NARRATING THE NATIONAL IDENTITY: MYTH, POWER, AND DISSIDENCE

The Blessed Angela of Foligno (1248–1309) was a married woman whose husband and children died shortly after her dramatic conversion and decision to live a life of poverty in imitation of Christ. Her influence extended to her many disciples and followers, including Ubertino da Casale. It is fairly certain that she was able to read, but it is not known whether she was able to write. She dictated, in her Umbrian dialect, the Memorial, the first part of her Liber de vera fidelium experientia, to her relative, scribe and confessor, the Franciscan Brother Arnaldo, who wrote it down and translated her words into Latin. It is regarded as a work of “fundamental importance in the literature of Christian mysticism” (Bell 86). In it she narrates her conversion and the steps or transformations her soul makes as it advances closer to the Divine, as well as her mystical experiences and her passion for Christ, who she frequently calls the “God-man.” Arnaldo copied the first twenty steps of her spiritual journey and then assembled the remaining material into seven “supplementary steps” or revelations. The second part of her Liber, the Instructions, were composed by a number of anonymous writers, most likely devotees of Angela who wrote both during her life and after her death in 1309. These contain further visions as well as letters and discourses of varying length. In the Instructions, Angela emerges as a spiritual mother and teacher to her disciples.

The thirteenth century witnessed the emergence of religious movements which desired to focus on Christ’s humanity, especially his suffering and crucifixion. Women mystics were particularly devoted to the humanity of Christ. One medieval scholar has noted that human beings “are created for the connection with others, for the connection with the cosmos, for the dynamic connection among ourselves and with God. When we ask for connection, we are often met by silence” (Russell 3). Angela attains union with the Divine by connecting with Christ, the suffering God and man. In her desire to “connect,” she focuses on the sensual, human, and bodily aspects of Christ crucified. Her connecting with Christ is achieved through the eucharist (and its association with his blood, body and cross), as well as the erotic love she experiences for him.

Scholars have pointed out the centrality of the devotion to the eucharist of the thirteenth century religious, particularly among holy women (Bynum, Fragmentation 121). For these women, the reception of the eucharist was often closely tied with mystical ecstasy. The recent attention Angela is receiving from scholars, while noteworthy, has failed to fully analyze the centrality of images of the eucharist in her writings. More work needs to be done on this topic. While a detailed analysis of all the passages which regard her eucharistic imagery lies beyond the scope of this essay, I will show how an examination of certain passages from the Memorial demonstrates a development in Angela’s experience of communion. For Angela, communion is intensely sensual and includes, but is not limited to, the reception of the eucharist during Mass. Angela’s eucharistic understanding of Christ is often closely associated with visions of his actual body. Angela’s attempts to connect with Christ’s body are closely tied to her experiences of the eucharist in church. I suggest that her changing and increasingly intense visions enable her to eventually come to a deeper, fuller understanding of the meaning of the eucharist. As is true for all mystics, Angela’s mystical experiences are intensely personal. In essence, Angela felt herself to be “party to a one-sided, open-ended incalculable pact with God, communicated to her in a dialogue with Christ crucified” (Bell 108). Finally, I will show how Angela’s experiences are so personal and unmediated that she gradually assumes a priestly identity. Angela’s priestly identity develops over time through different contexts and visions. As she moves along the steps of her development, so do her experiences regarding both communion and her priestly identity.

