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Hermits and hairshirts: the social meanings of saintly clothing in the vitae of Godric of Finchale and Wulfric of Haselbury

2002; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 28; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1016/s0304-4181(02)00020-9

1873-1279

D. Alexander,

Historical and Religious Studies of Rome

Abstract Solitary ascetics in the twelfth century were renowned for their ascetic practices, among them the wearing of hairshirts and loricae. These were not merely items of neutral ascetic value but could contain social symbolism. The varying possible social meanings of ascetic clothing are here explored particularly through a comparison of the Vitae of the two well known English holy men Wulfric of Haselbury and Godric of Finchale. The hagiographers of these holy solitaries used their ascetic clothing as one means of highlighting their subjects’ social roles throughout their lives, but it is also argued that the solitaries’ ascetic clothing was perceived during their own lives as marking their distinctive relationships with the world around them, and that these relationships were remembered through miracle stories. Keywords: HermitsAsceticismMedieval monasticismGodric of FinchaleWulfric of Haselbury Notes 1 Chrétien de Troyes, Yvain, ed. T. B. W. Reid (Manchester, 1942), 78–80, lines 2774–2885, and see J. Le Goff, ‘The wilderness in the medieval west’ in J. Le Goff, The medieval imagination, trans. A. Goldhammer (Chicago, 1988), 47–59. 2 For some of the relevant stories from late antiquity see Verba Seniorum, Patrolgia latina, ed. J. P. Migne (Paris 1841–64) [hereafter PL], vol. 73, 855–1062; libellus tertius, ch. 4, 1006–7, ch. 10, 1008, ch. 12, 1010–11. For some of the later medieval stories, including the apocryphal versions of the life of St John Chrysostom, see T. Husband, The wild man: medieval myth and symbolism (New York, 1980), 95–8. The fullest discussion of the wild man in medieval literature remains R. Bernheimer, Wild men in the middle ages: a study in art, sentiment and demonology (Cambridge, Mass., 1952). 3 Libellus de vita et miraculis Sancti Godrici, heremitae de Finchale, auctore Reginaldo monacho Dunelmensi, ed. J. Stephenson, Surtees Society, 20 (1847), [hereafter Vita Godrici], see particularly ch. 10, no. 29 (44), ch. 12, no. 32 (47), and ch. 23, no. 59 (71). 4 For such meaning in late antiquity see L. L. Coon, Sacred fictions: holy women and hagiography in late antiquity (Philidelphia, 1997), 52–70 on male ascetic and episcopal clothing. In the tenth and eleventh centuries, Benedictine black symbolised the rejection of aristocratic life, in a monastic culture which associated poverty with the lack of military trappings, the source of power. Yet the reality of monastic wealth in an expanding economy made this symbolism redundant. Hence, the adoption of white by many reformers; see L. K. Little, Religious poverty and the profit economy (London, 1978), 61–9. Also see G. Constable, The reformation of the twelfth century (Cambridge, 1996), 188–91. 5 See Little, Religious poverty, 35–41 and 70–83, and L. K. Little and B. Rosenwein, ‘Social meaning in monastic and mendicant spiritualities’, Past and Present 63 (1974), 4–32, particularly 16–18 and 26–7. A complimentary perspective can be seen in A. Murray, Reason and society in the middle ages (Oxford, 1978). Murray sees the apostolic model, the saint as socially amphibious, as a response to these new social conditions, 382–401. 6 Marbod of Rennes, Epistola 6, PL 171, 1480–6, esp. 1483. Constable, Reformation, translates clava as ‘stick’ at 26 and ‘staff’ at 192. 7 ‘Vita S. Theobaldi eremita’ in Acta Sanctorum (Brussels, Antwerp, Paris, 1643–) [hereafter AASS] 30 June, 588–95, ch. 3–4, 593. 8 Ibid., ch. 7, 594. 