You're Dead to Me - Benedetta Carlini

Episode Date: August 23, 2024

Greg Jenner is joined in seventeenth-century Italy by Professor Michelle Sauer and comedian Sophie Duker to learn about notorious nun Benedetta Carlini. From the moment of her birth in 1590, Benedetta – whose name literally means ‘blessed’ – was dedicated to God’s service by her father. As a young girl, she joined a community of religious women, where in her twenties she began experiencing mystical visions. These culminated in a number of miraculous signs and occurrences, including the appearance of the stigmata on her body. But following a papal investigation, shocking secrets were revealed, including her sexual relationship with another nun. This episode charts her life, from the miracles that occurred during her childhood, through her time as a devout nun, and to her ultimate downfall at the hands of the papal investigator.You’re Dead To Me is the comedy podcast that takes history seriously. Every episode, Greg Jenner brings together the best names in history and comedy to learn and laugh about the past. Hosted by: Greg Jenner Research by: Hannah Campbell Hewson Written by: Hannah Campbell Hewson, Emmie Rose Price-Goodfellow, Emma Nagouse, and Greg Jenner Produced by: Emmie Rose Price-Goodfellow and Greg Jenner Audio Producer: Steve Hankey Production Coordinator: Ben Hollands Senior Producer: Emma Nagouse Executive Editor: James Cook

BBC Sounds music radio podcasts. Hello and welcome to your dead to me the radio for comedy podcast that takes history seriously. My name is Greg Jenner. I'm a public historian, author and broadcaster. And today we are whipping out our wimples and reciting our rosaries as we learn all about the scandalous 17th century nun Benedetta Carlini. And to help us we have two very special guests. In History Corner, she's the Chester Fritz Distinguished Professor in English at the University of North Dakota. She's a specialist in medieval studies, especially medieval religion, women's literature and queer theory. And she's the author of several books. It's Professor Michelle Sauer. Welcome Michelle. Thanks so much, Greg. It's wonderful to be speaking with you today and to meet Sophie. Yes, you're very lucky Sophie is very special. And in Comedy Corner, she is an award winning

comedian, writer and actor, as well as her fabulous stand up shows. You will recognise her from TV's 8 out of 10 Cats Does Countdown, Live at the Apollo, Frankie Boyle's New World Order. But of course you'll remember her from our back catalogue, including episodes on Atlantis and Ramsey's The Great It's Sophie Duker. Welcome back Sophie. Hey, special feels like an egg but I'll take it. No, no, it was meant to be positive. I'm very thrilled to be special and to be here and to be meeting Michelle Sauer. What about Benedetta Carlini? Is this a name that rings any bells? Church bells? So I don't know, I don't really know anything, that's not quite true. I think I've got the sense

that she's some sort of queer icon, but I don't really know much about her. And I've already heard from your intro that she's a sexy nun. Wait, did you say that or did I, I was projecting, you didn't say that. I didn't say that, but you did. You didn't say that, I projected.

You said wimple and I was like, hot, that's what happened. How embarrassing. It's fine, it's a fantastic insight into your mind there. Yeah, I think Sexy Nun is probably about fair, but we'll see. So what do you know? This is the So What Do You Know? This is where I have a go at guessing what you, our lovely listener, might know about today's subject. And you are probably familiar with Nun Life, you know, from totally true documentaries like Sister Act and The Sound of Music. But

you might be less familiar with a small mountain girl called Benedetta Carlini who rose to notoriety in 17th century Italy and then vanished from history until being rediscovered quite recently. Although if you are a Paul Verhoeven fan, you might have seen a somewhat fictionized version of her story in his racy 2021 film, Benedetta. But who was the real woman who, in quotes, pretended to be a mystic but was found to be a woman of ill repute? What does this have to do with silkworms?

And does the devil really love cured meats? Let's find out. Professor Michelle, let's start with her family background. Who was Benedetta? Where was she born? When was she born? What was her family situation, please? Benedetta was born on January 20th, 1590 on the night of St. Sebastian in a small mountain village called Valano in Tuscany in Italy. She was the only child of Medea and Giuliana Carlini. Her father was the third richest man in Valano, so it was a well-off family. And the fact that she was born on the night of St. Sebastian, it was sort of

pre-eccent because St. Sebastian was considered the greatest intercessor or one of the greatest intercessors of the Middle Ages. G. I have a question. What is an intercessor? A. Someone who helps you get your prayers answered. G. Yeah, like a middleman. A. Yeah, the middleman. You're not good enough to approach the holy one and so you need someone who is better than you to get the job done. 1590 is a bit later than I expected. I think I was expecting a kind of medieval story,

