From Arnulf of Lisieux to Stefania of San Silvestro: A 12th-Century Letter and Its Hagiographic Afterlife

This is a story about a single letter and its circulation. It began as a letter addressed to an unnamed nun in France in the mid-twelfth century, and made its way into a vita of a Franciscan holy woman in Italy in the late thirteenth century. The letter was composed by Arnulf, the bishop of Lisieux from 1141 to 1181. Arnulf later included it in the various collections of his letters that he prepared for publication. Although transmission of Arnulf's letter in Italy was very minimal, it somehow got into the hands of Stefania, a member of the Sorores minores inclusae at San Silvestro in Capite (Rome), and it became part of her story about the founder of her community, Margherita Colonna. From Arnulf's hand to Stefania's, the letter was transformed to meet the needs of widely disparate audiences.

The outlines of the life of Arnulf of Lisieux are fairly well established. He had prepared for the clerical life, beginning his education by 1122 in Sées. Thereafter, his higher education can only be indirectly traced, with evidence that he studied at Chartres, Rome or Bologna (in 1133), and Paris.² As bishop of Lisieux, he was involved in many of the political and ecclesiastical conflicts of the mid-twelfth century. In addition to his letters, which have been mined for evidence about the papal schism of 1159, the confrontation between Henry II and Thomas Becket, and the succession politics surrounding Henry II, Arnulf also composed a series of sermons, a collection of poems, and a polemical tract addressing the papal schism.³ Among Arnulf's 140 letters, only one was addressed to a woman. The addressee is noted in the rubric only as "G sanctimonialis," anomalous among Arnulf's letters which are otherwise addressed to well-known historical figures from kings and popes to bishops, abbots, archdeacons, and university masters.⁴ This anonymity is particularly noteworthy because Arnulf addresses G as a would-be sister-in-law; she had been the betrothed of his brother, who died before they could marry. After his death she had become a nun.

In addition to the unspecified addressee, the whole letter floats in a certain haze of unmoored anonymity. The brother's name, the nun's convent, and any chronological references are lacking. Frank Barlow suggests that Arnulf wrote the letter in 1150; in general when there is no chronological indication in a letter or external evidence, Barlow assumes a chronological order according to the sequence of letters in the manuscripts.⁵ Carolyn Poling Schriber rejects Barlow's organization of Arnulf's letters but retains 1150 for the letter to G.⁶ The lack of specificity in the letter supports the views of Barlow and Schriber that Arnulf originally published his letters in a collection with a view to their stylistic value rather than as a memorial of his deeds, even perhaps expecting that his accomplishments as a writer could in effect serve as an exemplar of letter-writing technique.⁷ But even so the letter to G is less tied to identifiable specifics than any of Arnulf's other letters, and thus perhaps not surprisingly is what Barlow describes as "the most rhetorical letter Arnulf has left."⁸ Barlow also states that the letter to G seems to have been Arnulf's most popular letter, but he offers no evidence for this intriguing claim.⁹

The letter begins with a declaration of the intimacy between Arnulf and his brother while he was still alive: "My spirit rested in him because I truly thought of him as another me (me alterum). Not a fleshly identity proceeding from the same stock, but an inseparable unity of consenting spirits joined him to me."¹⁰ Arnulf also affirms his attachment to G. He mentions the various letters that he has received from her (none are extant), letters that not only revive his grief over his brother, but that also kindle a flame of affection for her, for he recognizes in her a companion...