Around the year 1215, female mystics and their sacramental
devotion were among orthodoxy's most sophisticated weapons in the
fight against heresy. Holy women's claims to be in direct
communication with God placed them in positions of unprecedented
influence. Yet by the end of the Middle Ages female mystics were
frequently mistrusted, derided, and in danger of their lives. The
witch hunts were just around the corner.
While studies of sanctity and heresy tend to be undertaken
separately, "Proving Woman" brings these two avenues of inquiry
together by associating the downward trajectory of holy women with
medieval society's progressive reliance on the inquisitional
procedure. Inquisition was soon used for resolving most questions
of proof. It was employed for distinguishing saints and heretics;
it underwrote the new emphasis on confession in both sacramental
and judicial spheres; and it heralded the reintroduction of torture
as a mechanism for extracting proof through confession.
As women were progressively subjected to this screening, they
became ensnared in the interlocking web of proofs. No aspect of
female spirituality remained untouched. Since inquisition
determined the need for tangible proofs, it even may have fostered
the kind of excruciating illnesses and extraordinary bodily changes
associated with female spirituality. In turn, the physical
suffering of holy women became tacit support for all kinds of
earthly suffering, even validating temporal mechanisms of justice
in their most aggressive forms. The widespread adoption of
inquisitional mechanisms for assessing female spirituality
eventuated in a growing confusion between the saintly and heretical
and the ultimate criminalization of female religious
expression.
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