The literary sources produced between the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries by Augustinian friars are provide a way to uncover their ideas about women. The Order of Augustinian friars had great success among women: there were many women who wanted to become Augustinian nuns, or Augustinian tertiaries, or be under the spiritual guidance of Augustinian friars as simple devotees. It is therefore important to investigate the texts produced by the friars and ascertain their image of women.

The idea that, thanks to Augustine, the Augustinian Order was less misogynistic than other Orders has already shown up in historiography.1 In the historical period analyzed in this essay (14^th-15^th century) the friars were intentionally referring to Augustine’s thought as that of the founder of the Order. In fact, the figure of Augustine as the founder of the Order became particularly clear and influential from the first decades of the fourteenth century. It was at this time that the Order, originating from a variety of different hermitic experiences assembled by the pope, successfully absorbed the complex process of its origins, and Augustine was accepted as its true founding father. One might therefore think that to understand how the late Middle Ages Augustinians judged women one only needs to know what Augustine thought of them. In fact, however, the matter is more complex than just that. While it is surely relevant to know Augustine’s true opinion on the female gender, it might be important also to ascertain what was the interpretation of Augustine’s opinion developed by the Augustinians in the late Middle Ages. It would be wrong to think that the friars of this historical period were solely guided by Augustine’s thought; rather, they were guided by their own interpretation of Augustine’s thought or by the interpretation offered by contemporary intellectuals.

Briefly, this paper will focus not on what Augustine thought of women, but rather on what Augustinian friars did, insofar as they felt legitimized by their own interpretation of Augustine’s thought.2

Up to now, very little attention has been given to the female typologies described by the medieval theologians who belonged to the Order of the Hermits of Saint Augustine. In order to write this paper, new research was undertaken, extending to the texts produced by Augustinian preachers and directors of conscience, because the authors of these texts were close to the people who received spiritual and behavioral formation from Augustinian friars.3

Such research aimed at finding out what the Augustinian friars thought about women in general and, then, about those women who wanted to enter their religious Rule. Ultimately, their statements in this regard are not too different from those of other religious men belonging to other Orders, particularly the Franciscan and Dominican Orders. They are keen to state that the holiness of women is possible thanks to the Regula Augustini, and the Augustinian spiritual father’s guidance. The specific nature of Augustinian texts is the identification of the centrality of Scripture and conformity to Christ as the right way for women to become holy as well. At least one very influential Augustinian author, Simone da Cascia, presents the process of conformation to Christ as being triggered and directed by the divine Word. According to his vision, the divine Word, God’s grace, and faith in Christ transform human beings so deeply that they become conformed to Christ, as St. Paul said. He uses a meaningful Latin word, Christiformitas, meaning the process of taking on the form of Christ. This is a process in which human will is absolutely crucial —and can involve women too. But let us proceed in an orderly fashion.

Women were largely ignored by Heinrich von Friemar (d. 1340), a learned Augustinian friar active in Paris intellectual circle between 1305 and 1312, author of a book intended to explain the origin and development of his Order, De origine et progressu Ordinis Fratrum Eremitarum Sancti Augustini ac proprio titulo eiusdem (1334). Women are almost completely absent from De origine, with the exception of St. Monica.4 Heinrich was a fine scrutinizer of consciences. His work investigates the four instincts —De quatuor instinctibus — and is a treatise focusing on introspection and the discretion spirituum but does not deal with the question of women in any particular way.5 Pierantonio Piatti’s analysis, however, has outlined a sort of female taxonomy in several Augustinian texts, especially in the Liber Vistas fratrum by Jordan of Saxony. The latter is one of the most important Augustinian hagiographic texts; it was completed in 1357 and destined to be a milestone in the identity of the Order. In the first place, in his taxonomy we find positive images of women as «mothers», «spiritual daughters», and the women who helped the friars and are called «Martae» by Jordan of Saxony. In the Vistas fratrum, in fact, we read that some women of good repute served in the hospices intended for the friars and took care of their material needs. We do not know whether they were tertiaries, oblates, or occasional «Perpetue» (a term indicating servants). Though Jordan praises these women, he advises the Augustinian friars to exercise healthy prudence: better to keep their distance.6

