A Seductive Story: The Medieval "Bestseller" and the Legend of a "Rebel" Saint

By: Donna Ferguson / BBC
Translation: Telegrafi.com

She was old. She had dark skin. In her youth she had been debauched and had enjoyed sex. But after rejecting the world and spending 47 years living naked in the desert, Saint Mary of Egypt became a wise and virtuous teacher of Christian scriptures—or so her XNUMXth-century readers believed.

When this extraordinary legend of Saint Mary was first translated into Old English from Latin – more than a thousand years ago – it became the medieval equivalent of a bestseller, being copied many times and translated into Old Icelandic, Welsh, Irish and later Middle English.

Now, the University of Cambridge is trying to unravel the mystery of how and why the story of this "rebel" saint became so appealing to readers in 11th-century England, as well as reaffirm her rightful role in history as a role model for medieval English Christians.

“There has never been a deep study of why this legend resonated so strongly in England,” says Alexandra Zhirnova, a Cambridge scholar who will give a lecture on Saint Mary of Egypt on March 22 as part of the Cambridge Festival – an exhibition of research being carried out at the university. “I want to bring this story to light because it refutes many of the negative stereotypes we hear about the Middle Ages, and the idea that medieval Europeans had only negative perceptions of women, especially dark-skinned women. My lecture sheds light on how Mary was accepted as a saint in England, precisely at a time when the Church was very concerned about gender norms and how women should behave,” Zhirnova explains to the BBC.

At that time, canonization was not a formal church process. “It just happened when people started to venerate someone as a saint and their legend became known to many people,” Zhirnova says. Saint Mary of Egypt, who is believed to have lived in 4th-century Egypt, already had the status of a saint throughout Europe. “But it was only when the story was translated into Old English that it became accessible to ordinary people in England,” she adds.

In her lecture, Zhirnova will argue that the legend directly challenges common perceptions of what a holy woman should look like, contradicting the misogynistic teachings of men of the time, who emphasized passive obedience to the Church, especially for women, as well as strict enforcement of rules on women's sexual behavior.

The story is told from the perspective of an arrogant monk, who claimed to have met Mary in the desert after 40 years of her living there naked.

“She rejected the world to the point where she didn’t wear clothes anymore, because she didn’t need them,” Zhirnova says. Then she became “like a priest” to the monk, explaining to him what was wrong with his relationship with God and quoting scriptures to him—even though she had never read the Bible. Although she had been promiscuous in her youth—the story reveals that she had had many lovers—the monk admired her and realized that she had not known what it meant to be a true Christian.

“She is presented as an example of extraordinary Christian spirituality,” Zhirnova points out. But, at the time, the most famous female saints were usually virgins who were canonized after persecution for their choice to remain chaste and devote themselves to God.

The existence of Saint Mary – a sexually experienced, naked, elderly Egyptian woman – completely defies this stereotype. However, Zhirnova says: “The story suggests that this woman, who breaks every rule set by the Church for holy women, is a lesson for men on how to be better Christians.”

Although she is described as having “dark skin,” it is not entirely clear whether Saint Mary was black or not, Zhirnova says.

The Old English translation describes it as “very black in body, due to the heat of the sun.”

However, medieval readers did not understand or perceive racial differences in the way we do today. “At that time, they believed that people with dark skin were dark because they lived in sunny places. For example, Ethiopia is a sunny place, so people there have darker skin,” Zhirnova explains.

Whether Saint Mary was born with dark skin or acquired it through living outdoors may not have been an issue that medieval readers would have been concerned with. “I don’t know for sure to what extent they would have considered it important to make a distinction between someone born with dark skin and someone who got it from exposure to the sun, but they would certainly have seen her as someone with a different culture,” Irina Dumitrescu, professor of Medieval English Studies at the University of Bonn, tells the BBC.

According to her, “what is important about her dark skin is that it shows that the culture of medieval England was more cosmopolitan than most people think. They had wider trade than is commonly believed and were interested in stories from North Africa and the Middle East – so their imaginations included these regions.”

She adds that light skin was idealized in women in medieval England and associated with virginity: “There was often an association between light color – for example, golden hair – and chastity. So Mary’s darker skin could be associated with a kind of sensuality. This sense of separation is present.”

