Singing in Heaven and Shouting on Earth: Ritual Prayer and the Mystical Voice in the Life of Pirona the Recluse

Abstract

This paper explores the role of voice in the fifteenth-century hagiography of the recluse Pirona, who lived a religious life while voluntarily enclosed in a dwelling attached to the church of St. Nicholas outside the city walls of Mechelen. Her hagiographer-confessor describes Pirona’s voice and foregrounds her speech throughout the text. His representations of her words and the quality of her voice illustrate Pirona’s mystical proximity to the divine and underline her connection to himself and his fellow friars. In scenes that include ritual prayers or liturgical chants, Pirona’s voice transforms her mind and body, testing the limits of her humanity and bringing her closer to the divine.

1. Introduction

One morning in the early 1470s, a Carmelite friar named Johannes arrived at the church of St. Nicholas, just outside the city walls of Mechelen. He had come to provide the sacraments of confession and Eucharist to a woman, Pirona, who lived there as a recluse (also known as an anchorite), permanently and voluntarily enclosed in a dwelling attached to the church. As they greeted one another, Johannes noticed that Pirona’s voice sounded different, raspier and more hoarse than usual. He asked her what had happened. Pirona responded that she had lost her voice during a recent mystical experience, in which she had been carried up to heaven and sang the liturgical chant “sanctus, sanctus, sanctus, dominus Deus sabaoth” fervently all night with the choirs of angels, so extensively and intensely that all this singing had left her voice rough the next day. Johannes was pleased at the divine favor shown to his charge’s devotion, and he remarked, “If only each cleric singing that very song could become as hoarse as she!”1

This story is one of many involving mystical visions, ritual and liturgical prayers, and its main character’s voice in the hagiography of Pirona Hergods (c. 1422–1472), who lived as a recluse, attached to the church of St. Nicholas, from approximately eighteen years of age until her death at age fifty. Pirona was one of many medieval women who became urban recluses as their chosen form of religious life, building upon a long tradition of Christian eremitism and reclusion in the growing cities of late medieval Northern Europe (Andrews and Rava 2021a, 2021b; L’Hermite-Leclercq 2020; Mulder-Bakker 2005; Warren 1985). As a recluse, she was committed to a life of prayer and contemplation, but she also had constant contact with her attendants, neighbors, visitors, and religious figures. Pirona’s hagiography was written by her confessor, Johannes Taye (c. 1420–1497), a friar and member of the Order of the Brothers of Blessed Mary of Mount Carmel (or Carmelites). He appears often in the text as the character of “Brother Johannes”, Pirona’s confessor, who is also her most frequent visitor, confidant, and spiritual spouse. In order not to confuse the author and the version of himself that he writes into the text, I refer to the author as “Taye” and the character in the Life as “Johannes”.2

Hagiographical texts such as the present one immediately raise the question of voice. Scholars have noted how the authorial voice of the hagiographer tends to shape the representation of its subject’s sanctity, making the text a cultural product that is more revealing of its author than necessarily its subject, yet they have also explored vestiges of holy women’s voices in the texts, especially where there is evidence of co-authorship.3 The Life of Pirona is especially interesting regarding this question since it foregrounds its subject’s own speech and voice throughout. It appears likely that Taye drew from his real conversations with Pirona while composing the text, and the fact that that he consistently portrays her as someone who shouts, laughs, sings, and converses freely suggests a human voice that could not be sidelined in this portrait of her, perhaps even preferably included as a kind of “textual relic” (Brown 2023). It is not clear, however, whether Pirona had a role in composing the text or if she spoke any of the words attributed to her in it. Bracketing the question of whether we can hear Pirona’s “own voice”, the hagiography’s descriptions of her speech and voice point towards the key models of sanctity conveyed in the text. Taye describes Pirona’s voice as something that connects her to the divine realm of mystical revelation, a prominent aspect of her spirituality and often proof of her special election and exemplarity. Her speech also connects her to her confessor as her most frequent conversation partner, reinforcing Taye’s portrayal of their shared and complementary sanctity, which is a central theme of the text.

