Acts of Seeing, Awareness and Salvation.

Different Ways of Approaching Blindness in the Middle Ages 1 Bianca Frohne From the point of view of disability history, medieval notions of blindness play a prominent role with regard to pre-modern societies and cultures. Today we seem to know more about blindness in the Middle Ages than about any other kind of lasting affliction or infirmity in pre-modern societies the only exception being afflictions of the mind, which have already been subject to historical research for a considerable period of time. This parallel, however, is hardly a coincidence: The imagery of both blindness and madness, or, rather, foolishness, has been studied with special regard to its metaphorical impact. On the basis of metaphoric dimensions of blindness, medievalist Edward Wheatley recently proposed a religious model of disability. With regard to the prevalence of theological concepts of blindness and to the interpretative authority of the church, metaphorical readings of blindness are supposed to have been transferred to all levels of interpretation, and to have been transformed into a self-contained, cohesive imagery that draws mainly on stereotypes: Blind people were, for example, supposed to be greedy, arrogant, gluttonous and lecherous. Their blindness was equated with blindness of spirit and mind, and, therefore, with religious deficiency and sinfulness. In his study on Medieval Constructions of a Disability 2 Wheatley approaches impaired vision not as a medical, but as a cultural condition, linked to a state of social marginalisation. To this reading of medieval blindness, I would like to add another perspective: Instead of focussing on blindness as a culturally constructed condition or a socially created status, I want to approach pre-modern blindness as a fluid category,

This text is the manuscript of the paper I presented at the international colloquium Histoire de la ccit et des aveugles. Reprsentations, institutions, archives. Une perspective international/The History of Blindness and the Blind. Representations, institutions, archives. An International Perspective, Paris, June 26th-30th, 2013. Special thanks go to the organizers, especially to Zina Weygand and Olivier Richard, for giving me the opportunity to present my research at the colloquium. My paper owes much to the work of various researchers whose publications are not cited in the manuscript, among them, for example, the inspiring contributions in: Rethinking the Medieval Senses. Heritage, Fascinations, Frames, ed. Stephen G. Nichols, Andreas Kablitz, and Alison Calhoun, Baltimore 2008. 2 Edward Wheatley: Stumbling Blocks Before the Blind. Medieval Constructions of A Disability, Ann Arbor 2010.

focussing, in fact, not on blindness, but on being blind as complementary acts of seeing and not-seeing. I would like to begin with an example Edward Wheatley refers to in order to illustrate the equation of spiritual and physical blindness in medieval historiography: A Middle English chronicle from the second half of the fifteenth century gives an account of a man who participated in a plot to steal the Eucharist. Later, when he went to Mass in order to pray for forgiveness, he was repeatedly unable to see the Host even when it was held up high. After having been arrested and sentenced to death for his crime, the man confessed his sins, and, as a result, regained full view on the Eucharist again. According to the anonymous author of the chronicle, the soul of the convict has most likely been saved. Wheatley concludes that the chronicle equates sinfulness with the inability to see the elevation of the Host, and spiritual rectitude with restored vision3. According to the religious model of disability, blind people suffered from spiritual deficiency due to their inability to participate in the elevation of the Eucharist by looking at it being held up. However, it is important to note that the inability to see the Host can also be described as an act of not-seeing that calls into question the act of seeing: The sinful man, who attends three different masses, notices each time that he sees and does not see at the same time. This experience bears striking resemblance to a physiological phenomenon: the so-called blind spot. The notion of the blind spot does not enter into medieval writings about blindness, as it was discovered in the second half of the seventeenth century. The blind spot, however, is a useful analogy to bear in mind when further analysing medieval conceptions of seeing. The blind spot results from the physiology of the eye: Where the optic nerve passes through the retina, the corresponding visual field is incomplete due to a lack of receptor cells in this specific area. Therefore, a certain part of the visual field cannot be perceived. This visual break goes unnoticed, however, because the information inferred from the visual field around the missing area as well as information from the other eye are used to complete the visual field, and to create an immaculate image.

Wheatley, Stumbling Blocks, 16.

