Between Virginity and Spiritual Espousals: Models of Feminine Sainthood in the Christian West in the Middle Ages

Abstract

If less than 10 per cent of the saints worshipped in the West from the fifth to the twelfth century were women, from the second half of the twelfth century the picture begins to change, and this reversed tendency becomes even more pronounced after 1200. Women, even saints, were still perceived in terms of their ability to disown their femininity and emulate qualities of men. The worship of Mary and the growing emphasis on the feminine qualities of love and compassion in place of heroic self-sacrifice allowed women to be recog nised as saints in their own right. Overcoming handicaps entailed by their sex, a whole host of holy women, towards the end of the Middle Ages, were able to devise new forms of sainthood, combining evangelical freedom with a sometimes painful faithfulness to the Church.