9 Peter Damian, Vita venerabilis viri Dominici loricati, PL 143, 1012–24, ch. 6, 1013, ch. 8, 1014–5. 10 Baldric, Bishop of Dol, Vita B. Roberti, AASS, 25 February, 603–8, ch. 10, 604; Vita S. Guilielmi Firmati, AASS, 24 April, 334–42, ch. 21, 339; Vie de Saint Etienne d’Obazine, ed. Michel Aubrun (Clermont-Ferrand 1970), ch. 2, 45, ch. 5, 52; Vita S. Stephani, PL 204, 1006–46, ch. 17, 1017. 11 The two hermits are already well known through the classic article by H. Mayr-Harting, ‘Functions of a twelfth-century recluse’, History, 60 (1975), 337–52. 12 See Materials for the History of Archbishop Thomas Beckett, Rolls Series, Rerum Britannicarum Medii Aevi Scriptores [RS hereafter], 67, 7 vols. (1875–85); vol. 2, 17, 442. It seems likely that this hairshirt was a necessary fiction, invented early, in order to promote Beckett’s sanctity. 13 ‘Vita Bartholomaei Farnensis’, in Symeonis monachi opera omnia, ed. Thomas Arnold, 2 vols., RS, 75 (1885) I, 295–325, ch. 9, 301. 14 Vita Godrici, ch. 37, no. 79 (91). 15 Ibid., ch. 28, no. 67 (78). 16 Ibid., ch. 32, no. 73 (84). 17 Ibid., ch. 34, no. 75 (87). 18 Reginald of Durham, it can reasonably be assumed, completed Godric’s Vita in the 1170s, as he was already composing it before the hermit’s death in 1170. Although Wulfric died earlier in 1154, the Vita was begun between 1180 and 1184, and was completed well before 1191; Wulfric of Haselbury, by John, abbot of Ford, ed. Dom M. Bell, Somerset Record Society, 47 (1933) [hereafter Vita Wulfrici], xvi–xviii. 19 Vita Wulfrici, ch. 5, 18–19. 20 Ibid., prologus, 8. 21 Vita Godrici, ch. 28, no. 66 (78). 22 Vita Wulfrici, ch. 1, 13; The Cistercian world: monastic writings of the twelfth century, trans. P. Matarasso (London, 1993), 235. 23 Vita Wulfrici, ch. 1, 13–14; Cistercian world, 235, trans. Matarasso. 24 John of Ford is at pains to find a distinction between this period and his previous life of ‘hunting and hawking’; Wulfric observed the virtue of abstinence, not eating meat, except when custom required that he join in the general feasting. Since he ate at his lord’s table this may have been abstinence in the breach rather than the observance; Vita Wulfrici, ch. 1, 14–15. 25 Ibid., ch. 2, 16. 26 Vita Wulfrici, ch. 3, 17. 27 On the twelfth-century awareness of ‘middling’ social groups and social mobility, see Murray, Reason and society, 94–8 and G. Constable, Three studies in medieval religious and social thought (Cambridge, 1995), 342–60. 28 Vita Wulfrici, ch. 4, 18. 29 Ibid., ch. 5, 18–19. 30 Vita Godrici, ch. 1, no. 8 (21–2). 31 Ibid., ch. 3, no. 12 (26). See also ch. 7, no. 22 (37), for an extended discussion of Godric’s obedience to parental authority. 32 Indeed, passages from this part of Godric’s life have been excerpted as an example of a ‘real biography’ exemplifying the merchants life; see G. G. Coulton (ed.), Social life in Britain from the Conquest to the Reformation (Cambridge, 1918), 415–20. 33 Vita Godrici, ch. 6, no. 19 (33). It is remarkable that this is the only hint of personal criticism of Godric as a trader in this section of the Vita, particularly as Reginald later recorded Godric’s own criticism of this period in his life. Godric claimed to Reginald that he had perjured himself, flattered and deceived, and lent at interest; ibid., ch. 140, no. 255 (269). For Reginald this is simply a sign of the saint’s humility. Indeed, Godric goes on to condemn all parts of his life in scalding terms. 34 Ibid., no. 11, 24–5; this passage was not given a chapter number in Stephenson’s edition, as it does not appear in the earlier manuscript version. Given that the matter appears in the ‘Walter’ summary, see ibid., 25, there seems little question that it was originally intended as part of the Vita. The anonymous Harleian MS., as it is called by Stephenson, is a summary of the Vita, attributed to one Walter in a later manuscript; see Richard Sharpe, A handlist of the latin writers of Great Britain and Ireland before 1540 (Brepols, 1997), 707. 