Let us begin with the actual body of Christ. Even from the onset of Angela’s conversion, her body is linked to Christ’s body. While describing the first twenty steps of her spiritual journey, Angela narrates one particular instance where she is standing before a crucifix contemplating Christ on the cross. Acutely aware of her sins and freshly converted to the way of penance, she relates that “I felt that I myself had crucified Christ.”^[1] Then, before the cross, she strips herself of all her clothing and offers herself to him, pledging her chastity. Her own body is instrumental in the uniting of herself to Christ: “I promised him then to maintain perpetual chastity and not to offend him again with any of my bodily members, accusing each of these one by one” (126). Her own physicality helps her in the joining of herself to him: “if I wanted to go to the cross, I would need to strip myself in order to be lighter and go naked to it” (126).^[2] Christ appears to her, showing each of “his afflictions from head to toe” (127). Christ’s body is bruised and bleeding. As she had “identified each of her sinning ‘members’ and promised chastity, so he enumerates his wounds endured for her” (Petroff 212). In relation to these passages, one scholar notes that “Angela is seeking to imitate Christ; in her mimesis of his nakedness and his suffering, she mimes nakedness and suffering for us as readers” (Petroff 214). However, these passages demonstrate that Angela is seeking not only to imitate Christ, but are representative of her first attempts to “connect” with his human, suffering body.

The meaning of the Christian eucharist, even from its inception, is tied to union with Christ the man. The devotional meal is transformed into an expression of association with Christ’s death on the cross, his blood, and his body. Christians eat Christ to identify and connect with him, to achieve union with him. Communion with Christ is really connection with him. Again, while describing the first twenty steps, Angela attempts to connect with Christ in an experience which now explicitly calls to mind the drinking of the eucharistic wine in extremely literal terms. While standing in prayer, she has a vision in which Christ on the cross appears to her and calls her to place her mouth to the wound in his side. She then “saw and drank the blood, which was freshly flowing from his side” (128).^[3] Here, Angela has no need of the chalice. It is Christ himself who offers his own blood as drink, and Angela connects with his body by drinking it. Her immediate response to the event is related as follows: “at this I began to experience a great joy, although when I thought about the passion, I was still filled with sadness” (128).

In her desire to connect to the God-man, Angela begins to focus on his actual flesh. In the first supplementary step, while in her home in Foligno after a recent pilgrimage to Assisi, she meditates on the suffering of Jesus on the cross. Angela considers the nails which drove a little bit of the flesh of his hands and feet into the wood. She says that she would desire to “see at least that small amount of Christ’s flesh” (145). She considers Christ’s flesh and the pain he endured. Here, Angela’s emotional response begins to intensify—she is no longer able to stand. She then sits down and stretches her arms on the ground when Christ shows her his throat and arms. Angela exclaims: “Such also was the beauty of Christ’s throat or neck that I concluded that it must be divine. Through this beauty it seemed to me that I was seeing Christ’s divinity” (146). Through the contemplation of the God-man as physical flesh made manifest, Angela then begins to experience the Divine through her own senses.

Arnaldo questions Angela, encouraging her to tell him more of this vision of the body of Christ. She describes how the splendor of both the humanity and divinity of Christ shine forth from the host. At this point, she begins to identify Christ’s actual body with the eucharistic wafer: “Sometimes I see the host itself just as I saw that neck or throat, and it shines with such splendor and beauty that it seems to me that it must come from God” (146). The line between the eucharistic host and the actual physical body of Christ begins to blur. Angela then says that in the host she sees “two most splendid eyes, and these are so large that it seems only the edges of the host remain visible” (147). By connecting with the body of the human Christ, which is now identified with the communion wafer, Angela is able to see God: “this beauty which I see makes me conclude with the utmost certainty and without a shadow of a doubt that I am seeing God” (146).

In the second supplementary step, Angela begins to experience physical effects from both the eucharistic host itself and from its elevation by the priest. Once, while at Mass and during the elevation of the host, she relates that she felt Christ in her soul. She explains that when this happens, her members feel a disjointing. Angela hears her bones “cracking when they are thus disjointed” (158). The experience brings sensual delight: “Indeed such is the extreme delight that I feel that I would want to always remain in this state” (158). Angela’s physical response intensifies, now evoked by the mere elevation of the host. Angela emphasizes: “I hear this disjointing more when the body of Christ is elevated” (158). Thus, visions of the body of Christ itself, or visions of his body in eucharistic form, stimulate a physical, sensual response within Angela’s own body.