but we are in the Elizabethan era over in England at this time. Sophie, I know you speak French. I want to test your Italian now. Do you know what do you know what Benedetta translates to in English? Is it like sexy egg? Benedetta is it like blessed one. Oh, yeah bang on. Yeah. Okay. She did Latin as well. All right Benedetta lovely. Okay. So yes, blessed, Michelle. Blessed, why Blessed? What was the naming reason for that? Her mother had a very difficult labor and at one point it seemed like both mother and child would die. So her father, who was both rich and devout, prayed to God desperately

that they lived and asked the intercession of St. Sebastian. Now we come to why it's so important to have such a great intercessor. And in gratitude, Benedetta was named blessed and her father dedicated her to God and promised that she would become a nun. That's a lot of pressure, very young, isn't it? To come into the world and immediately know what you're going to do with your life. Yeah. I feel like it's a big ask, a big ask of a young girl. What age does she start to sort of become non-adjacent, Michelle?

I mean, I think she's pretty non-adjacent right from the start. By the time she was five years old, she was reciting the litany, saying the rosary on her own. And her father had, unusually enough, undertaken her education himself. Usually young children, both boys and girls, would have been educated at home by their mothers at this age. She also experienced miracles as a young girl. She had a nightingale that followed her around, would sing on command, would occasionally sing the lods with her. That's very Disney princess to have a bird on your shoulder singing along. Yeah, a nightingale as well.

You don't get those anymore. It's crows and pigeons. They're all over medieval literature, but you know, not in real life anymore. I mean, they exist, but. Okay, so nightingale good. Any bad animal appearances? Any demonic animals? There was a mysterious black dog that showed up and growled and slobbered and tried to drag her off and eventually it just sort of disappeared when she prayed. So that's obviously

prayed. So that's obviously a demonic manifestation. Okay, good. I'm enjoying this. This is fun. Okay, so Sophie, how old do you think the Benedetta was when she was first entering the convent? Okay, so if she's like reciting litanies from five years old, I feel probably quite like a young entrant. I'm going to go with lucky number 13. That's a good guess. It's a little bit generous. It was nine. Oh, nine! Okay, classic age to take on a trait. What kind of convent does Benedetta join? What are convents of this period? In the Middle Ages we thought of them as monasteries for women because they really

are companion pieces to the male monastic houses. So the different orders often developed a female companion sort of offshoot. So there were Dominicans and then female Dominicans. But there is like a real huge expansion of these orders throughout the centuries by 1552, which is a little bit before Benedetta. One in eight women in Florence, and Florence is the biggest city in the area here, lived in a religious community. When they get sent off to these monasteries for women, it's kind of like a single-sex environment. Do they have like socials with matching men's monasteries? Is there any sort of communication between the two or is it just that there's like a male monastery and

a female monastery in the same area and they don't chat or get together or compare notes? They're not necessarily even in the same area. Just because an area would have a Dominican house for men does not mean that there would be a Dominican house for women in the same city or the same area even. But there were, since you brought it up Sophie, a few orders that had what we call double monasteries. And double monasteries are a male house and a female house joined in the middle by a church. That would be the thing you would join them with. The best part, Sophie, is that the women, the abbess is always in charge of both houses.

This is great. Yeah. It feels a bit like a single-sex boarding school. I didn't go to boarding school, but I did go to an all-girls school and we had a, there was never like a church joining us to a boys school, but there were socials where the boys and girls did not look at each other or touch. So it feels, feels like home. So what's the name of the community that, um, Benedetta joined Michelle? Cause you mentioned Dominican, but that's not the community she goes into.

So she was in Vilano. She was born in Vilano, which is a small mountain village. And when it came time for her to join a convent, her father basically just took her down the hill to the next biggest city, which is Pesce. And in Pesce, there were three major convents. These convents were filled to the brim. They fact, they were overflowing. There was something like 230 women in these three convents in a reasonably small town. In order to join one of them, you basically had to be a patrician or a noble or a property holder or an existing relative

of a woman already in the convent, and you had to pay a huge dowry. It is like private school. Yeah, it is a private school. It is. I mean, and the dowry is to support the convent, but it's also ostensibly you're marrying Jesus, and just like every other man,

he expects you to pay a dowry. Oh, Jesus, how disappointing. I know, it is, isn't it? The community I should say that Benedetta joined was less expensive. It was only a dowry of 160 scudi. Works out to be about 154 US dollars in today's money. And the community that she joined is something called the Theatres. The Theatres were not actually an official order as of yet. When Benedetta joins, they are still an unofficial community, although they had been

sanctioned by the church. A woman named Piera Pogny founded this community in 1590, the year that Benedetta was born. And she had applied to the Pope for permission to make this a formal community. It's like a start-up convent. It's not quite recognised yet. It's like a young, cool... They're disrupting the sector. Yeah, they've gone to venture capitalists. Theatrines're disrupting the sector. Yeah, yeah. They've gone to venture capitalists. Theatrines are disrupting the sector of the female monasteries.