On the other hand, we also find negative representations of the feminine gender there; namely the temptress, the daughter of Eve, who hides her desire to arouse sensual temptations in the friars behind a mask of false purity. Finally, nuns also make their appearance: the third «voice» of the female taxonomy is represented by nuns who are certainly praised for their choice of consecration to God, but towards whom the friars are invited to maintain a guide’s attitude without relinquishing the primacy of spiritual direction. Jordan describes the nuns using an everyday language that contrasts with the liveliness of the language reserved to portray the laywomen.7

The circumstances of the composition of the Liber Vitas fratrum, analysed by Katherine Walsh, may help us understand why the author showed such carelessness towards the nuns, and kept a general distance from the female universe. Neglect and distance, if we remain within the realm of Jordan’s text, might seem completely at odds, at least in theory, with the desire to support the great changes that happened in the Order. In fact, the author had explained the relocation of Augustinian convents from the solitary areas of conversatio heremitica to populous urban settlements (a radical and non-peaceful mutation of the Order’s forma vitae) by emphasizing the importance of pastoral care and the guidance of souls by the friars (the so-called «works of the active life»).8 Jordan repeated several times that the urbanisation of the Augustinians had taken place in the pure spirit of imitation of their «founder» Augustine, but in doing so he created a big gap with the hermitical experiences that preceded the foundation of the Order. All the more so, then, one might expect the reference to spiritual direction to be strong and reiterated because pastoral care was presented as one of the pillars on which the Order was founded in its mendicant and urban version.

In 1350, however, the Bishop of Armagh, Richard Fitz Ralph launched a strong attack in his text Proposicio on the privileges of the Mendicant Orders before Pope Clement VI. In his opinion the Mendicants interfered too much with the cura animarum and were even harmful to the Church’s pastoral mission owing to the privileges of preaching and hearing confessions.9 Furthermore, in 1356, Richard Fitz Ralph wrote De Paupertate Salvatoris, where he argued for the abolition not only of the privileges of the Mendicants but of the Mendicants themselves, provoking debate in Oxford and Avignon; a new quaestio de paupertate. Eric Leland Saak has clearly shown the strong influence of this context on the Liber Vitas fratrum and I believe that this also influenced the representation of women in Jordan’s text.10 It is well known that the problem of the cura monialium brings together the Augustinians with the other mendicant friars: the internal quarrels within the Order of the Friars Preachers were grounded precisely in this issue.11 In addition, we must consider another element that is typically Augustinian: the Ordo Sancti Augustini unites all institutes of consecrated life that observed the Augustinian Rule, including those that did not belong to the Order of the Hermits of Saint Augustine.12 In Europe at this time numerous women’s monasteries lived under the Rule of Augustine but did not belong to the Order of the Augustinians; they were subject to the jurisdiction of the bishop but were sometimes spiritually cared for by Augustinian friars.13 More important, therefore, was the avoidance of disputes of any kind with the secular clergy, and the avoidance of any possible take-over of the care of Augustinian nuns who did not belong to the Order of Augustinians by the friars themselves, even if they provided informal cura. There had already been cases of this kind rooted in far-reaching interpretations of the Regula Augusti considering all the religious institutes that used the Regula to be part of a common koiné. If the koiné was such from a spiritual point of view it was not at all so from a jurisdictional one. Yet the difference between the two spheres was not always understood and respected in the appropriate manner by all the Augustinian friars. Moreover, in 1266 the Cardinal protector of the Order, Riccardo degli Annibaldi, wrote a letter to the German Provincial of the friars of St. Augustine recommending that they take care of the nuns of the Order, urging the friars to confess them and to provide their monasteries the necessary pastoral care. There were many Augustinian friars who ran women’s monasteries, especially those following an Augustinian rule, without worrying about whether they were subject to the Order or to bishops. In 1300, the General Chapter of Naples forbade them from taking care of monasteries or individual nuns without first obtaining the appropriate license from the Vicar General or the Prior Provincial.14 Consequently, we can perhaps assume that Jordan of Saxony did not want to insist on cura monialium and on spiritual direction for women because, at the time he was writing his work, the subject was controversial and risked exacerbating the arguments raised by Richard Fitz Ralph and his supporters. In the Liber Vitas fratrum Jordan emphasised the similarity of the friars’ forma vitae to that of the apostles, saying that differences between their respective lifestyles existed but only because they were required by the different times and contexts. Interestingly, he felt compelled to explain why the Augustinians were not surrounded by women as the Apostles were, accompanied by «honestissimae et devotissimae Matronae», Mary Magdalene, Martha, Joan, and Susan.15 Jordan staged a fictio dialogica, imagining that one of the friars asked if he could be accompanied by women, since he was imitating the apostles. To this imaginary question he replied that, yes, it was possible to be accompanied by morally impeccable women like those who accompanied the apostles, but he invited the friar to reflect on the great distance separating him from the apostles; given the friar’s own imperfection he should be cautious. And in any case, Jordan added, in many provinces the friars were accompanied by women and men in their quests and were helped by the so-called «Marthas» in the hospices. The evaluation of Martha was very positive, Jordan wrote, and as Simone da Cascia and Giovanni da Salerno had previously written, and the Augustinian monasteries dedicated to St. Martha showed, but the argument ended there.16 The friars had to exercise extreme prudence in having any kind of relationship with women. According to Jordan, this prudence was motivated by the need to preserve chastity.17 Thus, Jordan did not deny women’s sanctity, but anchored his advice to apostolic memory, such that the caveat he addressed to his brothers was expressed in terms of what should be admired but not imitated or, at least, could not easily be imitated. Rather than remaining in the purely theoretical dimension and examining descriptions of the various «types» of women we can also investigate a practical dimension by examining texts which addressed spiritual direction for women. The literature is not too abundant for the period, but it is nevertheless significant. The confessional and the pulpit provided propitious opportunities to establish relationships of spiritual direction, especially with laywomen and also with some religiosae mulieres. The registers of the Generalate of Bartolomeo Veneto (1383-89) abound in information on confessions.18 The women who gathered around the Order constituted a pool for the exercise of the guidance of souls. The groups were not structured and were only gradually organised according to a well-defined grid: nuns, tertiaries, oblates, and simple devotees.19

