In 11th-century England, a saint with an extremely dissolute past became a cultural and religious symbol that broke boundaries. As a young woman, Saint Mary of Egypt was dissolute and sexually insatiable, enjoying relations with many different men. After rejecting the world and spending 47 years living naked in the desert, she became a wise and virtuous teacher of Christian scriptures.
The translation of her myth was the medieval equivalent of a bestseller: it was read by thousands, copied many times, and translated into Old Norse, Welsh, Irish, and eventually English. Cambridge University aims to reassert the rightful place in history of Saint Mary of Egypt as a role model for medieval English Christians.
Cambridge University scholar Alexandra Zhirnova prepares to present her research on Saint Mary of Egypt at the Cambridge Festival on March 22.
"There has never been a full in-depth study of why this legend resonated in England," Zhirnova said, according to BBC News.
"One of the key things about Mary is that she resists this almost objectification of female sanctity. Deliberately, she does not fit into this pattern. And I think her dark skin fits into this and is part of her image as a rejection of all the other expectations for holy women," Zhirnova stated.
During this period, the teachings of the Church emphasized strict adherence to the rules governing how women should behave socially and sexually. Benedictine reformers, such as the English abbot Ælric of Eynsham, supported the separation of men and women working side by side in monasteries. These reformers wanted to limit the visibility of chaste monastic women for their own protection and to confine them away from male monks.
"The medieval legend of Saint Mary of Egypt, known as The Life of Mary, may have been translated or circulated by people who were not in favor of these reforms," Zhirnova believes.
In her lecture, Zhirnova will argue that the myth of Saint Mary of Egypt directly challenges commonly accepted views of how a saintly woman should look. "Mary rejects the world to the point that she stops wearing clothes because she doesn't need them," she said.
The existence of Saint Mary—a sexually experienced woman—completely undermines the stereotype of the ideal female saint being a virgin who became a saint after being persecuted for choosing to remain chaste.
"Just as Saint Mary defied the rules of the religious establishment. She's a revolutionary saint," Zhirnova stated.
Irina Dumitrescu, a professor of Medieval English Studies at the University of Bonn, adds another perspective. "She's largely an anti-institutional figure. And I think it's absolutely fascinating to have an image of this woman who doesn't look like anything else they say women should be—and yet God loves her more," Dumitrescu said, according to iefimerida.
Dumitrescu believes that the descriptions of Saint Mary's "very dissolute" youth may explain part of the popularity of the myth among medieval readers. "It's a very sexy story. There are many erotic details in it. It talks about how she went by ship to the Holy Places from Egypt and how she taught all the people on the ship lewd and lascivious acts. It's a very ribald narrative," she said.
For devout Christians living a "very regulated" life, the idea of an exotic naked woman wandering freely in the desert and communicating with God would be exciting. Dumitrescu stated, "What is important about her dark skin is that it proves that the culture of medieval England is a more cosmopolitan culture than what many people tend to assume."
Zhirnova hopes that her study will challenge some of the stereotypes about medieval England perpetuated by today's far-right. "Many people on the far-right use the Middle Ages as an example of a time when everyone was white and all praised white skin as ideal," she says. "In the life of Mary, we see a saint who does not conform to medieval notions of Christian piety. This tells us that medieval people in England were open to models of sanctity that were not white, young, and obedient. They were open to Mary's diversity."
Zhirnova's research suggests that the moral of Mary's story may be at the heart of its popularity. "The story suggests that this woman, who breaks every possible convention established by the Church for holy women, is a lesson for men on how to be better Christians," she said.
"Seeing an icon of the Theotokos outside the church, she prayed for forgiveness and promised to abandon worldly things and become a hermit," the myth recounts. After rejecting the world and spending decades in the desert, Saint Mary of Egypt became a wise and virtuous teacher of Christian scriptures.
"I want to bring this story into the light, because it dispels a lot of the negative stereotypes that we have heard about the Middle Ages, and how medieval Europeans only have negative perceptions of women, particularly women with darker skin," she told the BBC.
The article was written with the assistance of a news analysis system.