We see this concept developed even further when later, in the fourth supplementary step, Angela again feels Christ within her. While gazing at the cross, she has a vision in which Christ embraces her. At this moment, as she relates, Angela saw and “felt that Christ was within me, embracing my soul with the very arm with which he was crucified” (175). Here, contact with Christ’s body begins to allow for a true connection, even unification with him. Her response is again a physical one: “suddenly my soul was set ablaze with love; and every member of my body felt it with the greatest joy” (175). This joy she experiences in being with Christ in this way is far greater than she “had ever been accustomed to” (175). She then understands what Christ is like in heaven. She understands how “we will see that through him our flesh is made one with God” (175, italics mine).

It has been observed that “Angela’s itinerarium is not so much a going toward God, but a going into God” (LaValva 108). Likewise, if Angela’s physical connecting with Christ involves identifying her body with his, eating him, and being embraced by him, it also involves entering into his body. Here, the roles become reversed – the female Angela penetrates the male body of Christ. Again in the fourth supplementary step, after the suffering God-man shows her his nail-marked hand, Angela relates how, when seeing a passion play of Christ portrayed in the town square of Foligno, she “indeed entered at that moment within the side of Christ” (176). This triggers an out-of-body experience in Angela who is miraculously drawn into “a state of such delight that when I began to feel the impact of this indescribable experience of God, I lost the power of speech and fell flat on the ground” (176). Entering into Christ’s body, contemplating the God-man and his suffering wounds enables Angela to experience the Divine. The more she identifies with the God-man, the more Christ, in his immanent and transcendent aspects, discloses himself to her.

Finally, in an erotic vision in the fifth supplementary step, Angela both embraces Christ and is embraced by him in his tomb. Brother Arnaldo relates that the vision occurred on Holy Saturday.^[4] In a state of ecstasy, Angela found herself in the sepulcher with Christ:

She said she had first of all kissed Christ’s breast – and saw that he lay dead, with his eyes closed – then she kissed his mouth, from which… a delightful fragrance emanated…she placed her cheek on Christ’s own and he…placed his hand on her cheek, pressing her closely to him…Christ’s faithful one heard him telling her: ‘Before I was laid in the sepulcher, I held you this tightly to me.’…she saw him lying there with eyes closed, lips motionless, exactly as he was when he lay dead in the sepulcher (182).^[5]

Critics have observed that in the background of the above mentioned vision is bridal imagery drawn from the Song of Songs, which many medieval holy women were so fond of and which they articulated in their espousals with Christ the Beloved. One scholar has noted that with “deceptive facility, we moderns might read into Angela’s necrophilic experiences the suppressed, repressed, oppressed, and expressed sexual fantasies of a menopausal widow” (Bell 109). Angela’s vision is indeed intensely physical and sensual. As is characteristic of other women mystics, Angela’s language often takes on erotic overtones. But what I would like to emphasize here, however, is how the physical senses of the body are instrumental in her communing and connecting with Christ. I suggest that this vision is not solely representative of Angela’s erotic spirituality but is, in fact, a mysterious communion of sorts where she sees, touches, feels and smells Christ’s body. In this particular vision, Angela sensually experiences Christ’s body rather than eats it. Through her own senses she connects to the God-man, without need of any intermediary. The eyes, neck, and throat of Christ, which she once saw in the eucharistic wafer, she now sees before her as she lies in his tomb beside him. Furthermore, here Angela’s experience of the body of Christ is parallel to female visions in which the eucharist has a sweet smell.^[6] For Angela, the eucharistic host corresponds to Christ himself lying dead before her. The tomb becomes the altar for his body, which is spread upon it to be felt, smelled, and touched directly by the communicant-lover, Angela.

