Subtheme:
Scandal in the Anchorhold
Organizers: Madeline Fox (University of Michigan)
and Stacie Vos (Central Connecticut State University)
Did the anchoress, in her cell, first give birth to scandal?
The OED tells us that before the 16th century, only the Ancrene Riwle used this word: “Ȝe neachȝe naut to unnen þet uuel wort beo of ow Scandle is heaued sunne.”
The rules of the anchorhold prevent scandal– or, so it seems. The thirteenth-century Ancrene Wisse outlines a detailed system of inner and outer rule that governs not only the architectural space of the anchorhold, but also the devotional bodies that inhabit it. According to the surface-level orthodoxy of texts like Ancrene Wisse, the body of the anchoress is, in many ways, no longer hers. Virtually dead to the material world, the anchoress’ body belongs both to the physical walls of her enclosure and to God.
But as scholars and readers of medieval women’s writing and devotional literature know, this homogenous and orthodoxical rule-driven life rarely manifests as such. Devotional bodies throughout the Middle Ages have pushed doctrinal and literary boundaries, both literally and figuratively, and this sub-theme invites its panelists to explore the ways in which the anchorhold–or, more generally, the enclosure–has encouraged and produced scandalous self-governance and ownership.
“Scandal,” for this sub-theme, will take many forms, but each will be bound by an emphasis on the ways medieval women’s writing and devotional literature have redefined doctrine, bodily autonomy, literary production, vernacular writing, and more. Following Christopher Cannon’s chapter “Enclosure” – which considers the anchoress, her anchorhold, and its governing society as a series of enclosures that are each built according to the principles as the medieval body – this sub-theme will explore the elasticity of the devotional body and the worlds that it both inhabits and shapes. We invite papers that consider how medieval devotional bodies, specifically the bodies of women, subvert the doctrinal expectation of enclosure–or bend it–scandalously.
Papers could consider how medieval women writers scandalously navigate sexuality, heterodoxical practice, raucous devotion, vernacular authorship, bodily autonomy, desire, speech, consumption (of text, image, food, medicine) and more. While these are just a few examples of how papers could fit within this sub-theme–with “scandal” broadly defined–we also invite papers about textbook devotional scandal: acts of politics, friction, and rebellion that occur within and as a result of devotional spaces and doctrine.
At large, this sub-theme provides a space to consider enclosure and practices of it as scandal: a location of doctrinal experimentation, bodily ownership, self-governance, and vernacular literary production.
