Proving Woman (20 page)

Such gestures may seem muted when set alongside parallel motifs generated within Beguine and Cistercian circles—a measure
by which Elisabeth’s antiheretical potential might be perceived as suffering. Yet it is surely significant that what remains
of Elisabeth’s process for canonization was preserved in a manuscript exclusively dedicated to papal initatives against heresy
and to Crusade preaching, a document that probably belonged to a Crusade preacher and inquisitor in the Rhineland.
⁶⁷
What would her example contribute in the church’s pitched battle against heresy? The answer clearly lies in her unquestioning
obedience to Conrad of Marburg—confessor and, equally important, inquisitor. Since this obedience is depicted as being at
the very center of Elisabeth’s piety, the confessional relationship achieves a new level of prominence in her life. Elisabeth’s
telling conflation of her fear of Conrad with a fear of God is rendered into a compelling exemplum for the laity’s prescribed
attitude toward the priesthood. Thus in a time of rising anticlericalism and heretical disaffection, herein lies the didactic
valence of her life. And the potency of this message could only increase in light of the assassination of her confessor—an
inquisitor who was described by Gregory IX as “a man of consummate virtue and a public crier for the Christian faith,” slain
by sacrilegious hands.
⁶⁸

The exact terms in which Elisabeth is said to have expressed her fear bear repeating: “If I am so afraid of a mortal man,
how much more is the omnipotent God to be feared, who is the lord and judge of all.”
⁶⁹
This foregrounding of judgment in terms of both divine and human tribunals appears frequently in the different sources on
Elisabeth. Conrad’s letter to Gregory relates how, when Elisabeth was dying, she refused visitors “because she wished to meditate
on both the last test of strict judgment and on her omnipotent judge [
de extremo et districti iudicii examine et
iudice suo omnipotente
].” An anonymous life written shortly after her canonization describes her vow of obedience to Conrad in terms of a submission
to the “judgment” (
iudicium
) of promised obedience. The author further anticipates Elisabeth’s intercession in heaven, her suing on behalf of humanity
“in the presence of the fearful judge [
coram tremendo
iudice
].”
⁷⁰
Moreover, Raymond of PeÑafort’s summary of her process reports that various high-ranking clerics and secular princes united
in urging Elisabeth’s canonization.

The faithful judge in heaven is a witness [
testis in celo fidelis iudex
] and clearly aware of her; he presents manifest, admirable, and excellent testimony [
testimonium
]. And since human judgment ought to imitate divine, as much as it can, [Elisabeth’s example] should not be permitted to be
obscured under a cloud of sinister derogation or to be suffocated under a measure of heretical pressure, so that the church
militant might honor one whom the church triumphant glorifies.
⁷¹

The canonization of Elisabeth would not simply assist in confounding heretics: it would further serve as a reminder that through
the exercise of judgment, ecclesiastical tribunals further God’s work on earth. This message pertains equally to the condemnation
of heretics and the elevation of saints.

If absolute obedience was the essential term conditioning Elisabeth’s claims to sanctity, it was important that this obedience
be pressed to the limit. This was Conrad’s function. According to the testimony of her handmaiden Isentrud, “Conrad many times
tested [
temptavit
] her constancy, breaking her will in all things and ordering contrary things to her.”
⁷²
The following instance is representative. Once Elisabeth asked for Conrad’s permission to visit the cloister in which her
daughter, Gertrude, was enclosed and to which Conrad also considered sending Elisabeth. The latter believed that she had obtained
this permission, when, in fact, he had cagily answered, “She can enter [the cloister] if she wishes”—which did not constitute
permission in Conrad’s eyes. When she returned, Elisabeth learned she had been excommunicated. Moreover, Conrad presented
her with a specially prepared text stipulating certain nonnegotiable mandates on which his continued spiritual direction depended.
He made her swear by judicial oath to obey them. Brother Gerhard, Conrad’s faithful companion who would later choose martyrdom
alongside his master, was ordered to beat both Elisabeth and her attendant, Irmingard, during which time Conrad recited the
penitential psalm
Miserere mei
(Psalm 50). Irmingard’s scars lasted three weeks, while Elisabeth’s lingered still longer in proportion to the greater severity
of her beating.
⁷³

