Clark, Anne L.

views updated

Clark, Anne L.

PERSONAL: Female. Education: Columbia University, Ph.D.

ADDRESSES: Office—Department of Religion, University of Vermont, 481 Main St., Burlington, VT 05405. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER: Religious studies scholar. University of Vermont, associate professor of religion, 1988–.

WRITINGS:

Elisabeth of Schönau: A Twelfth-Century Visionary, University of Pennsylvania Press (Philadelphia, PA), 1992.

(Translator and author of introduction) Elisabeth of Schönau: The Complete Works, Paulist Press (New York, NY), 2000.

SIDELIGHTS: Anne L. Clark's research focuses on styles of piety, gender issues, the role of the body, and the religious lives of women, particularly during the Medieval period. She has written extensively on Hildegard of Bingen, Gertrude of Helfta, Julian of Norwich, and Elisabeth of Schönau (1129–1165), the last who she studies in Elisabeth of Schönau: A Twelfth-Century Visionary.

Elisabeth's father was a German aristocrat, and she was the niece of bishops and other religious women. She lived her life in the Benedictine monastery for monks and women at Schönau from the age of twelve, and at age twenty-three she began to have visions. She revealed them to the other nuns and to Hildelin, the abbot of Schönau, including one that was an apocalyptic warning. When no disaster occurred, Elisabeth was scorned as a false prophet by most; however, Hildelin continued to be loyal to her.

Elisabeth found a friend in Abbess Hildegard of Bingen with whom she corresponded. She also convinced her brother, Ekbert, to leave his position as canon in a Bonn church to join her at Schönau. He did, becoming a monk and also serving as her secretary, and it was through him that Elisabeth's visions concerning the Virgin Mary and the relics of St. Ursula and others were documented.

Sharon Elkins reviewed the volume in Speculum, writing that in "contrasting Elisabeth with her more famous contemporaries, Clark presents Elisabeth as a new kind of Christian visionary. Like her predecessors, Elisabeth sometimes thought she gazed on heaven, but more often she felt she was visited on earth by angels and saints who instructed her. Paying close attention to Elisabeth's descriptions of what happened to her when she saw visions, Clark provides a wonderfully lucid account of ecstasies, raptures, and other states that Elisabeth experienced."

"There are some interesting parallels with other religious women of the period," noted Sally Thompson in the Journal of Ecclesiastical History, "such as Christina of Markyate, who, like Elizabeth, worried whether the integrity of virginity could be lost by the lust experienced in temptation." Thompson felt the book is valuable for bringing Elisabeth out from under the shadow of Hildegard of Bingen, "and in increasing the understanding of twelfth-century religious women."

English Historical Review contributor Miri Rubin felt that the second half of the book contains Clark's "most impressive contributions," noting that in the fourth chapter, Clark "confronts the thorny problem of female voice and male mediation…. She faces the problem of the 'voice' squarely, an important confrontation, given that most of our knowledge of [the] female religious in the Middle Ages is, perforce, mediated by male confessors, adherents, examiners, followers, or as in this case, relatives." Rubin also praised the fifth and sixth chapters, in which Clark analyzes some of the themes of Elisabeth's visions. Rubin concluded by writing that Clark "has brought to life yet another interesting and influential medieval woman."