Pierantonio Piatti analysed the thinking of Egidio Romano, the Order’s official theologian who described a woman as a failed male («mas occasionatus») in his De formatione corporis humani.20 Romano closely followed the doctrine of Tommaso d’Aquino and was not far removed from the medical literature of the time that suspected the presence of a female seed in the generation process, which anyway was passive and dangerously similar to menstrual blood.

Very different, however, is the position of another important Augustinian theologian who was also a confessor and a director of conscience of women’s groups: Simone Fidati da Cascia. Simone moved to Florence to organise the life of groups of religious women for whom he would establish monasteries of Augustinian rule or dispense advice and pious exhortations so that they could live as tertiaries or simple devotees linked to Augustinian circles. Such an effort on Simone’s part is an element of the unfolding of a broader movement that, starting from the ecclesiastical establishment, aimed at rationalising the forma vitae of women’s groups by institutionally framing those that arose spontaneously and strengthening the ties and curamonialium of already formalised communities. There are numerous examples of men and institutions that undertook work to this end. If we stay within 14^th century Tuscany we may recall, by way of example, the activities carried out by Domenico Calvalca regarding the Dominican nuns of Pisa.21

The focal point of the pastoral work of the Augustinians is imitation of Christ in accordance with the Augustinian paradigm of conformitas to Christ, or rather christiformitas.22 In this regard two texts on the practice of being a spiritual guide written by Simone Fidati da Cascia (c. 1285-1348) are illuminating:23 Ordine della Vita Cristiana and Regola spirituale.24 As we read in the Tractatus de vita et moribus fratris Simonis de Cassia written by his disciple Giovanni da Salerno, Simone Fidati was a great preacher, capable of moving and converting those who heard him speak, often attracting men and women who chose him as their teacher and spiritual guide («eius manibus totostoteque velut mourtuos se ponuntur conversi»).25 In a letter addressed to Brother Benedict of Santa Maria del Santo Sepolcro in Florence, Simone himself noted the intense bond that linked him to the women he directed: «credi enim mihi multae sunt et duae gemmae laetificantes, omni mode mentem meam».26 He considered them daughters to whom he gave birth repeatedly and with difficulty, so that the image of Christ might live in them. I emphasise that Simone chose for himself to use the maternal metaphor taken from Paul’s letter to the Galatians (4:19), which he also quoted in discussing the paradigm of breastfeeding. In this case he instructed Benedict to guide and comfort the pious nuns like a good mother.27

In Florence, Simone Fidati promoted the foundation of a monastic institute dedicated to Mary Magdalene to rehabilitate prostitutes and the female monastery of Santa Caterina in San Gaggio. He was known for his qualities as spiritual director.28 The figure of Tommaso Corsini, who received numerous letters from Fidati and urged him to write De Gestis Domini Salvatoris, is central here because their relationship played an important role in the network of complex relations of spiritual direction, including with women, that Simone managed.29

