medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
According to Gordon Whatley, who recently edited Simon Winter's Middle English Life of Jerome, the cross-dressing episode seems first to have appeared in the mid 12th-century Vita Hieronimi that's now attributed to Nicholas Maniacoria (PL 22.186). Whatley cites Eugene Rice's *St Jerome in the Renaissance* on this story.
Sherry Reames
----- Original Message -----
From: John Dillon <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Wednesday, October 21, 2009 2:30 pm
Subject: Re: [M-R] Medieval lighting
To: [log in to unmask]
> medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
>
> Hi, Henk
>
> As I noted when I first brought this up), the text -- and therefore
> its intended audience -- is considerably later than the seventh
> century. When I last thought about its dating (back in 2005), I
> accepted the view that it probably was written in the later twelfth
> century. But that's only a guess. The Vita could be later still.
> Does anyone on the list know when the St. Jerome version of the trick
> (which I presume is earlier) is first attested? Not that that's
> likely to matter much in the issue of the clothing. Underlying all
> this is Deuteronomy 22:5, a text that presumes differentiation between
> men's and women's clothing. That text, however unverisimilar it may
> have been in the seventh century or in the twelfth, will have been
> known to Christian religious of every century.
>
> The Vita's placing of Vitalian's final years at the future site of the
> Benedictine abbey of Montevergine suggests a monastic origin (either
> at Montevergine or at some house elsewhere wishing to lay a claim to
> that abbey's legendary past). And therefore a monastic audience. So,
> whereas verisimilitude might not have been important for the Vita's
> author in the matter of different clothing for men and women -- just
> as it apparently was not in the Vita's story of V.'s enemies at
> [inland] Capua putting him in a sack which they then cast into the sea
> but from which V. escapes and then _rows_ [in what?] all the way to
> Ostia --, verisimilitude could well have been an issue in respect of
> the Liturgy of the Hours. The saintly bishop is said to have been
> officiating at Matins, not celebrating a Mass, and conditions of light
> in the chancel at the outset of Matins (before it begins to be light
> outside) are something with which a monastic audience will be quite familiar.
>
> Best again,
> John Dillon
>
>
> On Wednesday, October 21, 2009, at 12:58 pm, Henk wrote:
>
> > Poppycock and balderdash. If this saint was a 7th c person the differnend
> > could not have been clear at all. It is well known that clothing of
> males
> > and females at that time only differed in length not in cut. And priests
> > wore their cottes long, down to the feet, like monks. And women.
> There
> > was
> > no real difference between women's clothing and the dress of clerics
> except
> > maybe for the colour, as the latter tended to be of more sombre hue.
> And
> > there was certainly no difference at all between shoes for men and women.
> > Celebrating mass as a bishop of Capua further obliged him to don liturgical
> > dress in the shape of a wide whitish linen garment called an alb,
> worn
> > over
> > the normal clothing and falling to his feet. After that there came the
> > chasuble, which was a wideish poncho like mantle, a stole and a
> mitre.
> > There
> > was no way that people could see he was wearing women's clothing
> under
> > all
> > that, and if they had it would not have been clear that it was women's
> > clothing either.
> >
> > Henk
> >
> > I'm sorry: Vitalian of Capua is a saint of the Regno who, having
> been
> > absent
> > from "saints of the day" for a couple of years, is perhaps not as familiar
> > as many of his fellows. He has a brief Vita (BHL 1254) whose repeated
> > sensationalism is powered by an improbability drive of some magnitude.
> > According to this text, V.'s enemies at Capua (who later
> successfully
> > got
> > rid of him) placed women's clothing and women's shoes in his bedroom
> one
> > night in the correct expectation that when he arose on the following
>
> > day he
> > would in the darkness dress himself in these and, so attired, celebrate
> > Matins before the people and clergy. As the light grew, it became apparent
> > to others how V. was dressed; it was widely assumed that V.'s sartorial
> > embarrassment arose from unchaste behavior on his part.
> >
> > The incident is adapted from one in the legendary Vitae of St.
> Jerome
> > where,
> > with similar intent, the same trick is played and J. goes to Matins
> > similarly dressed. Probably the easiest version of that to find
> will
> > be the
> > one in the _Legenda aurea_.
> >
> > Best again,
> > John Dillon
>
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