Whereas medieval writers did not have access to the metaphoric content the physiology of the human eye offers with respect to the blind spot, acts of seeing and not-seeing performed simultaneously appear as a common trope in medieval writing. With regard to the example of the thief of the Eucharist, it is important to note that blindness does not only serve as a metaphor for sinfulness. Rather, the act of notseeing offers specific insight: By being able to perceive that the thiefs visual field is incomplete, he is able to see his sinful state. In the end, he starts to repent and is, apparently, forgiven. Therefore, blindness serves not as a punishment, but as a catalyst. The thief is not struck with full blindness, and as far as he can tell, he did not lose his vision at all. Due to his need to pray for forgiveness, though, he is being led into a situation in which he can become aware of his blind spot. At this point in the story, the revelation of the blemished vision is already part of the healing process with regard to his spiritual state and his subsequent salvation. Thus, the example does not allow for a strict separation that equates sinfulness with blindness and spiritual health with the restoration of vision. In fact, when the man is at his most sinful state, he is perfectly able to see at least this is what he believes. It is the experience of an act of blindness, however, that calls into question the ability to see. After the first act of partial not-seeing has occurred, he even considers the possibility that he has altogether lost his senses. The act of not-seeing is complementary to the act of insight which leads to a restoration of spiritual strength. It is a blindness that is specifically created for those who are able to see, by making them aware of the imperfect nature of their seeing. Medieval writers frequently refer to metaphorical blindness when it is their specific intention to point out not only a persons lack of sight, but also the lack of awareness of the fact that the other persons sight is seriously impaired something that can only be applied to the seeing, not to the blind. Rhetorically, metaphorical blindness is something only the seeing person has to be made aware of. In this respect, blindness is a metaphor with a double meaning: It refers to the act of seeing as well as to the person who is able to see. In both instances, metaphorical blindness calls for humility and the acceptance of imperfect knowledge. In his invective against a physician, for example, Petrarch repeatedly uses the term blindness in order to disqualify not only the physician in question with regard to his intellect and to his false diagnoses, but also to his belief in his superior abilities, and even humanity as a

whole, who refuses to see beyond pretentious appearances. The doctors blindness of intellect is therefore paralleled metaphorically with his impaired seeing of his patients and his inflated notion of his knowledge of the invisible. Petrarch accuses him: And you claim to see that which lies within the viscera and tissues? You cant even see whats before your very eyes! 4 While blindness can be equated directly with spiritual deficiency, arrogance, or insufficient knowledge, it can also serve as a means to inspire humility and actual insight. Metaphorical blindness is therefore different from actual blindness, which does not necessarily embody a double meaning. In contrast to metaphorical blindness, actually being blind causes the blind person to continuously perform acts of not-seeing that can be read as acts of awareness: With each act of perception, he or she is made aware of the complementary nature of seeing and not-seeing, which is something the seeing person, focussing only on seeing the visible, is able to refuse. This becomes apparent by Petrarchs treatise De remediis utriusque fortunae, which is based on a text which was commonly, but falsely attributed to Seneca. In Petrarchs dialogue on blindness, the blind person has to be reminded repeatedly that although the 'eyes of the face' might have been lost, the inner sight, the 'eyes of the soul', still remain. Because the 'eyes of the face' are also portals that often fail to separate the sinful world from a persons inner sight, physical blindness can be regarded as a blessing. Medievalist Julie Singer has recently shown that the ironic composition of Petrarchs dialogue serves as a means to sharpen the intellectual capacity as a remedy against desperation due to the loss of eyesight. The blind person is therefore actively requested to restore the remaining senses, whereas the recovery of the 'eyes of the face' is not recommended. With regard to the biography of Francesco Landini, a blind musician of note in 14 th century Florence, Singer points out: "Impairment in the late medieval West [...] is best defined in tandem with a set of abilities, both complementary and compensatory: for in a number of fourteenthcentury texts blindness constitutes not only an impairment of the sense of sight, but also an enhancement of another sense, namely hearing (or musical ability).5
4

