At 08:50 AM 8/3/2000 -0400, you wrote:
>May I ask if any members of the list know of saints who are presented as
>prophets?
>
Isn't prophecy almost expected of female saints in the later Middle Ages?
Birgitta of Sweden was certainly a prophetess. Catherine of Siena's public
seems to have treated her as a prophetess, though her writings display very
little overtly prophetic content (if "prophetic" is taken to involve
predictions of future events). Indeed, Catherine's confessor and
biographer, Raymond of Capua, is very careful to defend Catherine against
the "charge" of having prophesied a universal crusade. Despite her urging
no such crusade took place, so Raymond needed to defend Catherine against
imputations of false prophecy--a very
BAD THING in a prospective saint. And both Birgitta and Catherine were
sometimes identified with the schism, since their prophetic interventions
were thought to have influenced Gregory XI's return of the papal court to
Rome, and thus helped cause the schism.
Is it much of an overstatement to say that a prophetic reputation of some
sort was attached to many (almost all?) late-medieval female saints?
On this matter, however--putting first things last--let me ask how members
of the list would define "prophecy" in this context.
Tom
-----------------------------------
F. Thomas Luongo
Assistant Professor
Department of History
Tulane University
New Orleans, LA 70118
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