35 Reginaldi monachi Dunelmensis libellus de admirandis beati Cuthberti virtutibus quae novellis patratae sunt temporibus, ed. James Raine, Surtees Society, 1 (1835) [hereafter Reg. Libellus]; ch. 30, 67, ‘Nec enim Christianis est pecuniae magnitudo vitae suffragio.’ On the dating of the Libellus, see V. Tudor, ‘The cult of St. Cuthbert in the twelfth century: The Evidence of Reginald of Durham’, in: St. Cuthbert, his cult and his community to A. D. 1200, ed. G. Bonner, D. Rollason and C. Stancliffe (Woodbridge, 1989), 447–67, 448–9. 36 Reg. Libellus, ch. 30, 72. I have translated the adjective ‘supersticiosa ‘ as ‘idolatrous’ rather than ‘superstitious’, as Reginald clearly means that trade in these ‘useless’ goods approaches un-Christian activity and belief, which the modern connotations of ‘superstitious’ do not imply with sufficient clarity. 37 Reginald seems to have been unusual in the form of his criticisms of trade. In scholastic circles criticism normally focused on the merchant’s temptation to lie, for example, in order to gain a greater profit. On the problems of trade in canon law and scholastic thought see J. W. Baldwin, Masters, princes and merchants: the social views of Peter the Chanter and his circle (Princeton, 1970), particularly 262–71, and O. Langholm, Economics in the medieval schools (New York, 1992), 52–65. 38 The sailors’ stories and their relation to the cult of Cuthbert and notions of purgatory are discussed in greater detail in my thesis, ‘Hermits, hagiography and popular culture: a comparative study of Durham Cathedral Priory’s hermits in the twelfth century’ (unpublished PhD, Queen Mary and Westfield College, University of London, 2000), 89–94. 39 Vita Godrici, no. 11, 25. 40 Vita Godrici, ch. 4, no. 14 (29–30). 41 Ibid., ch. 4, no. 14 (28–9). 42 Vita Sancti Godrici Eremitae, Auctore Galfrido, AASS, 5 May, 68–85; no. 3, 70. For the reference to St. Paul, see 2 Corinthians 11:26. 43 Vita Godrici, ch. 4, no. 14 (29). 44 Ibid., ch. 3, no. 12 (26–7). 45 Despite Reginald’s distinction between a spiritual life modelled around a kind of gift exchange and the secular commercial life, my intention here is not to present ‘the gift economy’ and ‘the commercial economy’ as incompatible opposites, which they clearly are not. Gifts survived as a vital part of social–economic networks long after the initial commercialisation and urbanisation of the western European economy in the twelfth century; see Natalie Zemon Davis, The gift in sixteenth century France (Oxford, 2000), particularly 4–15 for an overview of anthropological and historical work on the role of gifts in social and economic life. Nevertheless, the eleventh and twelfth centuries did see an important shift in the balance between commercial and gift exchange, with commercial exchange being seen as a source of pollution particularly by partisans of various generations of religious reform; see Little, Religious poverty, esp. 31–2, 64–9 and 72–3. On the continuum of the gift and commercial economy, see B. Rosenwein, To be the neighbour of Saint Peter (Ithaca, 1989), 95–9. 46 Vita Godrici, ch. 2, no. 10 (24). 47 Vita Godrici, ch. 6, nos. 20–1 (35–6); ‘vir Dei virtutis armamenta praestruebat’. 48 In some circumstances the term colonus can be translated as ‘villein’, and some thirteenth-century legal commentators thought the term could represent a serf. In twelfth-century England, colonus was being used to denote peasants, perhaps above servile status, but who were nonetheless in some state of dependency; see P. R. Hyams, King, lord and peasants in medieval England (Oxford 1980), 263, and 225 for another of Reginald’s own uses of colonus. See ibid., xx, 58n, and 269–70 for general medieval legal discussions of the term, (many thanks to Henry Mayr–Harting for these references). It is in any case clear that Reginald meant the use of the term to refer to Godric’s inferior social status as a peasant. 