiso. Her presence dominates the Commedia as the “blessed agent of her lover’s salvation,” a function compelling Dante to liken her to Christ’s grace itself (Kirkpatrick 4). As Italian and English literature professor Robin Kirkpatrick recalls, other women “remain by comparison in obscurity…reduced to nominal items” (5). Furthermore, Beatrice is always connected to divine trinities—mentioned third in the triad of Mary, Rachel, and herself, sitting in an order that “[makes] the third rank complete,” and her description finishing on the ninth verse of Vita Nuova, Canto XXIX (7-9). In a religion that places enormous significance on trinities (the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and the aforementioned three-part soul), these enneads frame Beatrice in trinitarian wholeness and perfection. Beatrice evidently embodies divine truth for Dante, whose allusions to idealised female figures like Rachel and Mary invoke the redeeming powers of womanhood and crystallises her role to “act as the perfect mirror” of God’s will (Kirkpatrick 4). The fact remains, however, that Beatrice’s exaltation stems from being Dante’s object of affection, and her role in his salvation. In Inferno’s Canto II, for instance, it is Beatrice’s call to action—retold by Dante—that moves Virgil to aid him on his journey. Her portrayal is thus a figment of a male gaze, fit into a male-centric narrative for the sake of ontological reflection. Whether she is characterised as a “mirror,” “instrument,” or “emissary,” her roles are devices rather than autonomous beings, hence connecting Beatrice’s purpose with that of all other women in the Commedia—rhetorical and literary accessories.
Idealised archetypes of women were just as prevalent in other major religions like Islam. Just as the Virgin embodied venerable piety for Christians, Fatima—daughter of the prophet Muhammed—epitomised a more attainable role model for Muslim women.
Similar imbalanced dynamics between men and women are seen in the Qur’an, too—at the moment of the soul’s creation, scripture asserts that the male soul’s mate is created soon after, already reducing women to their function as counterparts to men and reproduction (Abdel 1). This inequality is even more explicitly stated when discussing financial agency, as “God commands…a son should have the equivalent share of two daughters” (11). Finally, just as Christian female saints were subject to harsher tribulations, Muslim women were to be held to higher standards and punished more gravely if caught commiting a “lewd act”: “keep the women at home until death comes to them,” but “if two men commit a lewd act” and “repent and mend their ways, leave them alone” (15-16). Most prominent are ideals surrounding childbirth and women’s domestic roles, likened to jihad (a holy war or honourable struggle) to further encourage women’s expected familial devotion.
Fatima is the most apparent example of this, “offered” to the world by Muhammed “as the complete example of womanhood” (Kashani-Sabet 2). Both her familial achievements and prophesied eschatological significance were proof of being blessed by Allah—she bears many healthy sons, the first imams, and it is said that her family and any followers would be most honoured on judgement day (Thurlkill 3). She upholds virtues of modesty as a “diligent, unpretentious labourer,” winning Ali’s admiration through suffering, and thereby showing others how a woman’s “self-sacrificing” disposition earns the “approval of the leading men in her life” (Kashani-Sabet 19). Her celebrated roles as daughter, mother, and wife greatly contrast the ostracism faced by Christianity’s Eve, punished with menstruation, birth pains, and “weak mental abilities” for her role in tempting her husband to sin (Thurlkill 19). Meanwhile, Fatima is said to experience no menstruation, “shorter gestation periods, and birth without blood or impurities,” blatant divine favouritism from her connection to the prophet and preservation of his bloodline (21).
Once again, women’s bodies serve under masculine jurisdiction, and favourable traits are always related to obedience, filial piety, and domestic duties. Like Kempe, the power Fatima’s character wields depends on patriarchal support. People are warned against hurting her for fear of invoking Allah’s wrath—showing how true power, the ability to fend for oneself, still inherently lies with a divine and masculine force. Muhammad is described as her “crown,” Ali her “necklace,” and Hasan and Husayn as her “earrings,” implicitly suggesting that what makes Fatima appear formidable and honourable are primarily the male relations “adorning” her life (21). This inherent dependence on male power effectively undermines any illusory influence Fatima’s depictions wield. As an “[archetype] crafted largely by male authors,” Mary F. Thurlkill, mediaeval Christian and Islamic religion scholar argues, she—like Beatrice—is used as a rhetorical tool to “sharpen communal boundaries and doctrinal distinctions” (23). Fatima shows how women’s honour is gauged by their success in domestic roles, a sphere constructed and regulated by men. This is why the glorification of female idols feels backhanded—it paints women in a deceptively favourable light that strengthens patriarchal values, setting limiting expectations that lock women in the roles of virgins, mothers, and brides. Therefore, Fatima’s portrayal shows the use of female figures to uphold strenuous filial piety, self-effacement, and other feminine virtues intended to be ingrained in Muslim society.
Evidently, through an exploration of preeminent medieval religions and their inspired texts, women’s illusory ability to transcend gendered expectations from divinely endowed qualifications and the propagation of female virtues prescribed by men are revealed. Margery Kempe’s experiences showed the limited successes of female saints who, despite religious piety, depended upon dominant patriarchal
authority; Dante’s Divina Commedia exemplified the enduring generalisations of women in acclaimed theological literature, and Islam’s Fatima synthesises both dilemmas as a glorified figure representing powerful women defined by male jurisdiction. Although representing only three popular texts in the two most dominant religions today, their analysis is valuable in outlining the deep-rooted prejudices held against powerful women even in medieval times. During an age where religion and government largely operated as homologous entities, the limitations—both blatant and insidious—no doubt held a compelling role in shaping the formation of feminine identity. The influence and recognition of women in relation to men has shifted in waves of feminism over the centuries, and manifests in a struggle for equality no less complex today. It is, then, through this questioning and deconstructing of the damaging biases within texts and systems often taken for granted that these discriminations may finally be addressed and dismantled.
Works Cited
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