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Clemence of Barking

Clemence of Barking was a nun at the convent of Barking in the twelfth century. We now mostly know her for her Anglo-Norman Vie de Seinte Catherine, one of the earliest works of hagiography written by a woman. She was one of the first women writers in England.

Biography Section

The only biographical evidence for Clemence of Barking appears at the conclusion of the Life of St. Catherine, where she identifies herself as a nun of the abbey of Barking. Barking has some claim to be the earliest center for female education in British history. While further research needs to be done before a full picture of her knowledge is possible, "...it is clear that she knew, and made skillful use of courtly, devotional, and didactic literary registers, in both Latin and Anglo-Norman."

Besides being moved by the popularity of Saint Catherine’s cult at the time, and her own personal devotion, Clemence might have been enticed to compose her vita in order to gain favor with Abbess Maud, her superior. Abbess Maud, the illegitimate daughter of Angevin King Henry II, was, like Saint Catherine, a noble-born woman of great erudition.

Life of St. Catherine

Clemence of Barking’s work Life of St. Catherine is both a translation of a Latin source and a modernization of an existing translation into French. The existing translation had lost favor with people because of its primitive verse form. She considers her work as a translation from the original Latin source. Clemence has altered the original meaning of the story by elevating the position of women and proudly claims herself a woman with success in a man’s world. Unlike the original work, she emphasizes the idea of chastity within marriage.

Clemence also drew on the ideas of Anselm of Canterbury, a contemporary English theologian. Anslem argues in the Cur Deus that the layman and educated have a desire to know God's necessity to become man. Clemence uses this argument in Catherine's debate with the King's Lords. The recreation of Catherine's life serves the audience of her era.

Clemence's writing is also remarkable for its comedy and the formal debate between Catherine and the emperor's clerks where she marries humor with theology to out-wit the clerks. Clemence of Barking stresses the importance of virginity in her writing, and portrays this ideal through specific people like Catherine, who was a virgin martyr. Another popular saint featured in contemporary Anglo-Norman hagiography, St. Etheldreda (known as St. Audrey) was married twice, a widow, then separated, and was still a virgin when she became an abbess, the superior of a group of nuns. However, sexually active saints like Mary Magdalen, and Mary of Egypt, set an example for all women because as a result of their sexual activity, they underwent a harsh penance. So although their actions were of course negatively perceived, they became saintly by setting an example for all women.

William MacBain and Annegret Helen Hilligus argue that another poetic vita written at the Barking foundation, Vie d’Edouard le Confesseur, could plausibly be the fruit of Clemence’s quill as well. Both vitae share a number of literary and linguistic characteristics, and seek to explore the protagonists’ psyches, delving into the motives behind their doings. These similarities, MacBain claims, “suggest that they are the work of one poet." Clemence of Barking’s choice of aristocratic saints as subjects for her works implies that she envisioned her audience to transcend the walls of her cloister, embracing the wider circle of the court, the nobility and the ecclesiastical hierarchs.  Should both vitae be of her authorship, Saint Catherine’s example would be a suitable model of conduct for women, while Saint Edward would serve as the counterpart for men. In the latter case, the exaltation of royal piety may have been important in Clemence’s mind as a nun, since Saint Thomas Becket’s murder on Henry II’s orders was still recent.

Clemence of Barking's Life of St. Catherine depicts Catherine as the ideal of virgin sanctity, she is the Anglo-Norman saint most like those depicted in the writings of the Katherine Group. Moreover, Barking's St. Catherine is the only virgin martyr depicted in the Campsey manuscript. Catherine is a very important figure in virginity literature, where professed and vowed women enter into a superior self-chosen marriage with Christ, which frees them from artistocratic drudgery, while combatting patriarchal demands for earthly marriage and childbearing. Catherine enters into a spiritual marriage with the top-ranking bridegroom, Christ, and his omnipotent father, but because she defies pagan authority in this manner, the virgin martyr is tortured and executed before meeting her bridegroom in heaven where this death and transcendence takes the role of marriage and romance closure.

Clemence of Barking is recognized as one of the most well-known medieval female scholar in hagiographic debate (debate of the study of saints). Her telling of the life of St. Catherine of Alexandria emphasizes a new method of the telling of Saint’s lives. Instead of simply recounting the events of a Saint’s life, Clemence of Barking focuses on the passion and faith exhibited by the Saints. In Life of St. Catherine of Alexandra, the focus on rhetoric is key in expressing St. Catherine’s passion and devotion to God. Her voice is also representative of the premier female preaching voice even after her death. Twelve lines of her work were copied verbatim by West Midland preachers who used it as ‘Proverbia Marie Magdalene.’ Her work also appears in the speech used by Roland in the Chason de Roland, surprisingly enough.