Gendering Hell and Reckoning with Demonological Thought in the Vie de Colette

The Ideology, Society and Medieval Religion seminar series is delighted to present Marisa Michaud (University of York) as our December speaker, who will be speaking on "Gendering Hell and Reckoning with Demonological Thought in Margaret of York’s c.1470 Illuminated Copy of the vie de Colette".

In his vita of the French holy woman Colette of Corbie (1381-1447), the Franciscan friar Pierre de Vaux outlines the many ways in which Colette was important to her community. For some, she was their mother abbess, for others she represented protection against rogue soldiers, perilous floods, or demonic beasts. Yet, Pierre also tells us that Colette was accused of being “une sorciere et une enchanteresse ou invocateresse des anemis d’enfer” (a sorcerer, an enchantress, or invoker of demons). This dimension of Colette’s character is at the core of this talk.

This talk does not attempt to map Colette’s hagiography onto history, but instead attends to one aspect of the construction of her memory, in an elite illuminated manuscript copy of Pierre de Vaux’s text, produced around 1470 for Margaret of York (1446-1503), Duchess of Burgundy. Nearly a quarter of the twenty-five miniatures of this manuscript contain images of demons, against which Colette must persevere. This focus on demonic imagery is seemingly incongruous for a holy woman whose posthumous memory was under construction. This talk will focus on one of these miniatures in particular, which condenses several scenes of Colette enduring demonic attacks. The composition of this miniature is strange in several ways, one of which is a demon taking an exaggerated feminine form. Using this miniature, alongside others, this talk addresses the demonic throughout both text and image of this manuscript copy of the vie de Colette. I additionally situate these themes within Margaret of York’s wider library, as well as alongside other late medieval textual and visual depictions of Colette.

This seminar will last approximately 90 minutes including a Q&A, and will begin at 18:30 GMT on Wednesday 4 December 2024. This is a hybrid event. For those attending remotely, the talk will be broadcast on Zoom; a link will be emailed to you upon registration. Please check your spam/junk folder for this email if you cannot find it. This talk will not be recorded.

This seminar is part of the Ideology, Society, and Medieval Religion: Impositions and Negotiations series - for more info, see here or email Tess Wingard (wingardt@tcd.ie) or Emmie Rose Price-Goodfellow (emmie.price-goodfellow@york.ac.uk)