Shortly thereafter, while explaining to Arnaldo what often occurs to her upon receiving communion, Angela states that the host goes down “smoothly and pleasantly,” and that she would willingly hold it in her mouth for a “great while” (186). Here, eating the host produces a very sensual, even erotic effect: “when it descends into my body it produces in me a most pleasant sensation, and this can be detected outwardly because it makes me shake so violently that I must make a great effort to take the chalice” (186). It is interesting to note that in this vision, Angela’s ecstasy in regards to receiving the host is now associated with the sense of taste: “it does not have the taste of any known bread or meat. It has most certainly a meat taste, but one very different and most savory” (186). For Angela, communion is truly sensual in every meaning of the word.

Finally, towards the end of the Memorial in the seventh supplementary step, Angela describes other visions which occur to her while participating in the celebration of the Mass. At this stage, Angela finally comes to a fuller, more perfect understanding of communion and the eucharist itself: the universal presence of Christ. Angela understands that Christ can be simultaneously unified with her, present on the altar in the ciborium, and yet present everywhere. In her vision, words actually flow from the host itself which the priest had just broken: “there are many who break, and even draw blood from my back” (208). Shortly thereafter Angela says that

her soul was in a state of great joy as it experienced itself to be within the Trinity and to be within the ciborium wherein the body of Christ is deposited. The soul understood that Christ was at once in the ciborium and yet present everywhere, filling everything. Great was the soul’s wonder to find such delight in that ciborium! (209)

Angela not only feels a physical effect from the eucharistic host (she is filled with joy and delight) and experiences unification with the body of Christ (she perceives her soul to be together with the host within the ciborium), but she actually hears words come from the host itself. In addition, it is important to note that she has finally been given a deeper understanding of the Christian eucharist. Shortly thereafter, Angela tells Arnaldo that she would like to receive communion daily, an unusual practice for the time.^[7]

One scholar comments that “in the various visions that women received at Mass, they sometimes acquired metaphorical priesthood” (Bynum, Fragmentation 135). I believe that Angela is unique in this respect because she assumes the role of priest on three specific occasions which are narrated in her Liber. Additionally, the occasions where she assumes this priestly role are not always at Mass and occur in unexpected circumstances. Furthermore, each of the experiences are in a context reminiscent of the eucharist and demonstrate a clear development leading to an unusual vision in which Angela receives what I believe to be parallel to a kind of metaphorical ordination. It is fitting that the three instances where she assumes this priestly identity are also connected with Angela’s growing concern for others, and how she sees her own role in the manifestation of Christ to those around her. Like her visions involving communion, these episodes concerning Angela’s priestly role intensify and change. Although a dominant theme throughout the Memorial concerns the superiority of Angela’s “supernatural,” mystical knowledge over the knowledge of preachers, theologians, and scripture scholars, I am not suggesting that Angela intended to negate the power of priests. What I am suggesting is that Angela felt so connected to Christ, that at times she had no need of an intermediary, the priest, and assumes the role for herself. Additionally, if her experiences involving communion display her own personal growing and deepening understanding of it, then her experiences involving her priestly identity display her own growing awareness of the role she must play in the lives of others.

In the second supplementary step, in a context which reminds us of the Last Supper, Angela is told that the blessing she performs over the food she has received as alms has the power to take away not only her sins and the sins of her companion, but those of whomever they share them with as well. Angela tells Arnaldo that on this occasion, while at home praying before a meal, she desired that Christ take away her sins and the sins of her companion, absolve them and grant them his blessing. She hoped that Christ would do the same for them “just as he had stood up to bless the meal of the apostles before eating with them” (156). In this vision, Christ takes away their sins and absolves and blesses both Angela and her companion. Christ then assures her that “Almighty God always blesses whatever you eat and drink for as long as you live in this world” (156). The benefits of Angela’s blessing over the alms extends even to others:

…all the alms which we receive do contain this blessing so that whomever we share them with—such is the power already contained in this blessing—will benefit from them according to the measure of their disposition. And even if anyone received them in a state of mortal sin they would still benefit from them for they would have the effect of making them desire the sooner to convert themselves to do penance (156–157).