In Ordine della vita cristiana, written in 1333, Fidati is consistent with the strictly scriptural theology typical of his most important work, De gestis Domini Salvatoris.30 In De Gestis the author dedicated ample space to the relationship between faith and works and, having philologically rescued the Greek version of the evangelical term for conversion (metànoia), he carefully separated the opening of conscience to God’s action from human works. Faith is absolutely necessary: without a radical change in the perspectives of reading and interpreting phenomena by divine grace it is impossible to act «Christianly», or in a Christian manner. Ordine della vita cristiana is a much simpler text but equally anchored in Scripture. It is divided into two books: the first is entirely devoted to the exercises necessary to elevate and refine the soul, while the second focusses on the body and its behaviours, since actions were seen as a direct consequence of conversion and faith. The teaching given by Fidati in the Ordine implies the necessary exercise of humility. If this virtue were missing the individual could not receive the divine grace that leads to God.31 The author then advocated and recommended meditating on Jesus’ actions by reading the Holy Scriptures carefully and constantly.32

The intense writing that Fidati uses in his advice and spiritual instruction instills the certainty that one can learn directly from God, who dwells in the deepest intimacy of the conscience. The end of the text reads:

In Regola, dedicated to one of his Roman spiritual daughters, Fidati re-proposed similar concepts but expressed them in an even drier and a simpler way. To her, called to live as a monastic while she remained at home, he dedicated a tripartite treatise (in honour of the Trinity) with which he intended to lovingly assist her.34

To avoid the risk that her naivety might betray the vocation, and become «fantastica», it was necessary to prevent her from losing herself in vain cogitations. The spiritual father therefore must lead her along an introspective path that was simultaneously both sober and profound. Thus, if in the first step he teaches her about the loving relationship she needed to establish with the Creator, in the second he accompanies her on the path leading to inner order, while in the third he teaches her how to behave towards her neighbour. The woman is still at the stage of spiritual infancy (in fact he tells her that she must feed on the milk of doctrine), and other books, more challenging, await her in the future. Simone also tells her that she will have no other teacher but Christ himself:

He concludes: « Cristo ti faccia quale ti vuole allo nome di Gesù, il quale nome sia benedetto e laudato, amen» (Christ makes you what he wills you in the name of Jesus, whose name be blessed and praised, amen).35 The spiritual direction exercised by Fidati was focused on Christ and Scripture. Christ was the only teacher, embodying all goodness and mercy, and could be approached by grace in Scripture and through prayer. Sanctifying grace, which God gives because he is merciful, softens the human heart and perfects the intellect. This does not at all mean that Fidati builds a direction centred on sentiment; on the contrary, he founds it on pure faith alone, taking an anti-intellectualist stance. According to him, the root of evil lies within the human heart and consequently the heart will be sanctified by God so that all other human faculties can then be progressively sanctified. A similar idea reappears in his 1338 letter to his spiritual daughter, Madonna Cella of Florence. Cella had written to him asking for help because she felt unable to honour and praise God and to serve Him so she wanted to be corrected and instructed by Fidati. Simone answers her by repeating in summary the concepts already present in his other works: he exhorts her to humility, which follows the awareness of being nothing; he clarifies that devotion is asking God for His grace with sweetness; he explains that devotion is the sweetness of love for God and that same love is also service to God. It is a shy and demure love, comparable to the feeling a young bride has for her husband; a bride «che amando sta riverente, e non prende giammai disonesta securtade, e sempre va cercando di piacere onestamente» (who lovingly stands reverent and never takes dishonest confidence, and always goes seeking to please, honestly).36 Simone punctually answered Cella’s requests, her desire to learn not to sin with words, and her questions about why she had to wear a woolen hairshirt, a coarse and unpleasant undergarment in contact with her bare skin. In answering her, Simone condenses his most typical teachings. He shows her the virtue of silence and the humility of Christ, translating the Gospel verses that were most useful for her purpose. He urges her, finally, to wear vile clothes, to associate with people even of low social standing, as long as they were honest and of good morals, and to free herself from the slavery of being appreciated by her neighbour: «che tu non curi di giudizio di persona, perciocché giudizio falso non può condannare né può coronare».37 Since these indirect references to honour appear in the letter we can assume that Madonna Cella was probably not a religious woman and that she came from a rather high social class. There is also another letter by Simone, written for some religious women, the contents of which, however, do not differ too much from those discussed above.38