Okay. One of the things that they do to bring money in the theatrines is they work in the silk industry. Sophie, do you know anything about the history of silk? No. It's for worms. Worms make silk. I know that.

Yeah? Yeah? There was a road of silk. It wasn't made of silk but yes. Yeah. And that is something that I knew. There was a metaphorical road of silk. Yeah, I'm trying to think of a third silk fat that I know. No. Two facts is good. Thank you for your contribution. It's a really important part of medieval history but it's quite a fun way that silk arrives into Europe Normally things arrive in through trade, but silk arrives into Europe through a heist

It was a heist pulled off by some monks in the sixth century They were working for just Indian the Emperor of the Byzantine Empire and they smuggled silk worms out of Asia out of China Inside some sort of like, I think bamboo rods, is it Michelle? I can't quite remember, but it's like a proper Ocean's Eleven heist. Yeah, two Nestorian monks went to China and indeed they smuggled eggs of silkworms out in bamboo rods. It took two years to pull off this heist completely. Oh my god. Yeah, and silk became a huge industry afterwards in medieval Europe. Italy and France were the biggest centers of it. But in Italy, convents really took over as the locations of the silk

industry. Why convents? Why not monasteries? Well, this is great news for women. Silkworms required really delicate handling. And in the industry, the worms were treated just like children. And the woman in charge of the silkworm hatchery was called mother and adult men were not allowed anywhere near silk worms that lest they disturb their work. Wow. That is very queer coded. That seems mad that they've just like no man can touch this worm with his big brutish hands. Yeah. Yeah. Incredible. I'd love to be the mother of a silk worm house. I've got very small, very gentle fingers.

Delicate hands. I've got delicate hands. I could handle a silkworm. Why am I being... I want to handle silkworms. Why am I being discriminated against, Sophie? That's what I want to know. Why isn't there a man handling silkworms day? Yeah, exactly. Hashtag not all men. Not all men crush the worms between finger and thumb. But yes, and silk's really important to the Italian nunnery scene. But what else is going on in the convent do you think, Sophie? You know, if we are imagining Benedetta as a,

I don't know, let's imagine her as a modern influencer living her hashtag nun life, what kind of content are you expecting on the gram? Okay, when you started talking about Benedetta, I really thought that she was like, had been a great TikTok baby, because it's all like her dad's making her read these litany. She's got this little bird and stuff. Like I feel like she would have been creating content from early. And doing unboxing videos. Yeah. Just being like, it's another Rosary. And then just sitting there, it's like 90 minutes long. Um, I feel if she was a modern influencer, obviously she's like a prodigy.

I feel like maybe she would be like, she'd have learnt loads of like hymns, like maybe she'd be singing, maybe like reciting stuff. I'm trying to think of what like the nun version of a get ready with me is. I saw a reel recently where someone was like, I've been a holy girl. There's a TikTok sound that's like, I've been a nasty girl. And there are Christians who are sort of making it terrible and unwatchable by making it like, I've been a holy girl. Yeah. Benedetta, I think like being like a pretty clearly a pretty smart kid I think she'd just be like reciting chunks of the Bible singing stuff. Maybe getting the bird involved. Oh Yes, the nightingale. Yeah. Yeah my old age or tried to peck out, you know the eyes of the Abbas

Michelle Sophie's painted quite a charming image there. None life was quite hard. Is that fair? charming image there. None life was quite hard. Is that fair? It could be pretty hard, especially if you're one of, a lot of orders had something called lay sisters. They're the uneducated ones who did all the hard work, the cooking and the cleaning and the repairing and the sewing. Choir sisters were the ones who were educated and spent their time making silk and sewing and praying and singing. And is there a disciplinary culture here? I'm a medievalist by training so when I think of monks and nuns I tend to think of a bit of whipping sometimes, a bit of self-flagellation.