Brother Arnaldo explains that “she then further added that even now whenever she makes this prayer before eating she always receives the assurance that all the things said above are granted to her” (156–157). One scholar notes that in this particular episode Angela “seems to arrogate for herself a kind of priestly role” (Lachance, Introduction 88). He observes that “the fact that Angela’s public blessing over alms has the power to take away sins in a context explicitly reminiscent of the Last Supper is highly irregular” (Lachance, Notes 372). His brief allusions to this fascinating topic warrant further elaboration. Indeed, her prayers over food are curiously priest-like—she appears to be assuming Christ’s role of saying a blessing over a meal. Here, Angela is able to manifest the God-man to others not only through the sharing of alms, but also through the power of her blessing.

But this episode is not the only one in which Angela arrogates for herself a priestly role. Critics have failed to examine two other key examples which highlight clear evidence of this. In the third supplementary step, an episode is related where she is neither at church nor at home. Angela tells how she and her companion go to the hospital and feed the sick and afflicted. They wash their feet and hands, and especially one of the lepers whose sores are festering and in an advanced stage of decomposition. The frequently quoted passage reads as follows:

Then we drank the very water with which we had washed him. And the drink was so sweet that, all the way home, we tasted its sweetness and it was as if we had received Holy Communion. As a small scale of the leper’s sores was stuck in my throat, I tried to swallow it. My conscience would not let me spit it out, just as if I had received Holy Communion. I really did not want to spit it out but simply to detach it from my throat (163).

Before examining this passage, it is important to note that the thirteenth century saw the birth of new spiritual currents, especially the Franciscan movement, whose goal was to desire to love and follow the example of Christ in his total co-identification with the poor. The adoration of the humanity of Christ was especially popular among religious women of the age. This Franciscan ideal inspired the exaltation of poverty, as well as direct contact and identification with the poor, the disadvantaged and the suffering. Following the example of St. Francis, several Italian saints “ate pus or lice from poor or sick bodies, thus incorporating into themselves the illness and misfortune of others (Bynum, Fragmentation 184).^[8] Angela, the true daughter of Francis, also identifies Christ in the poor and suffering.

Not unlike other mystics of the Middle Ages, Angela may be attempting to identify with Christ’s suffering by incorporating into herself the misfortune of others. In this passage, however, she not only incorporates into herself the misfortune of others, but she connects to the God-man through the leper himself. Eucharistic imagery in the passage quoted above is clear—twice Angela mentions communion. It is not filth which she eats, but the sweet body of Jesus. In essence, what has been missed by critics in regards to this passage is that Angela herself becomes the priest. The bloody water and scab become the body and blood of Christ, which she administers to herself. The image of her drinking the bloody washwater, which is so clearly parallel to the eucharistic wine, is even more striking when we consider that by the thirteenth century the chalice was being withheld from lay people. Only the priest partook of both the host and the wine. Women were prohibited not only from ordination but even from contact with the vessels on the altar.^[9]

I believe that in the above passage, Angela has no need of the clergy to give her the passionately desired body and blood of Christ, for she gives it to herself. In fact, before the incident is related she explicitly tells how she suggested to her companion that they “go out to find Christ… among the poor, the suffering, and the afflicted” (162). The bloody washwater becomes her eucharistic wine, the leper’s scab her host. Furthermore, I maintain that her behavior itself in regards to handling the water and scab is parallel to that of a priest.

Like today, medieval Roman Catholics believed that Christ was present in the host and wine not only at the moment of reception, but both before and after reception and in that which was left over as well (Dewan 606). Therefore, great care was taken not to drop the host or spill the wine, for doing so would have been considered a grave irreverence. In fact, the eucharistic wine was withheld from lay people in part to protect the precious liquid from spilling.^[10] Unused consecrated hosts were to be consumed by the priest.^[11]

Like a priest, Angela does not dishonor the water/blood of Christ by throwing it out – she drinks it. She does not desecrate the body of Christ by letting the scab/host fall to the ground – she swallows it: “My conscience would not let me spit it out” (163). Additionally, twice Angela emphasizes the taste of the bloody water – proclaiming it to be “so sweet.” The delightful sensual effect of the bloody water remains with her “all the way home.” I have already mentioned the fact that the eucharist sometimes had a special effect on medieval holy women, such as tasting sweet. If this is true, then it exemplifies even further the idea that Angela must have regarded the bloody washwater as her eucharistic wine. Angela, then, becomes both priest and communicant, and the bloody body of the leper becomes her own suffering Christ to be consumed in eucharistic form. With her very own hands she has given herself communion.

