Tunics, hazelnuts and trampling with love: The mystics, because they're all loony, like me

Okay, I am rather fond of these dears. They're all mad. I like the women mystics, Julian of Norwich and Margery Kempe, especially. Alex (who taught me for this) said that he feels there is a particular concern with 'femaleness' in this area. Christ's suffering on the cross-- terrible anguish followed by boundless joy--, Alex says has a profound link with a woman giving birth. But in any case, I can't focus purely on the 'femininity'/'femaleness' side of things (I'm barred from it!), so let's move on. 

As many critical categories, the category of "mystics" to describe the writers seen as such (I'll focus, in addition to the two women, on Richard Rolle, Walter Hilton, and the uncertain author of 'The Cloud of Unknowing')  is a purely MODERN, not mediaeval, phenomenon-- the term "mystick theology" not being used until 1639.  Mystical experience is complicated to define, I guess... and there is no one 'kind' of mystical experience. 


"What is that to me?": Mystical experience and the self

I like Marion Gascoe's way of putting things: "Mysticism [in] the precise sense of an ultimate spiritual reality experienced both within the structure of the human personality and as a transcendent power."

Jennifer Summit has argued that "The most dramatic examples of writing as a suspension, rather than assertion, of selfhood come in the work of mediaeval women visionaries." I disagreed with this-- I think the individual self is a very important vehicle in mystical experience: it always necessarily takes place within the individual self. Though those living the contemplative life were sometimes part of contemplative religious communities, mystical experience of God  is a very personal, solitary quest. (Note how anchoresses were not only severely isolated in severely enclosed spaces, but had the funeral rites said for them when they entered the anchorhold-- they become dead to the world. Julian of course was an anchoress-- she may have been so from a young age, or she may have been widowed and then entered the anchoritic life--we don't know.) True, affective mysticism (which I'll come onto later) sees 'kenosis' as an essential part of mystical experience, whereby the self is emptied, to be filled with God's love, which is all around the self (especially Julian's mystical experience). But even so, the individual person is very important to the mystical journey.

There is one incredibly beautiful moment in Julian's 'Shewings' (also called 'A Revelation of Divine Love', for which there are two, one long and one short, versions), where her vision of God, 

"shewed a little thing the quantity of an haselnot, lying in the palme of my hand as me semide, and it was as rounde as any balle. I looked therean with the eye of my understanding, and thought: 'What may this be?' And it was answered generally thus: 'It is all that is made....' ".  

Most interpretations of this textual moment lean towards an emphasis on the nut-like ball as an embodiment of the preserving force of God's love; and Barratt's findings that the hazel-nut was the basic unit of measurement in mediaeval medicine serves to re-historicise this image. However, I think there's more to it, with regards to her individual self: the position of it in her palm connects her with the small ball's wider significance-- and yet, it remains in her palm: this experience will always be through her own being. And indeed, Julian immediately proceeds to question, "But what is that to me?" 

 There is a funny incident recorded in the 'Officium' about Rolle, a very fascinating mystic. He asks his sister, who loves him very much, to come to the wood nearby, bringing her two tunics, one grey and one white. His poor unsuspecting sister does so. It's recorded that "when [Rolle] had received them he straightaway cut off the sleeves from the grey tunic and the buttons from the white, and as best he could, he fitted the sleeves into the white tunic, so that they might in some manner be suited to his purpose. Then he took off his own clothes... and put on his sister's tunic next to his skin, but the grey, with the sleeves cut out, he put over it, and put his head with the rainhood aforesaid". His sister, understandably, begins to cry out, "My brother is mad! My brother is mad!"-- whereupon, we are told, Rolle "drove her from him with threats, and fled himself at once without delay, lest he should be seized upon by his friends and acquaintances." Rolle's, umm, odd behaviour here, Elisabeth Dutton argues,  is a symbol for creating one's own, individual spirituality, away from the mainstream traditions. I agree with her :).

"Trample it down with a stirring of love": The mystics and affective piety

Affectivity is very important to the mystical experience. As we know, in 'Ancrene Wisse', Christ is presented as the anchoress' 'lover'... And as mentioned, kenosis, emptying the self to fill it with God's love, is very important in Julian's visionary experiences. I adore the image, "trample it down with a stirring of love", which is in 'The Cloud of Unknowing'... for he's actually there describing how to get rid of unwelcome thoughts, that will impede enlightenment... But you don't get rid of it by harshness-- no, you do it by love. 