Et vis videre quid in imo viscerum ac fibrarum lateat? Quod est ante oculos non vides (Petrarch: Invective contra medicum II, in: Petrarch. Invectives, ed. David Marsh, Cambridge 2003, 78, cited by Julie Singer, Blindess and Therapy in Late Medieval French and Italian Poetry, Cambridge 2011, 54, 70. 5 Julie Singer: Playing by Ear: Compensation, Reclamation, and Prosthesis in Forteenth-Century Song, in: Disability in the Middle Ages. Reconsiderations and Reverberations, ed. Joshua R. Eyler,

Blindness was furthermore supposed to enhance the intellectual abilities. Francesco Landinis intellectual capacity and his superior insight were explicitly linked to the lack of the 'eyes of the face'. Therefore it was even possible to understand the ability to see with the 'eyes of the face' as an act of not-seeing, which is unknowingly performed, and not comparable to being blind, which in contrast enables the blind man to develop a superior clarity of intellect and insight. Accordingly, being blind could be preferred to the involuntary act of not-seeing performed by the seeing person, who does not reflect about the imperfect nature of human vision. This is also in accordance with late medieval notions of the fool, who is not characterised by his lack of intellectual abilities as much as by his refusal to acknowledge his foolishness and the foolish nature of humanity. The difference between the metaphorical blindness of the seeing person and actual blindness can furthermore be exemplified by a miracle account from the shrine of the Virgin at Rocamadour that is cited by Edward Wheatley: A woman who has been blind for seven years prays for a miraculous cure. However, the cure is not granted immediately, because she is too focused on worldly affairs. According to the miracle account, the women tried to regain the sort of sight that can be recovered and lost 6. Because she does not dedicate her wish to the spiritual vision of Christ, she does not regain the 'eyes of her face' and spends several days at the shrine. The miracle is then performed in a very interesting way: During mass, all lights in the church are first extinguished and subsequently lighted again, as a symbolic reminder of the blindness of Jews in contrast to the spreading light of Catholic faith. Interestingly, blindness, which is supposed to allude to the Jews deliberate decision against the light of Christianity, is duplicated. The twofold meaning of metaphorical blindness, which refers not only to false vision of those who are able to see, but also to their false self-images, is apparently represented by the woman: She is actually blind, but her blindness is also of a metaphorical kind. However, the task of eliminating the false sight of a blind person comes with considerable symbolic effort: Whereas the false vision of seeing persons can be cured by confronting them with their blind spot, the false vision of a blind person has to be duplicated first, so that both actual
Farnham, Surrey 2010, 39-52, 40. 6 Marcus Bull: The Miracles of Our Lady of Rocamadour. Analysis and Translation, Woodbridge 1999, 169, cited by Wheatley, Stumbling Blocks, 71.

and metaphoric blindness can be neutralised. As a result, the woman regains her eyesight both on the inside and on the outside. 'Seeing' is possible for her, but only after her blindness has been heightened first, and the 'eyes of the face' have been rejected in favour of a spiritually corrected vision. Therefore, the cure of a spiritually as well as physically blind person seems to have been especially difficult to depict. The majority of medieval accounts of blind persons being cured of their visual impairment do not refer to spiritual blindness, but to a mere physical affliction, the cause of which is often unknown. A rather drastic depiction of conflicting ways of seeing can be found in the short Middle High German narrative The faithful wife, written in the 13 th century by Herrand von Wildonie. The story was probably rather well-known among contemporaries and can be found in slightly different versions in various literary genres in medieval Europe. German medievalist Carmen Stange has recently highlighted the story of The faithful wife as a confrontation of two different ways of seeing, each of which is presented, however, as a valid approach in its own way. The womens way of seeing follows Augustine: She sees with the 'eyes of the heart', the oculi cordis7, which are also known as 'eyes of the mind'. Her husbands way of seeing follows Aristotle: His way of seeing is to see with the 'eyes of the face', thus judging a person on the basis of his or her appearance, which is supposed to mirror the state of the soul. This concept, known as kalokagathia, applies completely to the faithful wife: Her beauty was clear as a mirror, and furthermore she was entirely good. If a women possesses beauty as well as goodness, she is to be praised. 8 However, the husband is ugly, small of stature, and his appearance is likened to that of an old man. Regardless of his looks, his wife loves him with all her heart because he is faithful and honourable. However, because his way of seeing focuses on his unsightly appearance only, he pays almost no regard to his social and military achievements. After having lost an eye during a fight in a tournament, he is devastated due to his seriously enhanced disfigurement. He decides that he will not return to his wife because he fears that she would live in shame while being married to a man of his appearance. His wife claims, however, that her love has not been
7

