School of History

Kimberley Knight

Biography:
Originally from Yorkshire, I came to St Andrews in 2002 to read for an MA in Mediaeval History. I spent my third year abroad on an Erasmus scholarship at the University of Oslo which sparked my interest in postgraduate study. During the final year of my MA, I became interested in devotional piety whilst taking Frances Andrews’ course on the early Mendicants. After a gap year studying Norwegian language at the University of Trondheim (NTNU) I returned to St Andrews to read for an MLitt in Mediaeval History where I focussed on modes of bodily piety including prayer stances and ascetic practices. After graduating from the MLitt in 2008, I was awarded an AHRC doctoral studentship and am writing a thesis on the Gift of Tears (Gratia lacrymarum) in the thirteenth century.

Supervisor: Professor Frances Andrews, fea@st-andrews.ac.uk

Thesis Title: Blessed are those who weep: The Gift of Tears in the Thirteenth Century

My thesis examines the Gift of Tears (Gratia Lachrymarum), a divinely endowed grace first discussed by the Desert Fathers which, I argue, becomes a prominent feature of sanctity during the thirteenth century. During this period, weeping is ubiquitous in the sources for the new spiritual orders emerging in Italy, France and the Lowlands. Despite the frequency of tears as a mode of religious and emotional expression, very little serious scholarly work had previously been undertaken in this area. The only substantial study is Piroska Nagy’s Le don des larmes au Moyen Âge, published a decade ago. Nagy placed tears in their historical context, examining their religious and intellectual environment and bringing together doctrinal analyses and spiritual texts. She traced several centuries in the evolution of perceptions of tears concluding that they reached a peak c.1000-1200 and were ‘devalued’ thereafter. Nagy’s research did not, however, fully consider the thirteenth century nor the important hagiographical material, rich in descriptions of religious weeping. My own doctoral research is a reappraisal of this critical period, illustrating how weeping became an increasingly important feature of sanctity. Where Nagy focussed primarily on the prescriptions of theologians, my research explores how weeping was prescribed, practiced and perceived using hagiographical texts relating to the so-called ‘first’ Beguine Marie d’Oignies (d.1213) and the founder of the order of Preaching friars, Dominic of Caleruega (d.1221). These case studies allow for both detailed analysis of how the grace was expressed and interpreted and an extensive comparison with other hagiographical texts. As well as showing the importance of tears in the lives of holy men and women in this period, my project enables me to draw wider conclusions about the significance of tears for particular groups, audiences and by gender.

Publications
‘Si Puose Calcina A’ Propi Occhi: The Importance of the Gift of Tears for Thirteenth-Century Religious Women and Their Hagiographers’in Crying in the Middle Ages: Tears of History, ed. Elina Gertsman (Routledge, 2011), 136-155.

Academic Papers

Forthcoming) ‘‘He could not restrain himself from melting wholly into tears’: Gratia lacrymarum in male religious life in the 13th century’ at Religious Men in the Middle Ages, University of Huddersfield, 6th-8th July 2012.
Forthcoming) ‘Droplets of Heaven: Tear Relics in the Thirteenth Century’ at Blood, Sweat, Tears and Beyond: Bodily Fluids in the Middle Ages, University of St Andrews, 21st April 2012.
Tears: A Mechanism of Exchange between the Earthly and Divine in Thirteenth-Century Religious Life’ in Gift Giving V: Spiritual Gifts, organised by Alice Rio and Jinty Nelson at Leeds International Medieval Congress 2011, 12th July 2011.
Tears in Physiological and Religious Thought (thirteenth-century)’ in Science and Religious Thought: A Comparative Approach, organized by the Journal of Medieval Religious Cultures(JMRC, Penn State University Press) at Kalamazoo International Congress, Michigan, 15th May 2011.
The Presence and Absence of Tears in 13th-Century Hagiographies’ in Tears in the Medieval World, Leeds International Medieval Congress, 13th July 2010.
Tears: The Language of Religious Women’ at Language and Silence in the Middle Ages, University of Bristol, 27th February, 2010.
The Language of Tears’ at The Medieval and Early Modern History Cohort Seminar Series, Monash and Melbourne University, January 2010.
Crocodile Tears? The cases of Umiliana de 'Cerchi and Dauphine of Puimichel’ at the 2nd Annual Gender and Transgression in the Middle Ages, University of St Andrews, 2nd May, 2009.

Teaching:
ME1001: The Medieval World (800-1250): tutorials
ME2003: Europe in the High Middle Ages: tutorials

Other:
Co-founder and organiser of Gender and Transgression in the Middle Ages2008 and 2009. This conference is now in its 5th year see http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/saims/gender2012.htm
Organiser of the panel ‘Tears in the Medieval World’ at Leeds International Medieval Congress 2010.
SAIMS doctoral representative 2008-2010.
Academia page: http://st-andrews.academia.edu/KimberleyJoyKnight