49 Vita Godrici, ch. 5, no. 18 (32). 50 Ibid., ch. 7, no. 23 (38). 51 Ibid., ch. 10, no. 29 (44). Reginald nevertheless still refers to Godric here as the Lord’s elect. 52 Ibid., ch. 10, no. 28 (43). 53 Ibid., ch. 15, nos. 41–2 (56). 54 It would be unsurprising to find a Benedictine monk such as Reginald disapproving of a hermit who lived a wandering ascetic life without any training or authority to guide him. However, Reginald was writing the hagiography of just such an individual, and his attitude towards Godric is therefore complex. I argue elsewhere that Reginald’s presentation of Godric’s asceticism does effectively criticise the hermit’s independent life through presenting his asceticism, while being ‘wonderful’ in some respects, as also being unacceptably extreme; see ‘Hermits, hagiography and popular culture’, 70–8. 55 Ibid., ch. 27, no. 64 (76). 56 Ibid., ch. 28, no. 66 (77–8). 57 Ibid., ch. 64, no. 137 (146). Other later mentions of his hairshirt are notably lacking in descriptive rhetoric; see Ibid., ch. 118, no. 228 (241). 58 Ibid., ch. 29, no. 69 (79–80). 59 Ibid., ch. 38, nos. 82–3 (93). On medieval imagery linking peasants and excrement see P. Freedman, Images of the medieval peasant (Stanford, 1999), 150–4. 60 Vita Godrici, ch. 114, no. 220 (234). 61 See Ibid., ch. 79, no. 170 (179–80), where Godric understands Latin. Also ch. 94, nos. 193–4 (203–4) and ch. 96, no. 196 (206–7), where he understands French. 62 See, for example, the terse mention of a hairshirt in Jerome, Vita S. Hilarionis eremitae, PL, 23, 29–54, ch. 10, 33. 63 Centuries earlier, the hermit Guthlac, who did wear animal skins, is not described as wearing a cilicium; Felix’s Life of Saint Guthlac, ed. and trans. B. Colgrave (Cambridge, 1956), ch. 28, 92–5. 64 Vita Godrici, ch. 61, no. 131 (140); ‘cilicio aspere satis contexto’. 65 Peasant clothing simply does not survive in the archaeological record, and it is necessary to infer its nature from other sources. See R. Fossier, Peasant life in the medieval west, trans. J. Vale (Oxford, 1988), 78; W. Rosener, Peasants in the middle ages, trans. A. Stutzer (Cambridge, 1992), 86–91. 66 Le Goff, ‘Vestimentary and alimentary codes in Erec and Enide ‘ in: Medieval imagination, 132–50; Chrétien de Troyes, Oeuvres Complètes (Gallimard, 1994), Eric and Enide, 3–169. See lines 1556–9 for Enide’s poverty of clothing, and lines 1928–31 for the magnificent knights. 67 Acta canonizationis Sancti Dominici, ed. A. Walz, Monumenta ordinis fratrum praedicatorum historica, 16 (Rome, 1935), 89–194; no. 16, 181. Another woman also wove him a hairshirt, but the material is not specified; no. 15, 181. 68 Vita Roberti de Arbrissello, ch. 11, 605. 69 Vita Wulfrici, ch. 9, 22–3. 70 Ibid., ch. 10, 23–4. 71 See, for example, Ibid., chs. 14, 16 and 17 on Brictric. 72 Ibid., ch. 81, 108–9. 73 Ibid., ch. 1, 15 and ch. 6, 20. 74 Ibid., ch. 45, 61–3. John of Ford may have deliberately excised mention of Montacute from his account of Wulfric in order to augment in comparison the role of the Cistercians of Ford in the anchorite’s life. 75 Vita Godrici, ch. 16, nos. 44–5 (58–9). 76 The hermitage is recorded in the Whitby cartulary as being part of the original grant, but this document is late twelfth-century, and could easily have been doctored. Charters show the hermitage later repeatedly being confirmed to the Abbey; Cartularium Abbathiae de Whiteby, vol. I, ed. J. C. Atkinson, Surtees Society, 69 (1879), 3, and 22–5. The antiquarian John Burton recorded a surprisingly precise tradition of a hermit who was killed by a Ralph de Perci at Eskdale, on 15 October, 1160; J. Burton, Monasticon Eboracense (York, 1758), 78–9. The story also does have a fundamental similarity with twelfth-century stories of hermits and hunters, on which see B. Golding, ‘The hermit and the hunter’, in: The cloister and the world: essays in medieval history in honour of Barbara Harvey, ed. J. Blair and B. Golding (Oxford, 1996), 95–117; he cites Godric and Burton’s story on 112. It seems likely that Eskdale hermitage was, in the twelfth century, the site of an interesting local hermit tradition, which is now almost wholly unrecoverable. 