Pirona speaks, shouts, and cries, but she also sings and prays. Representations of ritual and liturgical practices play an important role in this hagiography and also provide an unusual opportunity to explore medieval recluses’ prayer habits. In contrast to the wealth of scholarship on liturgy in many communities of medieval women, scholars have only recently begun to address recluses’ prayer lives or contact points with the liturgy.4 The question is admittedly somewhat fraught, for two main reasons. Late medieval urban reclusion was an idiosyncratic way of life with no central administration and relatively little regulation; therefore, it is difficult to find evidence of consistencies across practitioners. Studies of reclusion sometimes note that liturgical ceremonies could accompany a recluse’s entry into the enclosed life of the cell, occasionally including elements of the funeral rite (Jones 2012; see also Mulder-Bakker 2005; Warren 1985; L’Hermite-Leclercq 1988, 2020). Scholars are equally quick to note, however, that such ceremonies did not occur at every recluse’s enclosure (e.g., L’Hermite-Leclercq 2020; Warren 1985). Rather, it appears that some simply entered the reclusorium, relying on community support rather than liturgical ceremony to cement their new positions. The second complicating factor in studies of recluses and liturgy concerns the operative understanding of “liturgy”. Although subject to many definitions, “liturgy” conventionally refers to formalized worship by a Christian community (Harper 1991). Medieval recluses’ daily prayers could vary, and they were neither necessarily formally regulated or structured nor necessarily communal, as monastic or clerical liturgical practices typically were. For this reason, I use the broader terms “ritual” or “ritual prayer” rather than “liturgy” to refer to Pirona’s prayers, intending to evoke the performance of a repeated and dedicated devotional practice that is distinct from the formalized, communal “liturgy” of, for example, the Carmelite friars. Neither Pirona nor most other recluses were entirely separate from the Church liturgy, however, especially regarding its central aspect of worship, the Mass. Reclusoria typically featured a window into the church and facing the altar, where Mass would be celebrated, allowing them to observe and receive communion regularly and to be involved to some degree in this key liturgical event (L’Hermite-Leclercq 1988; Yuskaitis 2021). The Mass is prominent in Pirona’s hagiography, and it is an occasion for several mystical visions shared with her confessor. The text also presents Pirona singing the “sanctus” chant, itself central to the Mass liturgy, although she does so not during Mass in Church. Through its portrayals of Pirona’s own prayer life in the reclusorium, as well as her participation in mystical and heavenly singing, Pirona’s vita provides new insights into recluses’ ritual practices and their potential involvement in the liturgy of the Mass as spectators.

The hagiography of Pirona the recluse has so far been almost unknown to scholars, despite its promise as a source for studies of reclusion and non-cloistered religious women in the later Middle Ages, conceptions of sanctity and mystical authority, and relationships between holy women and their confessor-hagiographers, to name just a few. Among its many potential contributions, Pirona’s vita represents a new source of information about the place of the saintly voice in hagiography, its transformational quality when linked to mysticism, and late medieval urban recluses’ ritual prayer practices—topics that will be discussed here in a preliminary way that will hopefully inspire further work on this text. The hagiography features many examples of Pirona’s speech, as portrayed by Taye’s authorial voice. His representations of her spoken words and the quality of her voice illustrate Pirona’s mystical proximity to the divine and underline her connection to Brother Johannes, her primary conversation partner. In scenes that include ritual prayers, Pirona’s voice acquires an additional transformational quality. In addition to showing her connection to Johannes and her potential as an example to his fellow Carmelite friars, Pirona’s voice when engaged in these prayers transforms her mind and body, challenging the limits of her humanity and bringing her closer to the divine.

1.1. Voice in the Life of Pirona

Voice plays a prominent role in Pirona’s vita, especially in presenting its subject as a saintly figure. The hagiographer’s voice, relating events as a third-person omniscient narrator, represents and describes Pirona’s voice continuously throughout the text. Taye depicts a dynamic range of her vocal utterings, including shouting, laughing, crying, singing, and speaking. He describes her shouting or laughing loudly after receiving mystical revelations, expressing a magnitude of spiritual experience that tests the limits of her body. In representing the dialogue between Pirona and her confessor, he underlines the connection between them and the ideal of spiritual complementarity.