Dumitrescu believes that the depiction of Saint Mary’s “debauched” youth may be one of the reasons the legend was so popular with medieval readers. “It’s an incredibly sensual story,” she says. “There’s a lot of erotic detail. It’s about the ship’s journey from Egypt to the Holy Land and how she taught everyone on the ship unspeakable dirty acts. It’s kind of brazen and intriguing.”

She thinks another reason why this extraordinary legend became so popular is because “it is something very human to want to know that God loves even imperfect people… The story of Mary of Egypt has a very important lesson that cannot be learned from stories about holy virgins – and that is the grace of God. The Church has always needed stories of sinners who can be saved.”

At a time when many of the monks who read and copied history lived all locked up inside an institution, the figure of Saint Mary represented “a disturbing figure,” according to Dumitrescu, and this may have been part of why she attracted others.

Unlike other stories of saints who went to the desert to devote themselves to God (an ascetic practice known as desert monasticism), Mary of Egypt did not stay in one place. “She is very unusual, because she is not even a solitary nun living in a little cave. She just wanders through the desert. She moves freely. She becomes one with nature. She is naked. She does not look like an ordinary person, in any way, not even in the way that hermits usually live,” says Dumitrescu. “She is a rebel.”

For devout Christians who lived “very regular” lives, the idea of ​​an exotic, naked woman wandering freely in the desert and communing with God would have been exhilarating and “somewhat seductive,” Dumitrescu adds. “She’s a pretty anti-institutional figure. And I think it’s absolutely fascinating to have a vision of this woman who is nothing like what women were supposed to be—and yet, God loves her more than anyone else.”

Zhirnova's research suggests that this message may have been at the heart of the legend's popularity in medieval England. At the same time that the story was being translated and circulated, a power struggle was taking place within the Church, which threatened to limit the freedoms of Christian women who lived in monasteries and devoted themselves to God.

Benedictine reformers, such as the English abbot, Ælric of Aynsham, were calling for men and women who worked together in monasteries – often under the direction of a woman – to be separated. “At that time, in England, there was a long tradition of what were called ‘double monasteries,’ that is, mixed-gender communities. But the reformers said that this should not be allowed, because it created temptations for both sides,” Zhirnova explains.

These reformers wanted to make virgin monastic women less visible, for their own protection, by isolating and separating them from the monks. Wise and elderly women, who held important positions in monasteries, would be particularly affected. “Instead of holding these prominent positions, they had to be locked within the walls of the monastery and not allowed to leave,” Zhirnova says. “This also limited many of the activities in which religious women could engage, such as teaching, writing manuscripts, and preaching to the common people.”

The legend of Saint Mary of Egypt, known as The Life of Mary, may have been translated or circulated by people who disagreed with these reforms, Zhirnova believes. “In this legend, we see a woman who completely resists standard notions of authority. Women were not allowed to teach others – but, Mary lectured.”

Saint Mary also challenged the common standards of the time for the beauty and sexual behavior of female saints, such as those presented in the stories that Ælric translated, at the same time as the The Life of Mary“At this time, in medieval England, white skin was associated with beauty, and most of the saints that readers had heard about had white skin, youth, and beauty – these qualities went hand in hand,” says Zhirnova.

This tells us that medieval people in England were open to models of holiness that weren’t white, young, and obedient. “One of the key aspects of Mary is that she resists this objectification of female holiness. She deliberately doesn’t fit into this standard. And I think her dark skin is part of that – part of her image as a woman who rejects all expectations of holy women.”

Zhirnova hopes her study will achieve what she did. The Life of Mary in 11th-century England, making Saint Mary — and her way of being a “devout Christian” — more widely known to the public. Just as Saint Mary challenged the norms of the church of her time, history suggests that she has more spiritual authority than the virginal man she taught,” Zhirnova says. “She is a rebellious saint.”

Zhirnova also hopes that her study will challenge some of the stereotypes about medieval England that are often used by the far right. “A lot of people on the far right use the Middle Ages as an example of a time when everyone was white and white skin was considered ideal,” Zhirnova says. “In the life of Saint Mary, we see a saint who did not adhere to medieval concepts of Christian spirituality as something white. This shows us that medieval people in England were open to models of holiness that were not white, young and obedient. They were open to the other side that Mary represented.” /Telegraph/