The Politics of Mysticism: Elisabeth of Spalbeek in Context
Elisabeth of Spalbeek (fl. 1246–1304) was one of the mulieres religiosae who flourished in the Low Countries during the thirteenth century. Although she is known today almost exclusively for her stigmata and her performance of Christ's Passion, I will argue that she provides an exceptional exam...
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
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| Published: |
Cambridge Univ. Press
2008
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| In: |
Church history
Year: 2008, Volume: 77, Issue: 2, Pages: 285-317 |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (JSTOR) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Parallel Edition: | Electronic
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| Summary: | Elisabeth of Spalbeek (fl. 1246–1304) was one of the mulieres religiosae who flourished in the Low Countries during the thirteenth century. Although she is known today almost exclusively for her stigmata and her performance of Christ's Passion, I will argue that she provides an exceptional example of the spiritual networking described by scholars such as John Coakley and Anneke Mulder-Bakker. As they have shown, medieval holy women—recluses and anchoresses included—functioned only within tightly woven spiritual networks that connected other mulieres religiosae, sympathetic clerics, and powerful nobles who provided economic and political support in return for the women's prayers and spiritual authority. No one has analyzed Elisabeth's network in this light in part because the chief source for her life—the text written by Abbot Philip of Clairvaux, who visited Elisabeth in 1266/7—omits the proper names of most people surrounding Elisabeth and fails to mention many of the people with whom she must have come in contact. In addition, major documents concerning Elisabeth have, until now, escaped any collective analysis, so we have been unable to place Elisabeth in any context. Through a painstaking review of all the pertinent documents, however, I have succeeded in uncovering Elisabeth's political and spiritual alliances, allowing me to study her in her milieu and to provide a detailed analysis of her possible secular and religious influence. I argue that she was actively engaged in building and extending her own network, and in my consideration of the evidence for this “politics of mysticism,” I offer a perspective on Elisabeth that has led me to reinterpret her role in the last recorded event of her life, the French court battle between Queen Marie of Brabant and the chamberlain Pierre de la Broce. |
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| ISSN: | 1755-2613 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Church history
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1017/S0009640708000553 |