The hagiography describes Pirona’s voice most often as loud. On multiple occasions, Taye portrays her shouting or yelling after spiritual or mystical experiences. Once, during a period of severe illness, she receives a revelation from Christ that he is hidden in her cell in the form of a consecrated host, which her confessor had placed there without telling her. She shouts to her attendants with “a loud voice” (alta voce) to get her out of bed to see the Eucharist, and, when she does, she “uttered a loud cry” (primam vocem emisit).5 Another time, she is sitting and peeling a dish of turnips when she thinks of her brother Henry, who had died some time before, and prays to Christ to let her feel whatever his soul was experiencing in that moment. She is then so overcome by joy—implying the joy of her brother’s soul in heaven—that she drops the bowl of turnips, falls to the floor, and cries out “in a very loud voice” (altissima voce).6 On another occasion, two soldiers visit Pirona to ask her to pray for their protection in the coming battle. They also ask her for a drink of wine, and, as they drink, she breaks into laughter so loud that it surprises and scandalizes the people standing nearby in the church. When the soldiers leave, they come over to ask Pirona why she laughed so loudly, and Pirona explains that she had mystically perceived the Virgin Mary promising to protect these soldiers as they drank the wine and she had laughed with joy at the sight.7 In these examples, Pirona’s loud voice is a product of her mystical revelations. Her cries and shouts in these scenes convey her body’s inability to contain the effects of the spiritual information that she has just received, to the point of perplexing bystanders with her loud sounds. Pirona’s uncontrollable voice is in line with the tradition of the mystical jubilus, in which a spontaneous, wordless utterance testifies to an ineffable mystical experience that cannot be expressed verbally, yet also must be expressed somehow (Jones 2014; Kirakosian 2017; Holsinger 2001). In Pirona’s case, the power of the jubilus expressed through her voice is juxtaposed with her physical infirmity. She falls from her chair and drops her dish of turnips out of an involuntary physical weakness that arises at the same moment as her strong, loud voice. When she shouts for her attendants to bring her to the Eucharist, her loud voice contrasts with her physical illness and suggests the energy and urgency brought on by her vision. Like an electrical current, mystical experience runs through Pirona’s body and emerges as a loud voice.

Pirona’s speech is, however, subject to some constraints. Although she sometimes acquires knowledge from supernatural voices, on one occasion, her confessor cautions her not to share this information too liberally. Pirona hears supernatural voices only a few times in the hagiography. Early in the text, she experiences Christ pulling her towards him with his right arm, explaining that this gesture unites her to him spiritually.8 A “spiritual voice” (vox spiritualis) explains that her vision of a branch with two flowers on it signifies that her brother, who, at that point, had been recently married, will have two sons, while a “celestial voice” (vox celestis) heard during a vision of the crucified Christ tells her that her wishes will be granted, however unlikely they may seem.9 These voices are benign or pleasant, explaining Pirona’s visions or reassuring her. The one exception is a clamor of supernatural voices that she hears calling out for vengeance after the unjust execution of a citizen of Liège, which she witnessed in a mystical vision.10 Afterwards, Taye tells us, the city of Liège was indeed decimated by Duke Charles of Burgundy and many of its citizens slaughtered.11 The supernatural voices portrayed in Pirona’s vita all convey certain kinds of privileged knowledge, whether testifying to her own spiritual election or her brother’s future offspring or the correct response to an unjust act. These supernatural auditions therefore also carry a sense of prophecy, in that they refer to not only to hidden knowledge but often to future events, such as her brother’s future children or, more urgently, the disastrous consequences eventually meted out on the citizens of Liège. Pirona’s ability to give voice to this knowledge, however, is met with limits. When Pirona foresees the destruction of the town of Dinant through a mystical vision and reports it to her confessor, Brother Johannes warns her not to tell anyone else lest she be slandered as “a lying prophetess”.12 Although Pirona’s voice is often represented in the hagiography as loud and central, Taye also represents, on this one occasion, her voice as silenced by an overly cautious confessor.