Is that going on? Well, that wouldn't have been required. That would have been a personal sort of thing. OK. The biggest things that were required were fasting. Lots and lots of fasting. We have a young nun, Benedetta. Her life is sort of on track to be fairly conventional.

And then at 23, it changes, Michelle. Why 23? Well, you know, we don't really know a lot about her between the ages of nine and 23. Presumably she's doing this conventional thing, except that we have one sort of indication that she is still special. Right away, when she first got to the convent at age nine she had gone into the convent chapel and was praying in front of the theatrines Madonna statue when the Blessed Virgin Mary sort of manifested within this statue and leaned forward to kiss Benedetta but she sort of panicked, freaked out, and then the statue fell as she ran off. But she didn't tell anybody about the almost kiss.

None of my Virgin Mary statuettes have ever tried to pass on me, so that is feeling a bit slighted. Another vision Michelle involves quite a sort of Eden-esque vibe. One was was definitely Eden-esque. She was walking in a beautiful garden full of fruits and flowers, many of which wouldn't be growing at the time or place in which she lived there was a fountain full of scented water These visions were both beautiful and reassuring because angels Would also join her in them and she's also mountain climbing. So it is the sound of music. She's climbing every mountain She's falling every stream. She's following her rainbow. She's gonna find her dream. That's beautiful. She's just a nun walking through the mountains tripping her knot off.

Yes, it does sound like a high, doesn't it? It's all very PG friendly so far, but then Benedetta's visions got quite heavy metal, Sophie. We've got quite a quick mini quiz for you actually. Which of these visions did Benedetta not claim to have experienced? So five options, here we go. Okay. One, she was pursued by handsome young men in iron chains with weapons. Two, Jesus ripped out her heart and she lived without a heart for three days.

Three, an angel in a white robe, gold chain, long curly hair, named Splenditello brought her a double-edged wand made of flowers and thorns. Four, she married Jesus. Five, an angel told her to go vegan. Which of those? Not true. Oh my god, okay. I mean, it feels like she's very horny for God in all these visions. It feels like a real insight into her psyche. I think she was told to go vegan. Jesus taking her heart. It's very poetic. Walking around without a heart for three days. It's relatable content. She's basically Charlie XCX. I think that Splendotello sounds a bit much.

Okay, you're rejecting Splendotello and his lovely curly hair. I think he's modeled on you, Greg. I would love to be Splendotello. I don't have the looks to pull it off. I've his lovely curly hair. I think he's modelled on you, Greg. I would love to be Splendatello. I don't have the looks to pull it off. I've got the curly hair and nothing else. It's actually a trick question, Sophie. All five are true. Oh my god!

Wow! Sorry. Sorry. That's us being very mean there, but we thought maybe it would be fun to see if you could tell them apart. But no, yeah, she claims all five. So she claims her heart's ripped out for three days. She claims to be going vegan, marrying Jesus. Splendatello comes to her, offers her a double wand of flowers and thorns,

and pursued by young men who attack her with weapons and chains. So quite a, quite a ray of visions here. Yeah. Michelle, Benedetta also started to have the physical signs of holy interactions, what we might call stigmata. From about 1615 forward she started experiencing intense pain over her entire body. The stigmata are representative wounds on an individual's body that are the same. They correspond with the wounds on Jesus Christ's body. So it would be the hands, the feet, the side wound, and in some extreme cases of stigmata, manifestation of the crown of thorns. These are huge claims to be making. I suppose the obvious question is, were there others in the convent reporting similar things, Michelle? Is she alone in this?

There are no other people in the convent who are reporting this. This is not a typical thing. The stigmata itself is considered an extreme gift that very few saints had ever received. The most famous of these would be Saint Francis of Assisi. And there were a few others that were accepted. Saint Catherine of Siena received the stigmata in her heart and that was internal and not external. But other than that, it's not common at all. Catherine of Siena is the one, she has a marriage to Jesus with a very unusual ring. Sophie, do you know what the ring is made from?

Is it a natural substance? Yeah, yeah. Or is, uh, lard? No, lard is bad. Lard is a bad ring material. Like, thorns is what you'd think. Thorns is what the jewelry is. Thorns, reeds, reeds? These are good guesses. Michelle, do you want to tell us what it was? I'm afraid not, Sophie. It is made out of the foreskin of Christ. Wow! Wow! A literal cock ring! Yes. Wow!