The last of Angela’s experiences which involve her priestly identity is narrated in the Instructions.^[12] This particular vision demonstrates a development in Angela’s experience thus far, echoing the motif of a priestly identity, but in a different context. I suggest that this is achieved through what I will call an unusual “ordination” which she receives from the angels. On this occasion, during the feast of the angels, Angela is in church and about to partake of communion. She prays to the angels, saying:

O ministers of God, you have the office and the power to administer and present him to others, make the God-man present to me and make him present in the same way that the Father gives him to humanity… as alive, poor, suffering, in contempt, wounded, bloodied and crucified. Afterward, make him present to me as dead on the cross (275).

Amazingly, the angels respond, granting her more than she has even requested. Although about to receive communion herself, Angela is told: “You, who are most pleasing and delightful to God, behold, it has been granted to you, and you have him present; furthermore, it is given to you that you have the power to administer and make him present to others” (275).^[13]

Citing the passage quoted above, one scholar notes that “eucharistic visions occasionally projected women, in metaphor and vision, into access to the altar, even into the role of celebrant” (Bynum, Fragmentation 135). However, this vision represents more than just being “projected” into access to the altar – it is a type of ordination. The angels themselves play an ecclesiastical role – they substitute for the bishop. I contend that the words spoken by the angels parallel the formula pronounced by the bishop for the power to administer the sacrament in the rite of priestly ordination.

Previous to the fifteenth century, there appears to have been no set formula in the instructions given to the priest for the power to administer the sacrament of holy communion during the rite of ordination. In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, bishops tended to follow the guidelines of Hugh of St. Victor in this respect (Ahaus 282–283). In the De Sacramentis, Hugh states that the priests are to receive a chalice of wine and a basin of hosts from the bishop “in order that by these instruments they may realize that they have received the power of offering hosts pleasing to God” (268). Later, the Council of Florence (1439–1445) prescribed a specific formula, to be recited during the ordination of a priest, which articulated what had been previously taught in the West regarding the power to administer the sacrament of holy communion: “Receive the power to offer the sacrifice in the church on behalf of the living and the dead in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (qtd. in Van’t Spijker 16).

While it would be difficult to argue that in this vision Angela receives an actual ordination of priesthood, I maintain that she does receive a type of “ordination” regarding the power to administer and make Christ present to others. What is key here is the aspect of “power.” Angela is singled out, given power, and given a “commission” specifically in relation to the manifestation of Christ to others. In the context of Angela’s times, this is a dangerously close parallel to a priest’s power to make the body and blood of Christ present to others. Additionally, the vision is narrated in the Instructions, where Angela emerges as a spiritual mother to her various followers. Again, another parallel to the role of the priest, who is a “spiritual father” to his parishioners.

At the end of Angela’s vision the angels declare: “Behold, that which the Seraphim have is given and communicated to you” (276). According to the angelic hierarchy established by the Pseudo-Dionysius, the Seraphim, ranking first in the order, are positioned directly around God and enjoy a perfect, unmediated knowledge and love of him. More importantly, their task is to uplift their subordinates to a similar knowledge and love of God.^[14] Perhaps this is what is at the heart of Angela’s “ordination”—the power to share her unmediated knowledge and love of God with others, to uplift them, making Christ present to them so that they, too, will enjoy a similar love of God.