Most often, the hagiography presents Pirona’s voice in conversation with her confessor, Brother Johannes. Almost every chapter includes a dialogue between them. These dialogs may have had the effect of cueing a reader’s own “internal dialogue” to support the didactic aspects of the text and transform the reader through engagement with it (Pick 2019). Rather than debates or juxtapositions of opposing ideas, though, the conversations between Pirona and Johannes convey mutual care and concern as a model for conversation. The complementarity between Johannes and Pirona is a major theme of this text. Taye claims that they shared “one and the same spirit” and depicts their shared mystical experiences, such as the simultaneous experience of carrying the crucified Christ side by side in a procession, which they confirm and discuss in a conversation afterwards.13 He describes them as complementary practitioners of the contemplative and active life, respectively—Pirona as an enclosed contemplative and himself as an active friar and preacher.14 This complementarity is reflected in their dialogues. When Johannes warns Pirona against sharing her revelations about the destruction of Dinant, he is concerned for her worldly reputation and material safety, while she is only thinking of sharing the knowledge bestowed on her during her contemplative practice. Another example appears at a key moment in Chapter 10, when Pirona requests Johannes’s promise to be her spiritual spouse. His initial response reflects an orientation towards outward reputation, recalling how a man who wanted to seduce Pirona was threatened by a vision of Christ warning him that he would be ruined “before the whole world”.15 He adds that they were each already married to Christ, and that he, as a Carmelite friar, also had the Virgin Mary as his soul’s bride. Pirona’s explanation, however, is mystical. She responds that these betrothals are all compatible, and that they would each be a less important spouse to one another. Her request, she explains, should be understood as spiritual, non-carnal, and as a kind of mystery. Brother Johannes, his understanding transformed, agrees. The dialogue between Pirona and Johannes represent the meeting of two perspectives and their harmonious conversation. This is especially true of the dialogue that comes with a note on its pedagogical function. Chapter 41 depicts Pirona telling Johannes about a mystical vision of the saints Katherine, Barbara, and Dorothy, and his curious questions about what they were doing and what she saw. The chapter ends by reflecting that this spiritual conversation should “serve as an example to us all, such that we should also act just as they did”16—that is, speak to one another about spiritual matters and be transformed through doing so. The dialogue between Pirona and Johannes reaches out from the page to teach the reader how to use their own voice in life, while underlining and reinforcing the complementarity between these two characters. Pirona’s voice provides evidence of her mystical experiences when she shouts after a vision or revelation and demonstrates her connection to Johannes through their conversations. The sections of the hagiography that include ritual practices such as the canonical Hours and the Mass extend the text’s understanding of both Pirona’s mystical voice and her connection to Johannes and his fellow friars.

1.2. Praying the Hours

Pirona’s hagiography depicts her shouting and speaking, but it also shows her singing and praying. In portraying Pirona’s daily prayers, Taye highlights a divine inspiration that lends a mystical quality to her voice. In so doing, he also includes hints about Pirona’s ritual practices in the reclusorium, which can be extrapolated to reveal the likely observance of the canonical hours among late medieval recluses in German-speaking regions.

Pirona’s loud voice, peppered throughout the hagiography, reappears in Chapter 36 of the text. Taye begins this chapter by teasing the story and highlighting Pirona’s voice. He tells us that, one night, on the eve of the feast of the Trinity, Pirona was especially touched by her love for God, such that “her bodily voice sounded out loudly and she sang very ardently in her mind and spirit.”17 He promises that “we will hear the reason why she sang so merrily.”18 Then, he tells the story. On the said evening, Pirona heard the bell for Vespers ring out at the nearby house of Carmelite friars, where her confessor was a member. From the bell, she understood that they were all about to pray together. She then, Taye tells us, pronounced the string of Our Father prayers that made up “her own usual Vespers, according to the contents of her rule.”19 Afterwards, animated by the thought of the Carmelites’ Vespers, she proceeded to praise the Trinity by singing the verse, “Glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit”, for almost an hour continuously, “with a joyful voice and a devoted heart” (leto ore ac devoto corde cantavit).20 Taye writes that it is no wonder that Pirona sang this song, because the Trinity itself found in her “a place worthy of its respite, an oratory fit for its adoration, and an altar ready to receive its offerings”.21

This chapter displays the transformation of Pirona’s voice in prayer and singing. After pronouncing what Taye tells us are her usual prayers, Pirona continues to sing in praise of the Trinity, both for a long time and with special devotion. Turning reflectively to the reader with the phrase “it is no wonder” (nec mirum), he then explains that, because the Trinity found a fitting place for itself in her mind, she naturally sang this song that praised the Trinity. In other words, because of an indwelling of the Trinity in Pirona’s mind, she was able to sing so devoutly and for such a long time. Unlike her loud and sudden shouting after certain revelations, Pirona’s voice here is described with a loud yet sustained quality. It is also distinct from the inarticulate mystical jublius in that this loud song has words, namely “Glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit.” The transformation of Pirona’s mind to a place worthy of the Trinity has also, in this case, transformed her voice into something that can maintain intense worship in the form of singing a specific verse. Her voice does not only react to inspiration, but it acts in a sustained manner to worship the source of this inspiration.