Yes, so Benedetta's having these pretty powerful physical and visual visitations and visions. How do you think her fellow nuns were handling that at the dinner table? I mean, I think they probably treated her like an annoying little shit. I think... At 23? At 23 you're trying to make out like you're like St Catherine of Siena at 23. Your frontal lobe isn't even fully developed yet. That's probably why you're having pain. But you know, I don't know. I think it feels like a, especially if there's not other people doing it, if it's not part of the company culture to be having visions, then if you kind of state yourself out as having very disruptive and evocative visions,

I feel like it probably get on a few of the nuns' tits. The thing that's intriguing to me, Michelle, is the community sort of give Benedetta a kind of friend to play with? It's a bit like, all right, you need someone to keep your company. And they give you a young woman called Bartolomea Crivelli, is that right? That's right. So this is sort of cheeky, if you think about it, of Benedetta. She's having visions. I mean, St. Catherine shows up with Jesus in one of these visions to help. The whole gang.

Yeah, to help the whole heart exchange that she had. So I think that sort of helps the community think, yeah, this is great. And she's accepted. With these violent visions, they were worried about her. So she gets her buddy. Her buddy, Bartlemaia. And Benedetta now sort of steps it up. She starts preaching from the pulpit, which is a big no-no, isn't it?

That's that's a man's job. Right. Huge no-no. OK. And then in 1619, the other nuns elect her the abbess of the nunnery, Michelle. So then she's not unpopular. She's not unpopular at all. The following year, the community received its official papal permission to become a closed community. Sophie Benedetta starts living her best life with her BFF Spotlumaya and of course Splendor Tello the angel.

Splendor Tello. Can't forget him. Well, so does a closed community mean that they don't really have to answer to anyone else or that they're not bringing in? What does closing the Abbey mean? It means that they have more control over who they accept and that they have the church seal of approval to actually be a formal community for women of formal content. But that official stamp of authority then means presumably the church is then looking more closely at what's happening, because suddenly the church authorities show up and

go, hang on a second, what? There's a woman preaching, claiming mystic visions? We'd better check this out, because we now get an official process of interrogation, Michelle? Yeah, and it's not just the nuns. She had been making inroads into the local nobility. So when she married Jesus, for an example, she invited the local Duke and the local nobles over for a party, basically. Imagine those wedding invitations. That'd be amazing. So she just, she was starting to make the church nervous, right? Women with too much authority and too much pull, for one thing, made ecclesiastical powers nervous. But just in general, visions were looked at with suspicion more and more. They could be coming from the devil, especially when they involve such

bodily sorts of visions. Oh, so the fear here is that she is being visited by Satan, not by an angel? Yes. Gotcha. Okay, so we get the provost of Pestia, Stefano Cecci, sort of showing up to physically examine the stigmata, the wounds, starts asking questions, Sophie, it's becoming a bit official. What do you think Bartola Mea does, Sophie, the sort of best friend who's been appointed? So they're like besties at this point. Is she like a waiting mate or are they just like companions? Yeah, a bit of both, is it Michelle? Yeah, she is there to, I guess, help out Benedetta, make sure that she's

And then Adedna makes sure that she's brought back to Earth after her visions that her body is cared for. If her heart's removed for three days, somebody has to take care of what's left behind. And Bottle Emmaus says that she had to put the heart back in? So wow. Yes. Yeah. That she is a devoted companion. Not only does she confirm to this inquiry board, to the provost of Pesce, that Benedetta

did indeed exist three days without a heart while this exchange with Jesus was going on, but that she herself pushed it back into the middle of his body. Sophie, have you ever done that for a friend? Have you ever? Have I ever pushed a heart back in? No, I've held the hair back while they've been sick, but I've never pushed the heart back into the body. I've never reversed a temple of doom to friend.

But I'd like to think any one of my friends would do that for me. I think that's the test of modern friendship. Yeah, if it's spoken out a bit, it's just like, yeah, your heart slipped. Just nudge it back. Yeah, exactly. The heart skipped a beat, pop it back in. That's amazing. Okay, so Benedetta has a very loyal friend here and Bartola Meir is going on the record

saying yes, the heart came out, I saw it, I put it back in. So that means Benedetta passes the first interrogation, the first investigation, but there will be another because obviously we said that women of ill repute is a phrase that gets used. Why does she pass the first test, but a second one is launched, Michelle? What does she do, Benedetta, that's more provocative or claimed to do? dies. But then she comes back to life. So 1621, she, you know, she's dead. And then Father Paolo Ricordate commanded her in a loud voice to arise. And she did. That's all it needs, right? That's all you need. You just need someone. You just need a man to say, get up, come on, sort it out.