Carmen Stange: Oculi Cordis: Verstmmelung, Wahrnehmung und Erkenntnis in Herrands von Wildonie Die treue Gattin, in: (De)formierte Krper. Die Wahrnehmung und das Andere im Mittelalter/ Corps (D)forms: Perceptions et l'Altrit au Moyen-Age. Interdisziplinres Seminar Straburg, 19. Mrz 2010, ed. Gabriela Antunes and Bjrn Reich, Gttingen 2012, 83-102. 8 Herrand von Wildonie: Diu getriu kone/Die treue Gattin, in: Novellistik des Mittelalters. Mrendichtung, ed. Klaus Grubmller, Frankfurt a. M. 1996, 96-111, 96/97 (my translation).

diminished. Even if her husband would have had a thousand eyes before, and those eyes would have made him look handsome, she would still love his single eye. After the husbands messenger has told her that this argument would not sway him in his decision, she finally adopts her husbands way of seeing, in a sense both literal and metaphorical: With a pair of scissors she immediately puts out one of her eyes, thereby likening her to her husband with regard to his appearance, to his visual abilities, and to his way of seeing. She then argues that there is no cause for him to be ashamed any longer because she shares his disfigurement. She says: Tell him to come and have a look at me. If I am still too beautiful for him, I will put out the other eye, I love him that much. If I ever accused him of having sight on merely one eye, he might well know the truth that I also have only one eye to see with. 9 Ashamed of the pain he caused his wife, the husband decides to return to her. In the end he adopts his wifes way of seeing, because in spite of her disfigurement, she appears completely unblemished to him. Although the narrative does not actually deal with blindness, it gives valuable insight into the different modes of seeing and not-seeing that were discussed in late medieval vernacular writing. Carmen Stange argues that in theoretical treatises on the modes of human perception, the Augustinian model of seeing with the eyes of the heart was not described as an antithesis to the model of seeing based on Aristotelian concepts. Accordingly, Herrand von Wildonie does not criticise the husband for his way of seeing, he even indirectly praises him for his exemplary way of living and the unwavering love to his wife. The author also explicitly praises the wife for her adequateness to the ideal of kalokagathia. The narrative therefore points to a complex model of beauty, deformity, and perception. The concept of seeing with the eyes of the heart does not demand the rejection of the concept of seeing with the eyes of the face. Instead, it offers a complementary way of seeing, which enters fluidly into the discourse on perception and on different modes of seeing. In a similar fashion, being blind could be understood as offering complementary perspectives: In medieval literary discourse, blindness was not discussed as a status or a condition in its own right, but as a complementary aspect of seeing. It was often used to exemplify modes of physiological perception as well as spiritual
9

Die treue Gattin, 106/107 (my translation).

insight. Like a blind spot, blindness was located at the very centre within the field of pre-modern epistemology. Disruptions or the impairment of vision served as a reminder of the contingencies of the visible and the invisible alike. Whereas we do not know much about the daily life experiences of blind people in the Middle Ages, we are able to study how different acts of seeing and not-seeing were discussed in different fields of discourse and literary genres. To this end, it is important not to reduce the phenomenon of being blind to cultural and social marginalisation. As with sickness and deformity in general, attitudes toward blindness do not often reveal much about the blind, but allude to human infirmity and to the imperfect vision of humanity. The deformed body, for example, plays an important part in medieval imagery, and is often evoked in order to lend evidence to the invisible. Disruptions of vision are of central importance to this field because they can refer to the disfigurement of the face as well as to changes in the ability to see, and, sometimes, even to the ability of not-seeing.