Dear colleagues,
I'm trying to make sense of a cure by everybody's favourite saint, Celestine V /
Peter of the Morrone. Reference is made to a girl with an illness which,
according to one witness, 'propter puericiam curari non poterat auxilio et
remedio medicorum'. Another witness declared similarly, 'quod tempore sue
puericie passa fuit ... et curari non poterat per medicos propter nimiam
teneritudinem etatis.' I trust I'm right in thinking that this was a young girl,
and that her youth made it impossible for doctors to cure her; is this ok?
I'm especially puzzled by what follows. Peter was a noted misogynist; at least,
he often refused to receive women visitors at his hermitage. He also refused the
girl to be brought to him [and this is the important bit], 'quia dicta puella
femina erat'.
Until today, I had assumed that this was just an example of how extreme Peter's
distaste with female company was: even though the ill person was a girl, he
didn't want to see her because she was a female. But a VERY learned colleague,
who shall go unnamed, suggests that PERHAPS 'femina' here may mean 'woman', such
that the girl was in fact biologically mature (e.g. was menstruating). My
question to you all is: given the apparent emphasis on the person's tender years,
could it nevertheless be possible that this girl was in fact a young woman, and
that it was this maturity -- detected (miraculously?) by Peter -- that made him
insist that she not approach him?
Thanks for your advice on this matter!
George
George Ferzoco tel ++ 44 (0)116 252 2654
Director of Studies for Italian fax ++ 44 (0)116 252 3633
University of Leicester e-mail [log in to unmask]
School of Modern Languages
LEICESTER LE1 7RH UNITED KINGDOM
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