In fact, Simone does not change the substance of his spiritual teaching, but rather adapts it to the recipient; it is not by chance that he uses the vernacular rather than Latin for women, especially if they are lay women. Giovanni da Salerno makes this use of the vernacular explicit, writing:

It is in the use of the vernacular in De Gestis that we find consideration of the female gender and Simone’s words are accompanied by John’s comments. This is Chapter Three, dedicated to illustrating «come Erode fece incarcerare Giovanni Battista per Erodias sua cognata —delle femmine buone e cattive».40After talking about «good» Christians and «bad» Christians, both men and women, the author introduces the figure of the «crudeli e mali femmine».41 Evil women constitute the worst kind of human beings. In particular, he deplores the «linguaciute», which is to say gossipers and, above all, hypocrites and traitors like «Delilah, Herodias, Giezabel». And, citing Origen, Chrysostom and John the Evangelist, he shows how the devil prefers to use women to bring about the damnation of men. The author then reviews «good» women. Apart from the Virgin Mary, because «fu e sarà sopra gli angeli», he enumerates the holy women of Scripture: Sarah, wife of Abraham; Sarah, wife of Tobias; Judith; Susanna; the Canaanite woman; and the followers of Jesus: «tutte date a vivere secondo la dottrina e la vita di Cristo, disposte a ogni pena e morte con grande desiderio e diletto» (all these women lived according to the doctrine and life of Christ, willing to face every penalty, even death, with great desire and delight).42 Then the text adds the words of Giovanni da Salerno, who tells us that it would take too long to praise the holy women of Scripture and that they are often the subject of preaching. He then recounts his own experience. Giovanni writes that during the life of Simone Fidati, «viddi alcune vergini disposte e ordinate per maritarsi e udendo le sue prediche e favellando a lui mutarono l’animo loro e innamorarsi della virginità e della povertà servare per amor di Cristo». 43 Others, in contrast, while remaining married, were so willing to follow the way of Christ that they often refused to sleep with their spouses, and Simone then had to convince them to return to the marital bed. But, he adds, all this holiness has almost completely disappeared and is a relic of the past because «poche ne son oggi!».44 However, it is reaffirmed that salvation is for all, men and women, and to make this consideration even sharper, the example of Martha is used, who thus becomes the icon of good Christian women. «The highest word», we read, «is»:

On the seals of the Ordine della vita cristiana were depicted several figures of women saints in addition to the Virgin Mary, namely St Monica, Mary Magdalene, and an unknown crowned saint portrayed together with the Agnus Dei.46

In the texts, therefore, there are many openings towards women, though assertions of gendered distinctions remain. The Ordine della vita cristiana clearly states:

Nevertheless, since both men and women are equally children of God, the woman must disobey her husband if he forces her to do things «contro a Dio e del matrimonio e controalla giustizia e contra alla virtù».48 Women thus must also learn Christian teachings and principles so that they can assess the appropriateness of their husbands’ demands. A good spiritual father and confessor can help her identify and implement the necessary corrective measures. Certainly, for a woman it was necessary to identify a point of reference other than her husband’s, and if, from a spiritual point of view, her reference had to be Christ, from a practical point of view the spiritual father and confessor could become an important anchor of salvation.

The works of another Augustinian who was active in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, Brother Girolamo da Siena (1335/1340-1420), were born of the exercise of spiritual fatherhood. He composed the Rule for Augustinian tertiaries, numerous letters, and two works of spiritual instruction entitled Soccorso de’ povari and the Adiutorio de’ povari.49 He explains that the Soccorso was the simplest text, which was to be followed by the reading of the letters and finally the Adiutorio: «e chi di voi volesse più alto salire legga nel Libro delle Pistole, e legga l’Aiutorio».50 The Soccorso de’ povari is dedicated to a group of Augustinian disciples and tertiaries and from the beginning declares its dependence from the Ordine della vita cristiana of Simone Fidati. It is sustained by the certainty that the sisters can successfully walk along a spiritual path marked by decus and medietas. In turn, decus and medietas become the soul’s bulwark against «foolish» external manifestations of faith since Christians are called to an intimate and secret devotion. «Anima», writes Girolamo, «se vuoi essere di Dio, non fare parte di te ad altri, perciò che Dio vuole essere solo possessore dell’anima che ha creata per sé» so as to transform it into his own bride and dwelling place. The spiritual pedagogy entrusted to the Soccorso’s charters centres entirely on strict and scriptural devotion without any glimmer of mysticism; it is a sort of ante litteram catechism where the fundamental truths of Christian doctrine and the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit are explained.51 There is no trace of visions or revelations in the Soccorso. It opens with the Symbolum and closes with the teaching of prayer: according to what is prescribed for the laity by the various Councils, the Pater, Ave, and Salve Regina are recommended to be recited. The most fervent readers will add prayers taken from the liturgy, the missal, and the Psalms.52 But Soccorso is only the first step in the path to God, the second being Girolamo’s epistles.

