Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of Figures
- Preface
- Introduction
- 1 “Founded upon the Rock Which is Christ”: What Patrick and His Promoters Reveal about Women in the Early Irish Church
- 2 “A New and Apostolic Band of Virgins Arose”: Darerca, an Exceptionally Learned Abbess
- 3 “The Safest City of Refuge”: Brigid the Bishop
- 4 “God is Always Present with Those who Exemplify Such Devotion”: Íte, Foster-Mother of the Saints of Ireland
- 5 “Do not Harass my Sisters”: Samthann, an Abbess not to be Crossed
- 6 “I Place Myself under the Protection of the Virgins all Together”: Sister Saints with Something Like a Life
- Conclusion
- Appendices
- Appendix A The Sites
- Appendix B The Sources
- Appendix C Feast Days of Early Medieval Irish Female Saints
- Appendix D Glossary
- Appendix E Pronunciation of Personal Names
- Bibliography
- Index
4 - “God is Always Present with Those who Exemplify Such Devotion”: Íte, Foster-Mother of the Saints of Ireland
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 November 2020
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of Figures
- Preface
- Introduction
- 1 “Founded upon the Rock Which is Christ”: What Patrick and His Promoters Reveal about Women in the Early Irish Church
- 2 “A New and Apostolic Band of Virgins Arose”: Darerca, an Exceptionally Learned Abbess
- 3 “The Safest City of Refuge”: Brigid the Bishop
- 4 “God is Always Present with Those who Exemplify Such Devotion”: Íte, Foster-Mother of the Saints of Ireland
- 5 “Do not Harass my Sisters”: Samthann, an Abbess not to be Crossed
- 6 “I Place Myself under the Protection of the Virgins all Together”: Sister Saints with Something Like a Life
- Conclusion
- Appendices
- Appendix A The Sites
- Appendix B The Sources
- Appendix C Feast Days of Early Medieval Irish Female Saints
- Appendix D Glossary
- Appendix E Pronunciation of Personal Names
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Abstract
Íte exemplifies the inclusive community created by these Christian holy women as she advocates for her faithful, whom she serves as a spiritual mother. No matter how significant their sins, she stands by their side, helping them take responsibility for their actions, find forgiveness, and be welcomed back into their community. She, alone among saints, is celebrated as the muimme sanctorum Hiberniae, the foster-mother of the saints of Ireland. Her Life claims she was taught directly by the Holy Spirit, drawing on this training in her celebrated school that gave several saints their start. Her Life portrays her as committed to both males and females, curing them of various ills, including lapsed virginity and even death, and sharing her wisdom with them. She is especially respected for her virtue, wisdom, gift of prophecy, and healing abilities, as well as a powerful patron and an abbess who tempered her authority with great kindness, all aspects of her role as muimme.
Key words: prophecy, patronage, poetry, purgatory, restored virginity, spiritual motherhood
Íte, alone among saints, is celebrated as the muimme sanctorum Hiberniae, the foster-mother of the saints of Ireland. Her Life claims she was taught directly by the Holy Spirit (a common feature in Lives of holy women, as females often had less access to formal education), which she drew on when she founded a well-known school which gave several saints their start—a school that is known primarily from the Lives of her male pupils, most famously Brendan and Mochaomhóg. Her vita portrays her as committed to both males and females, curing them of various ills, even death, and sharing her wisdom with them. She had an inclusive vision of the holy life; as she told a nun who asked her why she was so beloved by God, “God is always present with those who exemplify such devotion.” Íte is widely respected for her virtue, wisdom, gift of prophecy, and healing abilities, as well as a powerful patron and an abbess who tempered her authority with great kindness, all aspects of her role as muimme.
Like Darerca, Íte is sometimes viewed as a virago, a woman who sacrifices her sex for her sanctity, an aspiration even implicitly attributed to Íte's own mother, simply because she supported her daughter's religious vocation.
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- Information
- Sacred SistersGender, Sanctity, and Power in Medieval Ireland, pp. 113 - 134Publisher: Amsterdam University PressPrint publication year: 2019