Taye’s mention of Pirona’s “usual Vespers” also offers a window into her possible ritual prayer practices and introduces a formal, if not communal, dimension to her prayer life. If Pirona observed Vespers, she may have prayed the other six canonical Hours as well. The source of Pirona’s Vespers prayers gives further credence to this idea. Taye mentions that she prayed “according to her rule”, and the title to the hagiography’s prolog describes Pirona as a recluse living “under the rule of Blessed Francis”.22 This association and rule likely comes from the community of devout women whom Pirona joined as her first step into religious life, after a vision of St. Francis that initiated her spiritual vocation.23 This group of women followed what Taye describes as “the Third Rule of St Francis”.24 The rule in question is most likely the one issued by Pope Nicholas IV in the bull Supra montem (1289), for use by an order of lay penitents and attributed to St. Francis of Assisi.25 Pirona’s vita suggests that she continued to follow this rule in the reclusorium, specifically by following its instructions regarding keeping the Hours. Taye describes Pirona’s observance of Vespers as “repeating Our Fathers according to the contents of her rule”.26 The 1289 Supra montem rule instructs its followers to keep the seven canonical Hours, including Vespers, and states that non-clerical or illiterate followers of the rule are expected to observe them by repeating “Our Father” and “Glory to the Father” prayers to observe the Hours (Carney et al. 2008)—just as Pirona does in Chapter 36 of the hagiography. Although Pirona was following a rule not specific to recluses, other “rules” for recluses reflect the practice of keeping the Hours. The thirteenth-century English guidance tract Ancrene Wisse recommends a cycle of prayers for its recluse readers that includes morning prayers, Matins, and “all the seven Hours” (Millett 2005). A fifteenth-century Low German rule, closer in date and region to Pirona’s life, directs its recluse readers to avoid certain activities according to the time of day, relative to the seven Hours—for example, they should not drink or speak to anyone after the nighttime prayers of Compline (Kruse 2012). Such rules represent prescriptive views of how recluses should behave, rather than clear reflections of their actual practices, but the reappearance of keeping the Hours across different texts suggests that this was likely a common practice among late medieval recluses. While Pirona’s performance of these prayers as part of her Vespers appears usual, the quality of her voice and singing, Taye tells us, was exceptional.

Pirona’s Vespers reveals more than just the transformative quality of her voice or a window into recluses’ daily prayers. The episode of Pirona’s Vespers and worship of the Holy Trinity also places Pirona in relation to Brother Johannes and his fellow friars. Taye writes that Pirona says her customary Vespers with an exceptional degree of joy because she had just heard the bell summoning the Carmelite brothers to their own evening prayers, and he notes that she was filled with happiness at the thought of their divine worship27. Although the Carmelites observe Vespers communally and Pirona pronounces her version individually, they are connected through their simultaneous observance of dedicated evening prayers. Taye also draws a distinction between them in that Pirona’s solitary prayers appear to outstrip the friars. She does not stop at saying her customary Vespers but, afterwards, sings an additional song, “Glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit”, for nearly an hour. Taye presents this singing as an exceptional and praiseworthy feat, beyond the friars’ observance of their own usual Vespers.

Taye ends the chapter by remarking that Pirona’s sung praise reveals that the Trinity found in her mind “an oratory fit for its adoration, and an altar fit for receiving its offerings.”28 Her own mind, according to the hagiographer, is a holy place—an oratory and an altar worthy of the Trinity. The Carmelite brothers pray and sing in a church, but Pirona herself becomes an oratory ready to worship the Trinity. Pirona’s Vespers connects her to Taye and his fellow friars, but her exceptionally devout singing, a product of her mystical connection to the Trinity, also makes her implicitly an example for them to follow. The degree to which Pirona can be an example for friars and clerics resurfaces in the story cited at the beginning of this article, in which Taye wishes that every cleric singing the “sanctus” chant would become as hoarse from effort and inspiration as Pirona had when she sang it in heaven. It is to this song, and its singing, that we now turn.