Before analysing the Epistolary, it is useful to clarify the relationship between Jerome and the people he spiritually directs.53 Writing to a group of lay people made up of men and women he says and specifies: «guardate bene che non façite come molte aneme languente, le quale fastidiscono lo cibo spirituale e vano sempre imprudentemente avide di novità dietro ad molti, e ad ogni bon homo che odono laudare si vogliono parlare e sapere soa vita e condicione et udire suo doctrina et cetera». One, in other words, must behave in a strict way and be faithful to only one spiritual father whom one must obey without discernment or doubt, «sença discernere o çudegare».54 The relationship is clear and asymmetrical: at the top is the spiritual father, who is the master, and below him is the person he directs, the disciple. She should neither seek to change her master nor question him. Another passage, taken from the Adiutorio, is a defence of the relationship of spiritual direction between a man and a woman, through the example of Saint Jerome:

Girolamo is legitimising his own work, and he does so by using the figures of holy women who are all from the distant past: it seems to me that this is a form of self-defence, an accreditation of his role as spiritual guide.

It is also worth reflecting on the value of the letters: they are not just copies of the correspondence between the master and his disciples; they are a sort of extension on paper of the relationship of spiritual direction that typically took place orally, during private conversations, or confessions between the friar and his faithful one. Girolamo advises his followers to obtain his writings, so as not to risk suffering because of the absence of their spiritual father: «E inçegnateve d’avere le scripture suo con voi, chi può, e fateve forte concepto di credere che in esse scripture si contenga quello che basti di rasione a condurve per la via di venire a salvamento, se con fede e purità lo observerete in vera vertù».56 The authoritativeness of the spiritual guide’s letter as the medium of the relationship is so powerful and real that it can recreate the practical effects of the physical presence of the spiritual father. We discover this when we read an epistle addressed by Girolamo to a group of disciples (probably Sienese tertiaries) who reproached him for his absence. He responds by reproaching them in turn: they have now reached spiritual maturity and must abandon the «milk» of their spiritual father because they must not trust in man but in God. So, he proposes a solution by ordering them to write to him personally, one by one, but without sending him the letters. After they have written the letters, they should gather together, read them, and then, in front of those letters, confess their faults and forgive each other: «se rende in colpa ad tutevoi in persona di me, e voitute di subito perdonate l’una a l’altra di bon cuore».57 Thus, a particular use of the letter emerges: the epistles cancel out physical distance, and just as the distant spiritual father becomes close through the letter so too are the recipients obliged to behave among themselves as if the father were there by writing letters of reply and reading them aloud in the community. Their writing, guided at a distance by the father, functions to evoke his presence and thus forces them to improve their behaviour. In using the letters, Girolamo orchestrates a role-playing game to make women responsible for each other, investing his spiritual daughters with the responsibility of listening to each other, obliging them to maintain a benign attitude and to forgive.

Letters, cards, and missives thus facilitate the relationship of spiritual direction, which only the spiritual father (i. e. Girolamo himself) can exercise correctly. His disciples must sacrifice their own will and place their trust in God and their spiritual master. When he sees fit, he intervenes strongly to critique the disciples’ behaviour. To Lucia he sent a long letter entitled Disciplina, because «è reprensione […] con la quale t’ò batuta e disiplinata». The letter denounces Lucia’s errors: she is guilty of having followed her own will and desires not her spiritual father’s instruction, and has therefore sinned grievously.58 Lucia wrote three notes of reply to Girolamo in which she thanked him, told him that she would have gladly embraced his feet («dico come per la divina gratia leggendo questo dono celeste ebe gran refrigerio di piova e sentiva amplexare li piedi del pastore»), and confessed that she could do nothing without «grace» and therefore proposed to read and re-read Girolamo’s letter until he absolved her.59 The reprimand of the pater spiritualis had hit the mark. The letter to some of his lay disciples in Venice is very interesting because it insists on their obedience and warns them against women philosophers who teach in Venice with neither licence nor permission. On the tenth degree of the spiritual scale of elevation towards God that he composed for his followers he writes:

Further on, he specifies that there are two women philosophers in Venice who speak without having meditated enough and who «non sono acte al sacrificio di Dio».61 Girolamo shows a great appreciation for disciples who have a virile soul («o anime virili»); in this case women from Bologna who are very loyal to his teachings. In contrast to them he posits three types of maleficent women who have a female soul, «le qual anime son purfemene», whereas holy women have a masculine one. The first type, or «species», is made up of haughty women; these may be very difficult to recognise because they often wear a religious habit. They do not accept any form of correction and criticise those who disagree with them.62 The second are the devil’s women, «femene diabolice,» who are recognisable because they make personal judgements, speak eloquently, and claim to receive teachings directly from God.63 Perhaps we could venture a comparison between the philosophical women of Venice and the diabolical women who were also probably literate: «vogliono ogni spirito cognosere e ogni cosa iudicano e fano vista di cognoscere e discernere li spiriti, se da Dio sono, et ànno parlature alte et elevate, e sempre parlano in tal modo che pare che sentano quelo che parlano, e queste cotal àno parole assai e facti pochi: la vita di costoro è tuta vento di vanagloria».64 But, above all, we can see that Girolamo is talking about women who show autonomy of judgement and who arrogate to themselves the right to exhibit behaviour typical of the spiritual father: discerning spirits, evaluating and judging, speaking with wisdom.

Finally, the third species of maleficent women is made up of «certe anime infelice e vagabonde» women who wander about and gain the confidence of good women by pretending a holiness of life that they do not possess. In reality, writes Girolamo, these wanderers are lying women, and when they think they are safe and unseen by the public they behave in an irate and greedy manner to obtain things like a needle, some thread, or a hen.65 They are simulators of holiness and false saints. He goes on to recount his experience with women of this kind and illustrates in detail how he has unmasked them. In particular, he mentions one woman who remains anonymous. She was displaying holiness and in thirty years of activity had gathered around her a small community of women who followed her. Girolamo noticed that she was pretending —«che quel spirito è ficto et non vero»— because she could not stand his teachings and was impatient when listening to him —«ò veduta la impacientia nelviso del più aparente spirito». He therefore pointed out the falsity of her behaviour in front of her companions. She then begged him to confess her, but Girolamo denied her confession because she was not truly contrite but only wanted to force him into silence: «Et à dicto che da me si vuol confessare; et io non l’ò voluta udire, perché io ò cognosciuto che non si confessa per contricione ma per ponerme scilentio, a çiò che io non parli di facti suoi».66

In the words of the friar, a distinction takes shape between good, holy women and evil, diabolical women, which divides the female gender into two sub-genres that we can identify using the distinction between «women» and «females». Through virtue and grace women acquire a virile, healthy, and straightforward soul and sanctify themselves. Evil women, by contrast, exacerbate female defects and impurities, thus becoming totally female and therefore perversely diabolical. It is the soul that distinguishes them, not the body: there is a negative female soul and a positive male soul prone to sanctification. The saints and martyrs, the good spiritual daughters who docilely follow their father’s teachings, are, as such, «virile». It is no coincidence that Girolamo —like Simone Fidati and many other spiritual directors— claims for himself the function of the nursing mother, the same function performed by Christ when he suckles the virile women saints, such as Catherine of Siena, at his breast. Christ is father and mother because divine and spiritual motherhood has no gender: spiritual motherhood can be the prerogative of a man too because in God sexuality is removed and annulled.67 Even prostitutes, if they are willing to accept God’s grace and the correction of the brothers, can become saints because their soul is then perfected and acquires virility. It does not matter if they have sold their bodies for profit; it only matters that they have changed their life and therefore their soul. But if a virgin presumes to act without paternal mediation, if she believes that she can discern and know Christ, her mystical spouse, by herself, or if she does not accept mediation and correction, then she is a female and her soul is feminine and diabolical and therefore lost.68 The pinnacle of Girolamo’s work on spiritual direction is his Adiutorio de’ povari, which was the highest text of all and was therefore intended for the highest souls. The title is based on the incipit of Psalm 90, and the text is so dependent on Richard of Saint Victor’s Adnotatio in psalmum xc that in many passages it is almost a translation.69 It is a text addressed to disciples already experienced in the approach (indìamento) of the creature to the Creator, in which there is ample space for the technique of discretion spirituum; as I have already suggested in another essay, this text does not seem to me to be addressed to a female audience, but rather was written, I believe, for people of a higher level and perhaps for a community of Jesuit friars.70