And you're like, not dead anymore. Let's talk about the second investigation because this time around Sophie it's not the local authorities who are sort of showing up to have an interrogation. The Pope has sent someone. The Pope! Mr Pope himself, he sent a nuncio, which is an official figure, a bunch of officials showing up in 1622. They're there for several months. They're outsiders, right? They're not used to the community. They're not used to her. So they're a bit more interrogative. It doesn't go so

well this time, Sophie. They're suspicious. Yeah, I'd be suspicious. I feel like Bartolomea sounds like a liability. I feel like she's adding little embellishments like, I saw the heart, I pushed it back in. It feels like Benedetta's got quite a lot of charisma. But I'm not sure Bartolomea commands quite the same amount of reverence, no questions asked, as her friend does. So I feel like she's possibly not going to be the weak link in questioning. That's interesting. I quite like that. I mean, the line of questioning, Michelle, that you've

already alluded to is the Nuncio are sort of going down the Satanic route. They're saying, you don't get these visions from God, you get these visions from Satan. We think Benedetta, but actually Benedetta's family are in league with Satan. Is that right? Where she really started losing people was continuing to preach from the pulpit. It was understandable, maybe the first few times, because she was reporting what Jesus had said in these visions. But continuing to do that wanders into dangerous territory. And who would inspire someone to continually act in such a manner contrary to God, but the devil.

So the local community starts turning against her and suggests that her parents had been possessed by devils. And then all of this sort of comes to a head when the nuncio comes to town. He is very suspicious of things like the heart exchange and the mystical marriage and especially stigmata. And they find satanic signs around the kind of the sort of the general locale of the nunnery. Oh, okay. I don't know what a satanic sign, I was going to, I was thinking it might be like physical markings, like a love bite or something like that. But that's not something that you generally strew across the floor. Maybe just like stuff that's written down.

Yeah, that's a good guess. Michelle, what is the evidence gathered against Benedetta? The biggest sign of all of demonic, if not possession, association is that she didn't go vegan anymore. She started secretly eating meat. And in particular, she had a love of salami and mortadella. And I mean, I can't blame her. Mortadella is delicious. So, wow. The nun who loves salami is not how I thought she would be described. But so Michelle is this I'm slightly worried where we're going next. But are we going next into sort of, you know, demonic territory of, you know, naughty things? Not quite. Unfortunately. I know that in witchcraft trials, there's, you you know lots of explicit discussions of how they have sex with the devil in various ways. Okay. That's not where we

end up with with Benedetta. Instead we end up with Benedetta having sex not with the devil but with her best friend Bartola Me. No. What? Sophie's back on board. What? Those two good friends? They were just roommates. The roommates? What? Yeah. This is the most surprising development in the entire kit. Yeah. Tell us more Michelle. What is their, I was going to say, what is their routine? Is it a routine? Is it kind of like a weekly session? It is a routine, in fact. So under intense questioning, Bar Toa Mea breaks down and admits that for two years, three times a week, they engage in sexual activities, predominantly fravage. Benedetta would would disrobe, she would force Bartolomea to lie back on the bed. Benedetta would crawl on top of her, kiss

her, and then start moving. And the word that's used in the trial transcripts is stir. In the Middle Ages, stir means arousal. It means a repetitive movement, but it also implies some form of penetration. She would stir or move on top of Bart Ptolemaeus so much that and this is also in the transcript, both of them corrupted themselves. So the implication is that they orgasmed from this experience. But more than that, Sophie, Benedetta is claiming that the angels, Lenditello is making them do it.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, no, no, no. Yeah, I've had that one as well. It's like, there's someone watching, he's got like curly hair. Uh oh. Wow. I mean, it's, I think it's a solid fantasy. It's a good, I mean, it's very, it's sort of heartbreaking that Bartolomea has to share these intimate details of their, you know, routine. But three times a week. Yeah, I mean, that's pretty solid. Yeah, solid. But yes, there is one detail in the church's eyes that's made the actions even more scandalous, Sophie. Do you know what that might have been? Besides not just the stirring and the angel?

Not just the stirring or the angel. Okay, Benadette has given me like femme top energy. I feel like did she ask Bartolomé to like cool her anything? Oh right, some role play. Some sort of role play, some like you know call me mother, call me daddy, call me mother, call me mother of God. No it's not that, it's because they're doing it on holy days, on feast days. Call me mother, call me daddy, call me mother, call me mother of God. It's not that, it's because they're doing it on holy days, on feast days. On feast days! Which is when you're meant to absolutely not be doing this stuff. So doing it on a saint's day is absolutely...

