Nienhuis Nancy - Saintly Women: Medieval Saints, Modern Women, and Intimate Partner Violence

Saintly Women

This groundbreaking volume assesses the contemporary epidemic of intimate partner violence and explores how and why cultural and religious beliefs serve to excuse battering and to work against survivors attempts to find safety. Theological interpretations of sacred texts have been used for centuries to justify or minimize violence against women. The authors recover historical and especially medieval narratives whose protagonists endure violence that is framed by religious texts or arguments. The medieval theological themes that redeem battering in saints livessuffering, obedience, ownership, and powercontinue today in most religious traditions. This insightful book emphasizes Christian history and theology, but the authors signal contributions from interfaith studies to efforts against partner violence.

Examining medieval attitudes and themes sharpens the readers understanding of contemporary violence against women. Analyzing both historical and contemporary narratives from a religious perspective grounds the unique approach of Nienhuis and Kienzle, one that forges a new path in grappling with partner violence. Medieval and contemporary narratives alike demonstrate that women in abusive relationships feel the burden of religious beliefs that enjoin wives to endure suffering and to maintain stable marriages. Religious leaders have reminded women of wives responsibility for obedience to husbands, even in the face of abuse. In some narratives, however, women create safe places for themselves. Moreover, some exemplary communities call upon religious belief to support their opposition to violence. Such models of historical resistance reveal precedents for response through intervention or protection.

Nancy E. Nienhuis, ThD, Harvard University (2002) in Religion, Gender, and Culture, Associate Dean of Student Life at Simmons College, and Visiting Professor of Theology and Social Justice at Andover Newton Theological School. Her research examines theological responses to intimate partner violence and sexual assault. Author of multiple articles on the topic, Nienhuis is also interested in how the intersection of systems of oppression like racism and sexism compromise survivors efforts to seek safety.

Beverly Mayne Kienzle, PhD, Boston College (1978) in comparative medieval literature, retired as the John H. Morison Professor of the Practice in Latin and Romance Languages at Harvard Divinity School. Her research and writing have focused on medieval preaching, the lives of women saints, heresy, and womens spirituality. Author of five books on Hildegard of Bingens preaching and exegesis, she continues to investigate her long-held interest in how medieval authors employ biblical interpretation to justify or minimize violence against women.

Edited by George Ferzoco and Carolyn Muessig
University of Bristol

3 Tolkien the Medievalist

Edited by Jane Chance

4 Julian of Norwich

Visionary or Mystic?

Kevin J. McGill

5 Disability in Medieval Europe

Thinking About Physical Impairment in the High Middle Ages, c.1100c.1400

Irina Metzler

6 Envisaging Heaven in the Middle Ages

Edited by Carolyn Muessig and Ad Putter

7 Misconceptions About the Middle Ages

Edited by Stephen J. Harris and Bryon L. Grigsby

8 Medieval Monstrosity and the Female Body

Sarah Alison Miller

9 Representations of Eve in Antiquity and the English Middle Ages

John Flood

10 Crying in the Middle Ages

Tears of History

Edited by Elina Gertsman

11 The Barbarian North in the Medieval Imagination

Ethnicity, Legend, and Literature

Robert W. Rix

12 Saintly Women

Medieval Saints, Modern Women, and Intimate Partner Violence

Nancy E. Nienhuis and Beverly Mayne Kienzle

Medieval Saints, Modern Women, and Intimate Partner Violence

Nancy E. Nienhuis and Beverly Mayne Kienzle

First published 2018

by Routledge

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and by Routledge

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Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

2018 Taylor & Francis

The right of Nancy E. Nienhuis and Beverly Mayne Kienzle to be identified as authors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

CIP data has been applied for.

ISBN: 978-0-8153-9578-2 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-1-351-18314-7 (ebk)

Typeset in Sabon

by codeMantra

For Tammy Zambo

Edward and Kathleen Kienzle

All the survivors who have shared their stories with us

No book is written in a vacuum and over the past decade many people have had a hand in this project. The authors wish to express their gratitude to the persons and institutions that have assisted in various ways in the publication of this book.

We are indebted to Christopher Jarvinen for his generous support of Beverly Kienzles research for over ten years, to Harvard Divinity School through the Lilly Endowment, Inc., Lilly Fund Course Development Grant that enabled the authors to first do research into the parallels between medieval and contemporary religious responses to survivors. A later grant from the Center for the Study of World Religions at Harvard Divinity School enabled us to broaden that research beyond the Christian context. We are also indebted to those who invited us to present portions of this work through public lectures and fora (forums), specifically Harvard Divinity School, The Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, The American Academy of Religion, and parishes in the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts, especially Emmanuel Church, West Roxbury and Church of the Good Shepherd, Dedham, whose rectors Rev. Judith Rhodes and Rev. Dr. Edward Kienzle invited us to lead, and parishioners from both parishes to attend, special sermons and educational panels on domestic violence

Valuable input from colleagues encouraged and informed our writing. We are indebted to Constance Buchanan, Elisabeth Schssler Fiorenza, Margaret Miles, Clarissa Atkinson, Martha Minnow, Harvey Cox, Cornel West, Sarah Birmingham Drummond, Sharon Thornton, Brita Gill-Austern, Fredrica Thompsett, Marie Fortune, Julie Miller, Atema Eclai, David Adams, Carolyn Roberts, Alison More, Gene McAfee, Robert Hensley-King, and Claire Sahlin.