Christina of Markyate's biographer and his work

Since Charles Talbot's 1959 edition and translation of The Life of Christina of Markyate: a Twelfth Century Recluse, Christina's experiences have attracted the attention of scholars working in several historical and literary fields. There has been a marked tendency within the scholarship, however, to emphasize the role of Christina in the telling of her story. Some critics have even considered the life to be autobiographical. Christina, so this theory goes, related her experiences to an anonymous St. Albans monk, who committed them to writing more or less as he received them. The idea of Christina as the author of the Life is attractive and has been used as a way of attempting to understand medieval women's experiences, and especially their spiritual lives. In my view, however, there has been a certain naivity in the readiness of critics to assume that Christina was primarily responsible for the writing of her biography. The evidence for such a belief depends on plausibility, rather than on any evidence that can be adduced from the text itself. A change in emphasis is, I believe, due. The Life falls within the conventions of biography, or more precisely, hagiography, not of memoir or autobiography. A major goal of this study then, is to bring the anonymous author into the light, to show as far as possible the conditions that produced him, the problems that interested him, and his skill as a writer. Therefore, to begin with, I provide a context for Anonymous, the Benedictine monk of St. Albans Abbey. I examine the historical milieu in which he lived, as well as some of the issues that appear to have interested him. The effects of Gregorian Reform are evident in the writer's concern over topics such as the moral integrity and spiritual commitment of the clergy. That these very qualities are exemplified by Christina's defiance of her parents over her private vow of virginity is a potent commentary on some of the more wayward clerical characters in the story. Moreover, the portrayal of the relationship between Christina and Abbot Geoffrey of St. Albans Abbey in terms of spiritual friendship seems to have been an important purpose of the biographer. Spiritual friendship between men and women was an ideal that had been part of the Christian tradition since Gospel times, into the Early Church and throughout monastic history. It was always a controversial subject, however, and as an ideal was in decline in the twelfth century, which may account in part for the almost complete neglect of the Life during the medieval period.

In addition to establishing a historical setting and cultural perspective for Anonymous, I also explore the practice of authorship in the twelfth century. From a consideration of what authorship in practice meant to twelfth-century writers, I turn to the skill shown in the Life by Anonymous in literary form, and rhetorical strategy, and in his use of dramatic writing and visions in constructing Christina's story. My hope is to draw more attention to the writer of the text, not as an alternative to studies on Christina herself, but as a complement to those studies. Although his fascinating subject has to a great extent obscured his own presence as the author of her Life, that single work, I believe, clearly establishes him as an accomplished author. In my view, it is to be deeply regretted that we have identified no more of his work.