In the book it's like no stirring and frottage on it. Yes, please, please, if you could not on those days. So Michelle, I think the question we have to ask at this point now is, you know, we can all have a laugh about these sort of things, but actually, what's quite interesting is there is a sort of moment in that testimony where Bartola Mea sort of says she was sort of made to lie on her back, and that brings up ideas, perhaps of coercion,

perhaps of one person having more power than the other. So is this a standard, you know, typical lesbian relationship between two consenting women, or do we have something more problematic here? I think that there it is more problematic. But there's multiple levels of coercion, I think, going on here. Also, it's not just that Splendor Tello made them do it for his own benefit. But Benedetta claims that Splendotello really inhabits her body or takes over her body in certain ways so that she herself is actually subject to coercion in a way to then make Bartolomea also go through with this. And when Bartolomea refused, that she would go to her anyway

and would force her, would physically grasp her hand and place it on her breasts or on her genitals and force it, and force the issue. So there's coercion, I think, on multiple levels. I think it's really psychologically interesting, though, because of all the like visions of Benedetta originally had of being pursued by this kind of like rapacious masculine energy and all these different individuals and then the way this sort of stirring plays out is

by her sort of like inhabiting that power and like enacting it on someone else. I mean I think she should see a therapist but I know that's not possible at this stage. Yes. At 1620, that's harder to do. But yeah, it's definitely a problematic relationship. But it's also problematic for us because it comes to us through the official testimony of Nuncio Papal Legates. It's slightly refracted through. So the phrasing that is used in the official interrogation is called the immodest act, these sexual acts between the two ladies and the angel is known as the immodest act, Sophie. But there's definitely, yes, there's some power issues there, I think, perhaps in the relationship. So what is the outcome of this investigation, Michelle? The second

investigation from the Pope's man. So, the final investigative visit was in November of 1623. There's no more evidence of stigmata or of a mystical wedding ring. Benedetta is no longer seeing visions. Splendetello has left her and unlike his promise to Bartolomea, he has never manifested, Benedetta agrees that she had been deceived by the devil and lived very obediently under a new abbess. It's giving break up. Yeah, I mean that's a sort of full recantation. It's a full like, sorry, I was... Yeah, my bad. Yeah, I'm slightly surprised at that, but that's interesting. So we get towards the end of her life, a full recanting, but La Maire recants, and then what? What happens

to Benedetta? Well, she actually sort of drops out of history. We don't really hear from her again, although the convent records basically indicate that she died when she was 71 years old, that she had been ill for 18 days. But this diary also reveals one interesting fact. She had been imprisoned in solitary confinement for 35 years. So it appears that her recantation and her reformation to live the good life under a new abbess was for naught. Oh, Sophie, that's a bit of a vibe shift on the episode there, isn't it?

Yeah. That's so sad. Sorry. 35 years! So she was held against her will despite saying, my bad, I fell in with Satan, I'm going to be good. She was sort of made to stay away from people or stay away from the rest of the community. I mean, the implication is that she was put in solitary for 35 years. I mean, I don't know if it's held against her will. She was going to be in the convent anyway. There was never any chance of her leaving.

The Nuance Window! Time now for The Nuance Window. This is a part of the show where Sophie and I set down our needles and sit in silent contemplation for two minutes while Professor Michelle takes to the pulpit to preach something that we need to know about Benedetta Carlini. So my stopwatch is ready. You have two minutes. Take it away, Professor Michelle. I really wanted to talk a little bit about medieval lesbians. In the introduction to her book, Immodest Acts, about Benedetta Carlinni, Judith

C. Brown says, had the material belonged to a later epoch, the sexual allegations against Benedetta would not have been all that rare. And as Protestantism became more firmly entrenched, smirking stories about nuns loving nuns became Common sidebar apparently by the 18th century homosexual relations those scandalous or at least acknowledged in intellectual circles But what about medieval lesbians? Looking for medieval lesbians one of the things about studying them is that it allows for participation in the creation of social and sexual histories and forefronts the female experience in a field that continues to be dominated by white straight men. And even the term homosexual has been co-opted and used only to describe male same-sex encounters.

So it's good on the one hand that we have Benedetta Carlini. Bad, of course, because of the situation, but good because the scant handful of documented lesbians are generally documented for being caught. Benedetta Carlini was on trial, oddly enough, mostly for preaching, and the Immodest Act came out. We can find medieval lesbians and joy in medieval lesbian activities in such places as mystic texts where female saints called Jesus their mother, then suckle from his side as breastfeeding before crawling into the open vaginal-shaped wound.

