The Bride of Christ Goes to Hell: Metaphor and Embodiment in the Lives of Pious Women, 200–1500 (review)

In The Bride of Christ Goes to Hell, Dyan Elliott pursues themes addressed in earlier books: Spiritual Marriage: Sexual Abstinence in Medieval Wedlock (Princeton, 1993); Fallen Bodies: Pollution, Sexuality and Demonology in the Middle Ages (Philadelphia, 1998); and Proving Woman: Female Spirituality and Inquisitional Culture in the Later Middle Ages (Princeton, 2004). Elliott employs anthropological, feminist, literary, and psychoanalytic perspectives to interpret medieval texts related to female bodies and religious experience. She argues that the metaphor “bride of Christ,” as applied to virginal female religious, progresses in a downward spiral from symbol, to text, to embodiment, setting the stage for the eventual condemnation of women accused of mistaking the devil for Christ. Elliott further argues that as women embraced a “spouse of Christ” persona, some began to exhibit behaviors based on literal interpretations of the Song of Songs, behaviors that led ecclesial authorities to become suspicious of, and hostile to, female mysticism. Elliott writes, “This book is in many ways a testimony to the mystical marriage’s predatory symbolism” (p. 2).

To build her case, Elliott examines texts from the early church to the late Middle Ages. Key factors in her argument include the development of a burgeoning affective piety, a focus on the human Christ, devotion to the Passion and Eucharist, the erotic language of the Song of Songs, and Mary as the ultimate bride. In each of seven chapters, Elliott examines a central theme, highlighting the complexity and tensions of diverse attitudes toward marriage, virginity, sexuality, and women. She begins with the thesis that Tertullian’s use of the bride metaphor functioned to exert control over consecrated virgins. As virginity (and the intact body) acquired more status (second only to martyrdom), patristic authors emphasized modest dress, strict discipline, seclusion, and clerical oversight (St. Cyprian of Carthage, Origen, St. Athanasius of Alexandria, St. Ambrose, St. Augustine). Elliott then turns to the Barbarian invasions and a discussion of the sixth- and seventh-century tension between virginal and nonvirginal brides (Thurigian Queen Radegun; Frankish noble matron Rictrude). Peter Abelard and Héloise embody the twelfth-century linkage of physical and mystical marriage and the emergence of monastic heterosexual couples whose spiritual bond simulated the intimacy of an actual marriage. St. Bernard of Clairvaux’s Sermons on the Song of Songs (1135–53) is noted as a major influence on the sensual, embodied, and erotized image of the bride of Christ found in the literature of the Beguines. Elliott concludes that the trajectory of the bride image culminates in a growing suspicion of female spirituality. The final chapter,“The Descent into Hell,” argues that texts by John Gerson and John Nider (Malleus maleficarum) invert the image of the mystical marriage amidst the rise of charges of magic, sorcery, and witchcraft against women religious. Women’s experience of a mystical marriage with Christ was no longer seen as divine revelation but as demonic activity.

Elliott often reads “against” well-established positions and textual readings (p. 195), and her use of literary and psychoanalytical frameworks will likely fuel further discussion about the appropriateness and success of such an approach when applied to medieval texts. For example, when does applying Freudian concepts such as repression, transference, and countertransference shed light on the meaning of medieval texts, and when does it obscure or erase it? Elliott is to be commended for presenting a provocative, complex argument. However, arguing a thesis (rather than simply describing textual content in its context) leads her to a good deal of conjecture (pp. 168, 170, 209, 212), problematic moral judgments (p. 246), questionable imputation of motives (pp. 168, 170, 209), and overgeneralization. For example, Jean Gerson is presumed to have used his considerable scholarly and literary talents to “undermine female mysticism” by “manipulating metaphors and images” in “flexible and subtle ways” (p. 246...