The appearance of the written mandates, the judicial oath, and the sentence of excommunication are all reminders of the ease
with which other related disciplinary fora can intrude on the confessional relationship. Conrad was not alone in his introduction
of such admixture. On one occasion when Thomas of Cantimprémistrusted the veracity of one of his penitents, a virginal nun,
he forced her to swear a judicial oath in the course of her sacramental confession.
⁷⁴
On a continuum with this deliberate strategy is Conrad’s importation of an inquisitorial approach to his relations with his
holy charge. When undertaking his antiheretical purge of Germany, which would eventuate in his assassination, Conrad enlisted
the assistance of a number of informers like the alleged former heretic Alaidis. But he was especially reliant upon a Dominican
named Conrad Tors and a one-eyed and one-handed layman named John, both of whom were likewise reported to be converts from
heresy. Like Alaidis, these rather unsavory characters had already made a reputation for themselves as freelance, and often
arbitrary, denouncers of heretical suspects.
⁷⁵
Conrad’s employment of converted heretics as spies and informers would soon become standard practice for the inquisition.

Similar agents were employed for testing Elisabeth. Conrad of Marburg drove away her beloved handmaidens one by one, reasoning
that, as reminders of her earlier glory, they might be the source of temptation or regret. As the handmaiden Isentrud alleges,
“He took away from her every human solace in our removal, wishing her to adhere to God alone.”
⁷⁶
Elisabeth’s faithful servants were, in turn, replaced by spies who were encouraged to make frequent denunciations.

Conrad introduced austere women, from whom [Elisabeth] sustained many oppressions. They behaved deceptively [
captiose
] toward her, just as Master Conrad ordered, and often reported her to Master Conrad for not preserving obedience when she
gave something to the poor or asked others to give something. Afterward she was prohibited by Master Conrad from giving anything,
because she retained nothing further, having distributed it all to the poor. Where-upon she often sustained many blows and
slaps from Master Conrad for accusations [of distributing alms], blows that she heretofore chose by her own wish to sustain
in memory of slaps sustained by the Lord. . . . All the adversities and contempt and many blows that Master Conrad inflicted
on her with good zeal lest she fail in her proposition, she sustained with great patience and joy.
⁷⁷

These “austere women” are rendered still more repulsive in Conrad’s letter to Gregory IX: “a certain religious virgin who
was particularly despicable [
valde despectabili
], and a certain noble widow who was deaf and especially austere.”
⁷⁸
One wonders whether these were the very women who would later make an appearance in Conrad’s proceedings against Count Henry
of Seyn: the
Annals of Worms
claims that Conrad threatened to have the count’s property confiscated and, more mysteriously, to conduct some sort of investigation
“with old women.”
⁷⁹
Certainly Brother Gerhard, Conrad’s loyal attendant, followed his master in his movement between sacramental and inquisitorial
tribunals. But even when the personnel varied, there is no mistaking the techniques. In both his capacities as inquisitor
and confessor, Conrad relied on spies and informers to weave a fabric of accusations that could eventuate only in confession
and reprisal—never refutation and exoneration.

In his letter to Gregory IX, Conrad justifies the renovation of Elisabeth’s household by aligning these changes with Elisabeth’s
own spiritual ambitions for herself: “Seeing that she wished to profit, I cut away from her [
ei amputans
] all her superfluous household.”
⁸⁰
The choice of this particular verb (
amputare
) represents the therapeutic responsibility of the clergy in its sternest guise and one almost exclusively associated with
the treatment of heretics.
⁸¹
As Isentrud’s testimony reveals, Elisabeth’s own handmaidens were seemingly complicit in this relatively beneficent reading
of Conrad’s disciplinary measures, although one wonders whether their interlocutors were ultimately responsible for this interpretation.
But such rationales notwithstanding, the very earliest sources for Elisabeth’s life, particularly the account of the four
handmaidens and Conrad’s letter to Gregory IX, run the risk of sounding like a grim and senseless catalog of abuse. Indeed,
Conrad’s role as spiritual director was in danger of inviting an even harsher indictment than did his role as inquisitor.
Hence the confessional relationship would be insufficiently cushioned from the kinds of charges leveled centuries later by
a Charlotte Bronteï.