In 1388, another Augustinian friar, Riccardo da Cortona,71 composed a short booklet for the edification of a group of women from Cortona, entitled Giardinetto di divozione.72 Following in the tradition of writings that taught the construction of the inner cell, Riccardo da Cortona instructed his disciples in the art of cultivating a mystical garden in their hearts, where Christ could be found. The body is reduced to the senses and each of them lends access to the soul of the devotee and must therefore be kept and adorned in a suitable manner to receive Christ. The models to be followed are the mystical brides of Christ, that is, the martyr-saints already mentioned by Girolamo: Catherine, Agnes, Agatha, Cecilia, and Lucy.73 Every flower that appears in the garden is a virtue to be cultivated, starting with the first and most important one; namely, humility. The martyrs provide a model of holy life and introduce Riccardo’s sweet sisters —«sirocchie dolci»— to the art of the martyrdom of love, the supreme goal of their earthly journey. The final exhortation is to become living stones in the building of eternal life, so each of them will have to undergo a sculpting operation to make it perfect.74 Only then can the tree of the Cross of Christ be planted and bear fruit in the centre of the garden; or, rather, the centre of their hearts.

The christiformitas of which Simone da Cascia had spoken was transformed into the docility needed to become a perfect imitator of Christ. It was a pious and devout booklet that could be read by anyone. It was copied by Brother Andrew for a nun who remains anonymous, while the sixteenth-century note of possession on the manuscript preserved in Florence gives us a specific name; at that time, it was the book of Euphemia, of the monastery of Saint Mary Magdalene of Cortona, known as the Santuccie.75 It is not difficult to imagine the nun intent on the private reading of the Giardinetto: the codex that transmits it is very simple and intended for personal and repeated use.76 But in this little book there is no trace of the exhortation to read, meditate, and love the Scriptures that animated the works of Simone Fidati, nor the lively narration of experiences and the crowded nucleus of advice and moral persuasions typical of the letters of Girolamo da Siena. Rather the spiritual father teaches the correct Christian path to his holy daughters, asking them to welcome pain because it is sanctifying, to seek sacrifice and loving martyrdom, and to prepare themselves to welcome Christ. A «regulated» devotion permeates the entire text; very close to famous books of the monastic tradition such as Hugues de Fouilloy’s De claustro animae.77 Christiformitas is interpreted in the sense of martyrium amoris, with, of course, a typically monastic interpretation.

By examining these works written by fourteenth century Augustinian friars, we see that, despite their diversity, the holiness of the female gender appears to be projected onto two temporal opposites: the memory of the apostolic age in the long-ago past, and of humanity renewed after the Last Judgement in the future. In the temporal segment that lies between the two extremes - that is, in the present - women’s holiness is possible, though it comes at the price of their femininity being overcome. They are «holy» because they are Augustinian, which is to say consecrated, or because they are linked to an Augustinian spiritual father, and are therefore holy in spite of and despite the intrinsic weakness of their gender. It was a question of carrying out a process of elevation from the state of nature that was no different in substance from that envisaged for men but was certainly more complicated and more painful to successfully undertake because the starting point for men and women was not perceived as the same; women’s starting point being seen as lower. Faithful to the model of the ecclesiae primitivae forma firmly claimed by Jordan of Saxony the hermit friars presented the sanctification of women as their incorporation into Christ, gradually including female humanity in the concept of creation in the image of God, as had happened among the intellectuals of Christian antiquity which Kari Elisabeth Børresen has noted.78 The pattern used for the Christian instruction of female disciples is that of Christification but ordered and regulated according to the perceived weakness of the gender, therefore mediated through the authoritative figure of the spiritual father. In other words, women’s holiness is perceived as the female condition overcome, because being a woman is being in a status of hopeless weakness and imperfection.

Finally, if there is something specific to the Augustinian tradition it is not so much in the evaluation of the female gender but, rather, in having identified the centrality of Scripture and of the conformation to Christ also for women: the effort to translate De Gestis Domini Salvatoris into the vernacular by Giovanni da Salerno is a fitting example because it indicates a particular attention to the universe of women who were thus put in a position to draw directly from the sources of wisdom.