The “Perfect Death” as Represented in the Lives of Medieval Women Saints: Agency and Victimhood

Medieval saints’ Lives, as rhetorical constructions, were very much concerned with women and their proper roles and behavior in the church and society.  Female saints were to serve as exempla of the vita perfecta: their lives were to be admired and imitated.  Excluded by their gender from a number of the major paths that led to sainthood, the visibility and status of women saints were frequently predicated on heroic, self-destructive behavior which hastened their “perfect deaths.”  Their vitae provide detailed descriptions of some of the creative strategies and extremes to which these women were driven to prove their worthiness and resolve as brides of Christ.  This paper will focus on the complex relationship of victimhood and agency as exemplified by some of these fascinating saints.  Against a background of the misogynist culture of the period, the traditions of the early virgin martyrs, the imitatio Christi, etc., it will explore a number of cases of heroic or transgressive acts of martyrdom, extreme asceticism, self-starvation, self-mutilation, and illness found in the Lives of these medieval women saints.