1. For the French source text, I cite Clemence of Barking, The Life of St. Catherine by Clemence of Barking, ed. William Mac Bain, Anglo — Norman Text Society 18 (Oxford: Blackwell, 1964). All subsequent quotations are to line numbers from this ed it ion. All translations are my own. In keeping with the source text, I refer to Catherine by her Anglo-Norman spelling, and I have tried to maintain this spelling throughout this chapter when possible; many of the critics I cite, however, refer to Catherine as “Katherine of Alexandria,” in keeping with later Middle English practice. I have maintained this spelling within quotation for accuracy.
2. Robert N. Swanson describes devotion as “the external practices of medieval Christianity … [which] aimed to secure God’s favor on earth and achieve communion with Him here and in the hereafter … Numerous devotional practices sought that end, aiming through good works and pious foundations to secure prayers and other rewards to benefit the soul after death.” See R. N. Swanson, Religion and Devotion in Europe, c. 1215–c. 1515 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 136.
3. Anne C. Bartlett, Male Authors, Female Readers: Representation and Subjectivity in Middle English Devotional Literature (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1995), 32.
4. Countless critics have summarized the antifeminist tradition and its impact on all aspects of medieval life. More specifically, Alcuin Blamires examines intellectual culture, reminding us of “the general principle of women’s exclusion from formal theological—as from legal, and to a lesser extent, medical—study in the period … attribute[d] … to male monopolization of powerful professions, combined with ingrained masculine contempt for female intellect.” See Alcuin Blamires, “The Limits of Bible Study for Medieval Women,” in vol. 1 of Women, the Book, and the Godly: Selected Proceedings of the St Hilda’s Conference, 1993, ed. Lesley Smith and Jane H. M. Taylor (Cambridge: Boydell and Brewer, 1995), 1 [1–12].
5. For detailed discussion of gendered roles in medieval literary society, see Maud B. McInerney, Eloquent Virgins from Thecla to Joan of Arc (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003),