1.3. Singing the “Sanctus”

The prayers that Pirona says as part of her Vespers are not the only ones that we see Pirona pronounce in the hagiography, nor are the Hours the only rituals portrayed in the vita. The Life of Pirona reports that Johannes said Mass regularly for her, during which they shared mystical visions of Christ. These visions happen at an important moment in the liturgy of the Mass, namely when Johannes sings “sanctus, sanctus, sanctus” before consecrating the Eucharist. In the episode recounted at the beginning of this paper, Pirona sings the same song in heaven, and so ardently that her voice becomes hoarse.

The Mass is by far the most prominent event, liturgical or ritual, in Pirona’s hagiography. Twenty of the work’s 134 chapters include the performance of the Mass, with an additional nine referencing it and fourteen featuring the Eucharist. In addition to these twenty chapters, eight reference Johannes celebrating Mass for Pirona, without the ritual occurring in that chapter. Johannes arriving at the church and appearing at Pirona’s door or window before celebrating Mass for her proves a convenient setting for their conversations, including the one in which Pirona’s heavenly singing is revealed by her hoarse voice. The Mass is an important point of contact between Johannes and Pirona. Performing Mass and ministering the Eucharist, along with confession, were key obligations in religious men’s spiritual care of religious women (Griffiths 2020).29 Taye explains that he, a Carmelite, served as confessor to Pirona, a Franciscan-affiliated recluse, because the Franciscan friars, whom the reader might expect to take this role, were unwilling to travel to the church of St. Nicholas regularly to perform Mass for her. The work’s final chapter claims that Taye celebrated Mass for her at St. Nicholas almost every day.30 Other evidence suggests that recluses likely did witness the Mass regularly, if not necessarily every day. For example, Victoria Yuskaitis has analyzed evidence in Ruyton, England, showing the proximity of a recluse’s squint or hagioscope, a small window looking into the church, to the altar and to the celebration of the Mass.31 From this vantage point, a recluse could observe the Mass essentially whenever it was being celebrated.

The specific Mass chant “sanctus, sanctus, sanctus” appears five times in the hagiography, three times as words spoken or sung by Pirona or Johannes. Biblical sources for the words “sanctus, sanctus, sanctus” as a chant, drawn from Isaiah 6.1–3 and Apocalypse 4:8, evoke crowds exalting the divine throne, the seraphim in the case of Isaiah and a group of twenty-four elders and four winged creatures in Apocalypse. Medieval commentators understood the chant text as a hymn of angelic praise following its Biblical origins, as a praise of the Trinity from its repetition of the unit “sanctus” three times, and, because the “sanctus” is sung in heaven by the angels but on Earth by earthly voices, it was also understood as a meeting point for human and divine (Iversen 2010). In the Mass, the “sanctus” is part of a series of chants and prayers that occur just before the Canon, the central moment of the Mass that includes the consecration of bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ (Iversen 2010; Lied 2022). In Pirona’s hagiography, the Mass—and specifically the “sanctus” chant—is also an occasion for mystical experiences. Seventeen of the twenty chapters in which Mass celebration occurs recount mystical visions happening during the ritual. The convergence of mysticism and the Mass has ample precedent in medieval Christian thought, such as the mystical Mass of St. Gregory, a popular subject of painting and art in fifteenth-century Northern Europe that is reflected in the imagery of the mystical Mass in Pirona’s hagiography.32 In contrast to some depictions understood as the Mass of St. Gregory that show the vision of Christ above the altar during Mass but not at any particular moment (Bynum 2006), Pirona’s vita consistently connects mystical experiences to a specific song and moment, namely the “sanctus” chant. The mystical Mass scenes in Pirona’s vita also serve to frame and emphasize the relationship between Pirona and Brother Johannes as triangulated through Christ, rather than focusing on an individual vision or one shared by a large group of believers. Two chapters present celebrations of the Mass as sites of Pirona’s and Johannes’s shared mystical experience, and the “sanctus” chant as central to these visions.

