The Life of Saint Douceline, a Beguine of Provence (review)

198 Reviews It is difficult to overestimate therichnessof this book; it will be plumbed for years to educate and to provoke scholars into new areas of research. Buy this book for your shelves: you may need i t for your own research but, more importantly, this is a book to read for sheer pleasure. The author's respect for other ways of thinking, his clear-sighted appraisal which eschews dogmatism, but always offersfreshperceptions, makes this a learned, scholarly, and always fascinating book of delights. Rosemary Dunn School ofHumanities James Cook University Garay, Kathleen and Madeleine Jeay, ed. and trans., The Life of Saint Douceline, a Beguine of Provence (Library of Medieval Women), Cambridge, D.S. Brewer, 2001; cloth; pp. viii, 180; R R P US$75.00; ISBN 0859916294. With the translation of this Provengal vita, English-language scholars and teachers now have access to a life story which rivals that of Christina the Astonishing in its seemingly extra-human characteristics. While the Beguine Christina is famous today for such bodily wonders as emerging unscathed from bread ovens (and, indeed, for throwing herself voluntarily into the ovens in the first place), the southern French Douceline de Digne will undoubtedly now gain similar fame as the Beguine who would spend entire days levitating in church, not touching the ground except with her two big toes. Sometimes she was suspended even higher in the air, with enough space below her that the crowds of people she attracted were able to kiss the soles of her feet. At other times she would cry aloud in a state of ecstasy,floatingabove the ground with her arms outstretched in a cross. O n these occasions she would see the sovereign power of God and, through some kind of unspecified gestures of her arms, she would pass this knowledge on to her female community. This unique w o m a n lived from approximately 1215 to 1274. She founded three communities ofBeguines, at Roubaud, Hyeres, and Marseilles, and presided over all three as leader. Her vita (Li vida de la benaurada sancta Doucelina) survives in a single manuscript and was composed by Douceline's successor as prioress, Philippine Porcellet. The Life shows the very strong connections between the southern French Beguines and the Franciscans, with Douceline's Reviews 199 communities attending the local Franciscan church and with Douceline frequently stressing the absolute priority of poverty in the Beguine way of life. But although Douceline preferred to concentrate on poverty, charity and service, she became known in the wider community for her raptures. Whenever she heard God spoken of, or indeed whenever she experienced any kind of pleasure at all, then this would trigger her extraordinary ecstasies. The raptures were so strong, and their effects on Douceline's body so obvious to onlookers, that they could not remain secret. Significantly, Douceline did not want to experience these embodied raptures. Even more significantly, the tactics she used to avoid raptures were in themselves tactics focussed on the body. To stop herself hearing any words that might precipitate the raptures, Douceline would prick herself with needles until her hands were torn and blue. Ironically, once these wounds were discovered, Douceline's fame extended even further. The vita emphasises all the lay power-brokers w h o were impressed by Douceline's raptures, particularly stressing Douceline's role in encouraging Charles ofAnjou, count of Provence and king of Sicily, to restore the Franciscans to political favour on the strength of her reputation. On the other hand, not everyone was impressed by Douceline's bodily wonders and we read many instances of social tension, just as w e do in the vita ofChristina the Astonishing. Critics would test Douceline's raptures by poking her with shoemakers' awls and throwing pellets of molten lead at her. Thus w e have the important situation where Douceline's raptures were manifested by her bodily actions and, equally, the sceptics' tests were also concentrated on bodily actions. There remains the unavoidable fact that Douceline's spiritual credentials (either positive or negative) were always premised on what Douceline did with her body and, more to the point, what other people were able to detect her doing...