Poets, Saints, and Visionaries of the Great Schism, 1378-1417 (review)

Renate Blumenfeld-Kosinski's Poets, Saints, and Visionaries of the Great Schism, 1378–1417 constitutes a valuable addition to the vibrant field of scholarship on later medieval religion. Although Blumenfeld-Kosinski clearly discusses the complex history of the Schism, her focus is neither on papal politics nor on ecclesiastical history. Rather, by exploring texts (primarily from France and Italy) produced by prophets, visionaries, and poets, she explores what she calls the imaginaire of the Great Schism, a term that "refers to the ideas, conceptions, and even prejudices that informed the creation of texts and images in a given period" (13). Her method is to take "the Great Schism as a problem to illuminate medieval thought processes" (12), in order to examine contemporary experiences, understandings, and interpretations of the Schism.

Poets, Saints, and Visionaries consists of six chapters, an introduction, and a conclusion. After providing a historical overview and setting out her methodology in the introduction, Blumenfeld-Kosinski's first chapter, entitled "A Twelfth-Century Prelude: Hildegard of Bingen, Elisabeth of Schönau, John of Salisbury, and the Schism of 1159," addresses this earlier schism as a precursor, taking it as an opportunity to set up issues and problems that will be of interest throughout the book. In discussing John of Salisbury's writings about the papal election of 1159, Blumenfeld-Kosinski introduces the theme of emotional responses to political events. One of the strengths of the book throughout is that she takes seriously the historical and cultural importance of emotion as experienced by individuals inhabiting a variety of social positions. Though John of Salisbury wrote directly and passionately about the schism of 1159, as did Elizabeth of Schönau, Hildegard of Bingen spoke of it only evasively, "more implicitly than explicitly" (26). However, her connection of schism, apocalyptic language, and ecclesiastical reform does foreshadow later prophecies. Blumenfeld-Kosinski observes that none of the three figures discussed in chapter one were laypeople, though many of the visionaries and prophets of the Great Schism were. Indeed, her focus in subsequent chapters on a range of figures including non-aristocratic laypeople provides a welcome addition to our understanding of historical events often approached solely through considerations of popes, cardinals, and kings.

Chapters two and three are linked, treating saints and visionaries in the first instance from the 1360s through the beginning of the Great Schism and in the second instance from the later years of the Great Schism. In chapter two Blumenfeld-Kosinski discusses revelations concerned with the papacy's return to Rome from Avignon, noting that revelations are "a privileged site for an explanation of the medieval imaginaire" (33). She concerns herself with the three "most influential voices" (35) advocating for the return to Rome (Pedro of Aragon, St. Birgitta of Sweden, and St. Catherine of Siena), analyzing their "major themes and strategies" (36). All were passionately devoted to the Roman papacy, and they were willing to take substantial personal risks, and even (especially in St. Catherine's case) to undergo intense suffering, to achieve it. Pedro and St. Birgitta received straightforward divine messages concerning the necessity of the papacy's return to Rome and the dire consequences (death, the dispersal of papal lands) that would follow should the pope refuse to go back to Rome and remain there. Gregory XI did return to Rome, largely through the influence of St. Catherine of Siena, who wrote "forceful" letters to persuade him (43), though she could not foresee his untimely death soon after his return to Rome. Unlike Birgitta, she did not employ threats; rather, she appealed "to the pope's political reason and sense of obligation" (46).

In chapter three, Blumenfeld-Kosinski begins by considering a figure quite different from the aristocratic Pedro and Birgitta, or the well-connected Catherine of Siena. Constance of Rabastans, whose lineage is unknown, had "dramatic visions between 1384 and 1386" (62). Though she came from a Clementist region of France, she supported...