Caesarius of Heisterbach’s 1237 vita of Elisabeth had the effect of subduing such objections by placing the saint’s abjection
within a comprehensible telos of sanctification. Writing at the behest of the Teutonic order in Marburg, Caesarius notes in
his prologue that Conrad had already be-sought him to compose such a life.
⁸²
Caesarius was known for his prowess as a chronicler of contemporary religiosity, who was apprised of the remarkable rise of
female spirituality in this period. Several of the chapters of his popular
Dialogue on Miracles
, for example, would pay explicit homage to various holy women of the diocese of Li[egrave]ge.
⁸³
It would be natural for Conrad to conceive of Caesarius as the right person to cast Elisabeth’s spiritual odyssey into a compelling
and recognizable narrative of sanctity. Caesarius, was, in turn, a shrewd enough appraiser of the controversial nature of
Conrad’s reputation to recognize that a depiction of the latter’s methods—whether as spiritual director or as inquisitor—required
considerable address.

Caesarius’s presentation of Conrad does not seek to mollify the reader through extensive apologies or justifications. On the
contrary, Caesarius’s account is a terse, but powerful, celebration of inquisitorial power over heretics and saints alike.
This is apparent from the first mention of Conrad, which is, in many ways, precipitous. Most of the early lives of Elisabeth
are reshapings of the testimony of the four handmaidens, and Caesarius’s is no exception. Thus in his near verbatim repetition
of Guda’s account of Elisabeth’s childhood, Caesarius includes the identifying comment that “this was the same Guda” who,
along with Elisabeth, was later to receive religious garb from Conrad. The gratuitous mention of Conrad occasions a break
from the hitherto chronological narration. “This was the same Conrad, an exceptionally literate man very famous in preaching,
who was the most bitter inveigher against vices and heretics, the terror of tyrants and heretics, who, when they began to
come forth or to show themselves more as a result of his preaching, [became] their tireless persecutor.”
⁸⁴
Caesarius proceeds to recount the succession of papal authorizations that Conrad received, discussed earlier. This frank
display of Conrad’s qualifications and increasing power is juxtaposed with the ascetic humility of his life. Traveling throughout
Germany in a tiny mule cart, Conrad was continually followed by “an innumerable throng,” drawn by his powerful preaching and
the “great indulgences” he wielded. A description of Conrad’s absolute poverty and pronounced ascetical practices prefaces
that of his influence over Ludwig and Elisabeth, who “were ruled by [Conrad’s] counsel in all things concerning spiritual
matters, from whom the same Elisabeth, after the death of her spouse, received the habit of religion just as she also promised
obedience to her spiritual father.”
⁸⁵
This allusion to Elisabeth’s vow of obedience, a model of orthodox submission, is followed immediately by an account of the
heretical subversion that led to Conrad’s demise: “Conrad, burning with the zeal of faith, cleared the field of the church
from encroaching tares not only through extirpating heresies through teaching but also by collecting heretics in bunches for
burning (Matt. 13.13). By some of these, whom he accused [
defamavit
] of heresy, he was cruelly killed.” This excursus on Conrad’s career ends with Caesarius’s resolution of “return[ing] our
inquiry to the sequence of events.”
⁸⁶

Underlying the portrayal of Conrad as the austere persecutor of heretics is the tacit contention that Conrad’s zeal for purging
the church was at one with the zeal with which he disciplined his holy charge, Elisabeth. Thus when the subject of Elisabeth’s
floggings by Conrad is first broached, it is accompanied by this reflection: “For the same Conrad, just as we all know, was
a rigid and austere man, wherefore he was feared by many—especially on account of his authority conceded to him by the highest
apostle, which he did not neglect to exercise.”
⁸⁷
Here Conrad’s papal appointments as inquisitor and as confessor merge, both evincing a similar fear from the very different
parties subjected to this mandate.