This piece is an autofictional seed for the Autofiction x Worldbuilding submissions call. It inspired this other piece.

A Perfect Virgin Saint

One thing popular history does is flatten periods and locations, making them into one smooth thing. This is especially true of the medieval period, a thousand years give or take, and even if you only look at Western Europe, a vast area with many peoples, languages and cultures. If you think of kings, knights, jousting, crusades, the three (four) field system, castles, manors and feudalism (not actually a thing according to historians) you miss… everything else.

And some of it’s straight up wrong.

Let’s consider the role of women. We know what the highest aspiration for women in historical periods was: to be a wife and mother¹. To raise children and keep a household. Firstly the flattening effect. Not all women, not all medieval periods, not all medieval countries, or areas within those countries.

But even if we take the period and area as a whole, it’s not true. Wife and Mother as the greatest, maybe only respectable female role is a modern (post 1600) conception, and especially a Victorian one; the period in which medieval history (most history) was put on systematic footing. The Victorian historians, mostly men, did a lot of excellent work. Yet they inevitably saw historical periods through the lens of their own times, emphasising aspects they understood to be important, neglecting those they thought marginal.

The highest aspiration for women in many parts of Europe, for many of the medieval periods, was to devote themselves to God². To support or practice religious lives. To be a perfect virgin saint.

Monks and nuns, groups who dedicate themselves to religious practice, rise up during the medieval period. Although sworn to poverty, many such communities had farm and lands, and donations to keep them going. Many monasteries were supported by the work or wealth of women. Nuns were not often so fortunate, in most cases having to support themselves through the work of the sisters. Yet such a life was still attractive, in most cases sisterhoods were able to be extremely selective about who joined. Despite, or perhaps because of, the vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. As the medieval period went on, nunneries were often useful to noble families as places women could retire to; their gratitude and piety improving the lot of the sisters.

Saint Wilgefortis embodies the idea of the martyr, the perfect virgin, and the devout woman in one legend. Her father, a nobleman, wishes her to marry a Moorish king. Unwilling to marry a non-Christian, she takes a vow of chastity, praying that she be spared by being made repulsive. Her prayer is granted and she miraculously grows a beard, the wedding called off. And her father, furious at being thwarted in this way, crucifies her.

Wilgefortis was very popular, the story set in Portugal, spreading into Germany and England. People suffering tribulations – especially women suffering from abusive husbands – would pray for her intercession. This despite the fact there is no record of the events described, and Wilgefortis probably coming about from Byzantine crucifixes with an androgynous, bearded Christ figure.

It’s probably time for a real example. Jeanne D’Arc, Joan Of Arc. As the Hundred Years War went on, a prophecy crossed and re-crossed the French countryside, that an armed virgin would end France’s suffering, and that a virgin under a banner would lead France to victory. Joan had visions, those of St Michael, the archangel, being the most martial. Amongst the others are included those of St Margaret Of Antioch (known as Margaret The Virgin), martyred when the Roman Governor asked her to give up her Christian faith and marry him; and St Catherine of Alexandria, who debated pagan philosophers, converting some, until the Emperor had her put to death.

As a result of her visions Joan believed that Charles, Dauphin of France, was the legitimate king, and appointed by God to drive the English and Burgundians out of France. With some effort she managed to convince the local authorities to send her to Charles; though impressed by her he didn’t take her at her word. She was examined by a council of theologians who pronounced her a good Catholic, and by Charles’ mother-in-law and her women, who pronounced her a maiden. With these references Charles gave her a suit of armour. Joining soldiers Joan put on male clothes, which she preferred for the rest of her life, and made a banner. Charles sent her to Orleans, under siege by the English.

The siege had half-heartedly settled into a stalemate, the English and Burgundians having quarrelled but the defenders demoralised. Joan’s arrival inspired them to break out, with Joan joining attacks and encouraging them to remain on the offensive rather than consolidate gains. The English retreated. The French saw this as a sign that Joan was truly inspired by God; the English as proof that she was possessed by the devil.

Joan took the soldiers from Orleans and cleared the path to Reims, defeating an English army along the way. In Reims, Charles was crowned King Of France, a major boost to his legitimacy, which inspired the Burgundians to negotiate. When this came to nothing Joan led the army to Paris; eventually she was forced to withdraw, and after this was marginalised at Charles’s court.

The next year, campaigning against the Burgundians, Joan’s policy of inspirational attacks failed her and she was captured. The English bought her and put her on trial for heresy, packing a court with pro-English Parisian theologians. Found guilty she agreed to give up bearing arms and dressing in male clothes. Threatened with rape she resumed wearing the male clothes put in her cell, and so was condemned as a relapsed heretic. Turned over to the secular authority they burned her.

Did Joan Of Arc have girl power? Was she gaslight gatekeep girlbossing it across France? The question implies the answer; that we are in danger of projecting our own present context onto a 15^th century woman whose visions sent her on a mission for God. Yet women and men were inspired by her example, and continue to be so, in their own contexts. If Joan of Arc did not exist then we would have had to create her. And in a sense so did Charles VII, needing every boost to his cause; and so did the English needing a villain they could destroy.

Joan thought herself compelled into action by her visions of saints and angels. She was extraordinary, and found herself so prominent by coming forward during a crisis. Yet history tells us of innumerable medieval women coming forward at such moments. Leaders, supporters, builders, soldiers. Impelled into traditionally male roles. And always and ever, women inspired by faith. To serve God and religion, to declare themselves followers of Christ. Even to lay down their lives and become a martyr.

A Perfect Virgin Saint.

1. Immediately questions arise. For example in the Roman Empire Augustus passed many laws encouraging people to marry and have children. He believed that the family was the source of strength in the state, something he struggled with in his own family. We might take this as proof that by offering honours and privileges to wives and mothers, they were highly esteemed. Yet if that is the case, why does Augustus need to pass laws to encourage them?
2. Throughout the Roman Republic and Empire there was enormous competition amongst young women to become a Vestal Virgin; alas such comparisons are outside the scope of this essay.