In Chapter 45, Brother Johannes and Pirona share a vision while the “sanctus” is being sung during Mass. One day, when Johannes is in the church of St. Nicholas and celebrating a Mass for Christ’s nativity, he is mystically transported to the infant Christ’s cradle, where he adores the baby alongside the Virgin Mary, Joseph, and a host of angels.33 In body, meanwhile, Johannes proceeds through the ritual of the Mass. When he comes to the chant “sanctus, sanctus, sanctus”, Christ appears before him, nailed to the crucifix and floating in the air above the chalice that Johannes had chosen and filled with wine and water. At that moment, Johannes witnesses Christ pour out his blood into the chalice, and he sees the difference between this blood and the wine that had previously been in the cup. While he is experiencing this, Taye writes, Pirona sees the same sight from her cell—that is, Christ elevated above the chalice and pouring his blood into it “like five fountains flowing generously through his veins”.34

Later in the vita, Pirona and Johannes again share a vision of Christ at the moment of the “sanctus”. In Chapter 66, Brother Johannes performs Mass in the church of St. Nicholas in order to minister the Eucharist to Pirona while she lies in bed with a serious illness.35 During that Mass, Johannes sees, in a spiritual vision, that Christ and the Virgin Mary are visiting Pirona in her sickbed. At first, he sees Christ as a lovely young boy in his mother’s arms. Then, at the moment of singing “sanctus, sanctus, sanctus”, his vision shifts and Johannes sees Christ crucified and naked on the cross, and lying on a bed much like Pirona’s sickbed. Once he completes the Mass, Johannes rushes to Pirona and reports his vision to her, telling her to remain strong in her suffering. Pirona replies that she had in fact also perceived the same vision. Taye then dramatically turns to the reader in the first person: “Alas, what can I say about people who are healthy and yet have no zeal? Behold, Pirona was almost dead and yet she contemplated celestial things!”36 He concludes the chapter by beseeching God to allow him to follow in Pirona’s footsteps and imploring her to pray for him and for anyone who would desire to imitate her.

The Mass and the mystical visions that take place during it foreground the relationship between Brother Johannes and Pirona. These chapters are rife with Eucharistic symbolism, and the priest’s centrality is undeniable: he is performing the Mass, saying these words, and experiencing these visions. However, Johannes performs the Mass for Pirona’s benefit, and they share the same spiritual revelations that occur during it. This is in keeping with other chapters, where Johannes’s visions during Mass often underline the relationship between the two. The scene in Chapter 45, in particular, is part of a series of chapters that illustrate, as Taye writes, how Pirona and Johannes “shared one spirit”, as proven through shared mystical experiences or an spiritual insight revealed to Pirona at one time and Johannes at another.37 The visions in Chapters 45 and 66 illustrate this relationship: at the same moment, Johannes and Pirona each see the same visions of Christ at the same time, during the Mass, which they confirm to one another afterwards. Although they share the same spirit, according to Taye, Pirona and Johannes are not equal partners, and Taye portrays Pirona as spiritually more advanced than her confessor. Chapter 45 begins with a vision shown to Johannes of the baby Jesus with a cutting board under his arm, by which he understands that God would allow him to savor something from Pirona’s spiritual table—that is, he would be given a vision that she had already experienced.38