Angela has connected to Christ, experienced Christ to such an intense degree that she is called to share that experience with others. For Angela, unifying with the Divine involves fusing herself to the physical, human Christ. Eating and drinking him, touching and smelling him, experiencing him physically and with her own bodily senses are instrumental in her own particular understanding of communion and the eucharist. Angela succeeds in uniting herself to the God-man so completely that she becomes the priest of her own eucharistic experiences. Angela achieves total autonomy in her spirituality and no priest stands “as gatekeeper to her salvation” or shares “in her unity with the God of Love” (Bell 112). Angela has connected, but she is not met with silence. She has seen that wherever Christ is, there she is also.

Works Cited

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___. Jesus as Mother. Berkeley: U of California P, 1982.

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___. Fragmentation and Redemption. New York: Zone, 1991.

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___. Body and Soul: Essays on Medieval Women and Mysticism. New York: Oxford UP, 1994.

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^[1]Paul Lachance, trans., Angela of Foligno: Complete Works 126. All further quotations are taken from this volume with page numbers in parentheses.

^[2]The stripping is also parallel to St. Francis, who stripped himself publicly in Assisi.

^[3]Peter Dronke sees this passage in a different light: “She sees herself as a Bacchante: both ardent devourer and humiliated victim” 216.

^[4]The re-enactment of Christ’s burial and resurrection during Holy Week was a common eucharistic practice widespread not only in Italy but in other parts of Europe as well. A consecrated host or crucifix was placed in a sepulchre on Friday and then watched until Easter morning when the tomb was found to be empty by the three Marys. Thus, the Easter drama was endowed with pronounced eucharistic themes. See Rubin 294.

^[5]Could Angela’s vision be inspired by panther imagery in medieval moralized bestiaries? The panther was seen as a symbol for Christ. After three days of sleeping in its den, the panther awakes and “there comes a very sweet smell from its mouth, like the smell of allspice.” Christ, after his crucifixion, “reposed in the den-tomb and descended into Hell, there binding the Great Dragon. But on the third day he rose from sleep and emitted a mighty noise breathing sweetness.” See White 14–17.

^[6]Miracles in which the eucharist has a special effect on the senses (smelling sweet, filling the mouth with honey, announcing its presence when hidden, etc.) are almost exclusively female. See Bynum, Fragmentation 123.

^[7]The lay were required to take communion once a year: .”..the requirement of annual communion as both sufficient and obligatory made at the Lateran Council of 1215, creates a picture of infrequent but fairly consequential communion in this period,” Rubin 64. See also Thompson 46.

^[8]St. Francis ate from the same bowl as a leper, and St. Catherine of Siena drank pus from the breast of a sick woman.

^[9]See Bynum, Holy Feast and Holy Fast 123; Rubin 70; and Thompson 46.

^[11]Great danger of disrespect was involved when handling the body of Christ. In fact, instructions existed which outlined what was to be done with the host should it be vomited up by a sick person. See Rubin 44, 81, 124.

^[12]Some of the Instructions seem to have been written without her direct collaboration and in a scholastic terminology clearly not hers. Of the thirty-six Instructions, only three (30, 32, 33) treat the topic of the eucharist. I have chosen not to discuss them for the following reasons. First, they can be considered a free interpretation of Angela’s thought and demonstrate a highly scholastic theology; see Lachance, Notes to the Instructions 412–413. Second, they are dry, theological discourses rather than visions and lack the immediacy of Angela’s voice as well as her personal experiences and feelings.

^[13]This vision is one of four in the Instructions which some consider to be possible imitations; see Thier and Calufetti 592, n.1. Deciphering the absolute authenticity of this vision would be a task well beyond the purposes of this essay. However, on other occasions in visions reported in the Memorial (in the second and fifth supplementary steps), the heavens open and Angela sees Christ surrounded by the angels. Furthermore, if the vision is indeed an imitation, it still shows that Angela’s disciples considered her worthy of such an “ordination.”

^[14]The angelology of the Pseudo-Dionysius was widely accepted in the Middle Ages. See Luibheid and Rorem 161–162.