Signs of Devotion: The Cult of St Æthelthryth in Medieval England, 695-1615 (review)

Although Signs of Devotion is no longer unique in offering a "longitudinal study of an early Anglo-Saxon cult" (p. 5), it is nevertheless a welcome addition to an area which is gaining increased currency in Anglo-Saxon studies. In this monograph, Virginia Blanton emphasizes the multi-disciplinary nature of hagiology and offers an examination of the cult of Æthelthryth that, although primarily concerned with the intersection of textual and visual culture, also places the cult within its historical and liturgical context. The book is chronologically ordered and yet each chapter could be read quite independently; in fact, it is the depth of coverage within each chapter rather than any sense of the chronological development of the cult that is the strength of this study. For this reason, I shall offer a review of each chapter in turn in what follows.

As is so often the case with figures from the early Anglo-Saxon church, the story of Æthelthryth begins with Bede, whose account is the focus of the first chapter. In sharp contrast to the other native saints portrayed in the Historia Ecclesiastica, Bede pays little attention to Æthelthryth's success as an abbess or her monastic career; rather, Blanton argues, it is the virgin's control of her body and her successful suppression of all physical desire that draws the interest of her hagiographer. The longest part of the vita is dedicated to the dramatic recounting of Æthelthryth's deathbed scene and the translation that subsequently confirms her saintly status. Blanton highlights the manner in which Bede positions himself at a distance from this account, adopting the stance of the objective historian and allowing the doctor, Cynefrith, to speak. The first-person narrative is a rare occurrence in the Historia, and, as Blanton points out, therefore worthy of note. Bede allows the doctor to assign meaning to the saint's healed wound and scar, which is perhaps one of the most enduring of the many signs, visual and rhetorical, by which the cult of Æthelthryth is defined. The scar is a mark of identity, a recollection of vanities past, but also an indication of God's present forgiveness: it is the sign of a body tested, punished, and perfected. Blanton suggests, moreover, that the scar is a sign of the sealed body, "of her continued virginity, of what cannot be seen (or what should not be revealed) . . . Literally, it becomes the site of investigation and ultimately the evidence for the abbess" purity (p. 45). Bede's interest in the scar as a visual sign of invisible sanctity is then placed within a wider context: Bede's account of Æthelthryth is compared to Gregory of Nyssa's Life of Macrina, and the enduring importance of Æthelthryth's wound in late medieval iconography is demonstrated.

In the subsequent two chapters, Blanton examines the way in which in the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth centuries, texts and imagery portraying Æthelthryth were adapted so as to suit the needs of a male monastic audience. Under Æthelwold, Æthelthryth-as virgin and abbess-became "the premier female saint of the Benedictine reform" (p. 74). Her position as a link between the universal and native saints, which Blanton notes in the previous chapter when discussing Bede's metrical Life, is developed by Ælfric in his Lives of Saints, where her conjugal chastity links her to established universal saints such as Daria and Chrysanthus and Julian and Basilissa. Likewise, Blanton notes similarities in the Benedictional of Æthelwold between the portrayal of Æthelthryth and the image of Christ that work to place the female saint in the highest echelons of the choir of saints and establish her position in the church hierarchy. The use of a male face for the image of the saint in the Benedictional de-sexualizes and androgynizes Æthelthryth, transforming her from the historical woman, wife, and queen into a symbol or sign of monastic virginity, a...