In these representations of the Mass, it is Johannes’s voice that sings “sanctus, sanctus, sanctus”. Elsewhere in the hagiography, however, Pirona also sings this song outside of the context of the Mass. Taye tells us that the “sanctus” chant is one of several prayers that Pirona learnt from a divine source. In Chapter 31, he writes, the Holy Spirit teaches her the meaning of these Latin words, along with the phrase “et verbum caro factum est” and the prayer “prefationem”—which immediately precedes the “sanctus” in the Mass—and the “pater noster”, which is part of her regular Vespers.39 Returning to the opening scene of this paper, in Chapter 77 of the hagiography, we learn that Pirona sang the “sanctus” in heaven with the cherubs and seraphs, making her voice raspy and hoarse the next day, to Johannes’s approval.40 Pirona’s singing of the “sanctus” chant in heaven transforms her voice almost beyond the capacities of her body. Importantly, Pirona’s “sanctus” does not appear in the context of Mass, although they are firmly associated elsewhere in the hagiography. Indeed, Taye frames her heavenly singing as a model for priests to follow, implicitly in their celebrations of Mass: the chapter ends with Johannes’s words, “If only each cleric singing that very song could become as hoarse as she!” Here, and elsewhere, Taye presents Pirona as an example of spiritual zeal for his audience to imitate, and, in the case of her celestial singing of “sanctus”, he refers clerics specifically to her performance of this important Mass prayer. However, rather than portray Pirona as an imitator or would-be celebrating priest, Pirona’s vision takes her more deeply into the chant itself. Her singing, in this chapter, places her inside the world of the chant. Rather than evoke the Biblical scenes of divine worship with the “sanctus”, she appears to be actually there in heaven singing with the cherubs and seraphs. Through her singing, her own humanity is joined to the divine choir of angels and transformed. Taye tells us that, while singing in heaven, Pirona “became even more extraordinarily fervent in spirit and soul”—but also that “this fervour consumed all her body’s strength and with that she lost her bodily voice to the point that it was hoarse when she spoke.”41 By joining in angelic song, Pirona’s voice unites her with the choir of cherubs and seraphs, but it also takes a toll. Taye’s note about her raspy voice brings into perspective the limits of her human body. It also provides laudable proof of her attempt to exceed these limits by entering the realm of angels who can sing ceaselessly.42 In Pirona’s hagiography, the chant “sanctus, sanctus, sanctus” connects friar and recluse as spiritual partners in scenes where he sings it on Earth, notably in their shared mystical experiences. When Pirona sings the “sanctus” in heaven, however, she enters the world of the chant temporarily, a journey that leaves its mark on her human voice.

2. Conclusions

The Life of Pirona foregrounds its subject’s saintly voice as intertwined with mystical experiences and ritual practices. Pirona’s participation in both perceptibly alter her voice in the narrative. She shouts in a “loud voice” after experiencing a mystical revelation, sings for an hour after Vespers because of her connection to the Trinity, and sings fervently in heaven with the angels, to the point of hoarseness on Earth. Pirona’s voice, whether shouting or singing, transforms her body and challenges its limits in the name of greater proximity to the divine. Through his portrayal of Pirona’s voice, her hagiographer–confessor also articulates her connection to himself as part of a complementary spiritual partnership. He depicts their relationship in part through acts of speech and voice, including their conversations, the performance of daily prayers, and their shared visions when he sings the “sanctus” prayer during Mass. He repeats that his readers should follow Pirona’s example, elevating her as a charismatic mystic whose voice should not only be heeded but also imitated, including by clerical readers. Focusing on the place of voice in this text additionally reveals information about Pirona’s—and, by extension, other recluses’—possible ritual prayer practices, especially praying the Hours and observing the Mass from their cells. In the hagiographical portrait that Taye paints of Pirona, rituals like the Hours and the Mass bring Pirona into connection with himself and his fellow Carmelite friars as an example, yet they also show her exceptional piety, which leads her to sing not only in church but also in heaven with the angels.

The present article has only begun to sketch a few of the many insights that the Life of Pirona can offer. Regarding the topic of saintly voices in particular, this text offers a multilayered account of a recluse’s speech by her confessor-hagiographer, including several examples of dialogue (between Pirona and Johannes but also other characters) that would merit further study. For those interested in ritual prayer and liturgy, there are many further representations of the Mass than could be discussed here, including several in which the Virgin Mary features prominently. For scholars of reclusion, this text provides new insights into a recluse’s daily life, from prayer practices to the presence of attendants, servants, priests, and other religious persons present inside Pirona’s enclosure, or even her diet and the configuration of her reclusorium. These rich details peppered throughout the hagiography are each ripe for further study. This text is also potentially interesting to scholars working on medieval religion more broadly. For example, for those researching gender dynamics in medieval texts, Taye’s depiction of his relationship with his holy subject, through the characters of Pirona and Johannes, offers an intensely complementary model, reinforced through their shared visions, some of which have been discussed here. Scenes featuring processions, local saints’ cults, or different types of religious life in late medieval Mechelen may be useful to work on civic religion, and the comet that reappears several times in the text suggests medieval understandings of environmental phenomena. As a multilayered text touching on many topics relevant to current scholarship, the Life of Pirona has much to offer the study of medieval religious cultures.