But it's not all about love--pain and suffering is also important to some of the mystics; love and pain combined. Margery is, to use Valerie Lagorio's paradoxical term, a "noisy contemplative"--  travelling around the world arguing with priests, talking loudly about sex (even though she's a married woman with children), and, very significantly, ENDLESSLY bursting into tears all over the place. There is one particularly comical incident (though I don't think dear Margery intended it to be comical!) in Chapter 60 of her 'Book' where Margery bursts into loud tears, because of her sheer anguish over Jesus's death. A priest comes up to her, completely bemused at her roaring, and says (quite understandably!), "Damsel, Ihesu is ded long sithyn". Margery, however, has entered a realm beyond rationality, her capacity for human feeling deepening: "Sir, hys deth is as fresch to me as he had deyd (th)is same dey". Likewise, on entering the churchyard of Saint Stephen, Margery "cryed, sche roryd, sche wept, sche fel down to (th)e grownd, so feruently (th)e fyer of lofe brent in hir hert."  Julian, though a lot quieter and more introspective than the loud Margery, also suffers deeply when she has a strikingly vivid image of Christ on the cross-- his suffering is internalised into her own self.

What I also found intriguing is that both Julian and Margery are said to experience mystical visions after a bout of illness-- Margery's is psychological (we believe she had severe clinical depression, based on how she describes her state of mind), Julian's could be either physical or psychological-- I don't think we're entirely sure. Suffering seems important to them in terms of mystical experience. 

BUT, the Cloud-author is not keen on the idea of 'suffering' leading to superior visionary experiences. He expresses concern that the suffering individual will end up being so exhausted by their pain that she/he will be unable to truly give themselves to God. So there isn't a 'united' vision from the mystics on this front.

Not all the mystics focus purely on affective experience. Walter Hilton, in his works, 'Scale of Perfection' (an anchoress guidebook) and 'Mixed Life', expresses union of cognitive and affective knowledge of God as the ultimate goal-- not just affectivity.

"Vernacular theology": Mysticism as a radical political force?

With this focus on the self, and the affectivity of it all, it is easy to see why mystical experience could be seen as a "transhistorical and transcultural phenomenon" (Watson's terms, though he doesn't believe mystical criticism is transhistorical/transcultural). And I, umm, agree with Watson-- but not with his assertion that mystical experience is "embedded" in its times. I don't like the word "embedded", as I feel it needs to be more nuanced than this. I feel the mystics had a very complex,  fraught relationship with the world around them: never fully part of it, but never fully segregated from it. They occupied a strange, murky area that binds them to the world (and indeed, they see themselves as performing important work for the wider community, whether this community is aware of it or not). They are of course not fully 'part' of this community, however: the difference between the  contemplative and active Christian life is encapsulated in the Mary Magdalene and Martha dichotomy, used in both 'The Cloud of Unknowing' and Hilton's 'Mixed Life'. 

Mysticism can be seen as part of the "vernacular theology" trend--translating theological 'structures'  (Watson defines this as writing/images/conceptions) into the vernacular. Consequently, the relationship between mysticism and the 'mainstream' theological beliefs/systems is not an entirely comfortable one. As asseverated by Watson (I like him), 

"In their role as reporters of direct contact with the divine, they have necessarily been highly regarded, insofar as they help to validate the central mysteries of the faith. Yet they are also often seen as challenging the proper understanding of those mysteries, hence as constituting a threat to the theology and political structure of the Church."

-- particularly troubling, of course, after the 1215 Lateran Council, which attempted to unify things and bring everything under the control of the 'Universal Church'. There is certainly a 'democratizing' colour in this, Watson seeing Rolle's work as a "wholesale democratizing of the spiritual life".... But I do feel that the mystics also saw themselves as being 'superior' in certain ways, even if this wasn't a conscious thought-- it's something that only THEY could do. Rolle and Margery in particular, are very ego-centred. 

So... I love the mystics. I don't know if I've done them justice... Mystical experience is so complex that I have probably been very obtuse in a lot of places here! All input and feedback on this would be much appreciated :).