77 Vita Godrici, ch. 17, no. 48 (62), and ch. 20, no. 54 (66). The bishop was Ranulph Flambard. The arrival at Finchale is thus placed between 1099 and 1128, but was probably shortly after 1110, see also Stephenson’s notes 4 and 5, Ibid., 59. 78 Ibid., ch. 26, nos. 62–3 (74–5). 79 Ibid., ch. 23, no. 59 (71). 80 Ibid., ch. 24, no. 60 (72). 81 Ibid., ch. 25, no. 61 (73). 82 Ibid., ch. 26, 74. 83 In this respect, Reginald may have been stating the case for the way of life of the old Benedictine monasteries, against that of the Cistercians, whose conception of monastic life was based on the idea of total withdrawal from secular influence. Certainly, the Benedictine, Rupert of Deutz, had earlier in the century defended the position of Abbeys dependent upon gifts in return for spiritual services; see J. H. Van Engen, Rupert of Deutz (London, 1983), 300–2. Reginald could be seen as advancing such a case by implication through his description of Godric’s life. 84 See Vita Godrici, ch. 53, no. 115, ch. 55, nos. 119–121, and ch. 71, no. 150, and see also Henry Mayr-Harting’s observations on the eminent suitability of John the Baptist as Godric’s patron saint in Mayr-Harting, ‘Function’, 349. 85 Ibid., ch. 71, no. 150 (160–1). 86 On the importance of the holy man’s ‘liminal’ status as an outsider see C. Holdsworth, ‘Hermits and the power of the frontier’ in: Saints and saints’ lives, ed. Keith Bate et al., Reading Medieval Studies, 16 (1990), 55–76, and Mayr-Harting, ‘Function’, 340–1. 87 For an analysis of Godric’s posthumous cult, see R. C. Finucane, Miracles and pilgrims: popular beliefs in medieval England (London, 1977), 126–7, 142–3, and 166–7. 88 As Godric settled at Finchale perhaps shortly after 1112, after sixteen years as a merchant, and some few years further as a pilgrim and hermit, it is likely that he was nearing forty at least. By one reckoning, he was aged between 42 and 47 by 1112; see V. Tudor, ‘Reginald of Durham and S. Godric of Finchale’ (unpublished PhD thesis, University of Reading, 1979), 376–7. Godric accepted some form of oversight by Prior Roger of Durham, who was prior between 1138–49; see Vita Godrici, ch. 58, no. 127 (135–6). 89 One ‘noble citizen’ of Durham did take to visiting Godric; see Vita Godrici, ch. 53, no. 115 (123–4). There is also a knight who is friendly with the holy man in later life; Ibid., chs. 153 and 162. However, secular visitors are as likely to be poor as not. Some low status people even come from Durham, see for example the story of a serf accused of a serious crime; Ibid., ch. 86, nos. 180–2 (189–91). 90 Ibid.,, ch. 153, no. 275, and ch. 162, no. 290. 91 Ibid.,, ch. 104, nos. 206–7, and ch. 131, no. 242. A monk of Durham is cured of stomach problems in ch. 142, no. 258, where the belt is labelled ‘rusticanus’. Here Godric’s belt could be a reflection of Saint Cuthbert’s more sumptuous belt, which cured a nun of a headache; Vita Sancti Cuthberti Auctore Beda in: Two Lives of Saint Cuthbert, ed. and trans. B. Colgrave (Cambridge, 1940), ch. 23, 230–4. There is no obvious reference to Bede in any of the stories of Godric’s belt. 92 Vita Godrici, ch. 130, no. 241, ch. 80, no. 171, and ch. 84, no. 177 (186) respectively. 93 For Wulfric’s feeding miracles, which are associated, by John of Ford, with his status as a priest, see Vita Wulfrici, chs. 37, 41, 44.