One such woman was Catherine of Siena. She describes climbing Christ's body that has been clearly transformed into a feminized creation as he possesses her and presses her to his breast and the opening there, encouraging her to drink and be enraptured. Margarita Ebner slept with an image of Christ's wounds pressed to her bosom and dreamed of tonguing his bleeding heart, and Gertrude the Great slept on the opening itself. We know that the Church of theologians were concerned about the possibilities of women being with other women in a sexual manner.

Elred of Raveaux, who wrote a letter to his sister in Anchoriceus cautioned her against teaching young women because she would clearly be enraptured by them and want to kiss them. St. Augustine wrote a similar letter to his sister. So there are deep concerns about these women. Therefore we know that they exist, that they're out there. And we really need to keep looking more completely into this history so that we don't foreclose the possibilities of a long history of women who loved other women. I mean, it's a lot. It's a lot. I feel like there's so little, like there are so little examples, there's

such a scant amount of evidence and testimony, but when it does pop up, it's really visceral. And like those images of like licking Jesus's heart, it's very intense and very lesbian. I think that, you know. I am going to go to a lesbian bar tonight and I am going to ask the gathered congregation if anyone's ever asked to lit their heart, which I think is probably quite likely given East London. So what do you know now? This is the So What Do You Know Now? This is our quickfire quiz for Sophie to see how much she has learned.

Sophie, you do very well on our quizzes. How are you feeling on this one? I'm feeling nervous. I feel like that maybe the like sauciness and unsettling nature of some of the some of the visions might have like thrown me off my fat remembering game. Yeah, but I'm going to channel Bartolomeia. Don't channel Splendutello though. No, I won't. Okay, question one. What does the name Benedetta mean? It means blessed.

It does. Question two. How old was Benedetta when she first entered the nunnery? She was nine. She was only nine years old. Only nine. She was. Question three. Name one of the ways that convents could make money to support themselves. They could make money to support themselves by making silk?

Yeah, very good. Question four. What is this stigmata that Benedetta claimed to have received? Oh, it was in like her hands, the classic place, the hands and feet and side. Yeah, and these are the wounds of Jesus Christ on the cross. Absolutely. Question 5. What was the name of Benedetta's surprisingly horny guardian angel? Splendotello!

It was. Name? Greg Jenner. Hey! Come on now. Question 6. What was unusual about the wedding ring allegedly given to St Catherine of Siena by Jesus in a vision?

It was made of foreskin! Of course it was. Question seven. Can you describe two of Benedetta's visions? Yes, one was a very like deliciously Ella type vision where it was just like, babe, you've got to stop eating meat, you've got to go plant based. And one of them, she was chased by specifically handsome men. So probably gay men.

I don't know, it doesn't state in the vision whether they were like twinks or bears, but she's being chased by men on horseback who are assaulting her with weapons. Yeah, very good. Question eight, which non-vegan food was used as evidence of Benedetta's demonic possession? Oh, salami. The lady loves salami and mortadella. Yeah, very good. Question nine, what phrase was used to describe what Benedetta and Bartolomeo got up to in bed? Stirring. And another one? Oh, frottage.

Yes and another one that the church used was the most? It was the most, oh, it, ah, frottage and stirring and immodest acts. Very good, well done. And this for 10 out of 10. How long was Benedetta imprisoned in the convent? 35 years. 10 out of 10, never in doubt, Sophie Duker. Well done. Yes, none fun.

Love it. I mean, and some none, and some non trauma. Some sad non trauma. Some non trauma and some none fun. It's so interesting. Her life is, yeah, her life is bonkers. Yeah, and I think we probably threw you under the bus a little bit by going fun fun fun fun fun and now some seriously sad stuff. But it's really interesting, right? This is a fascinating story. And Michelle's nuanced window, I think, is really beautiful

in placing this into a wider context. But there we go. Thank you, Sophie. Thank you, Professor Michelle. Listener, if after today's episode you want more duke in your ears, check out our episodes on Atlantis, Ramesses the Great, Ashanti Gana, and the Chevalier de Saint-Georges. What about Catalogue? And if you've enjoyed hearing about the naughty nun, why not listen to our episode on the

profane popes of the early medieval papacy. Those guys were extra. Let's just put it that way. And remember, if you've enjoyed the podcast, please leave a review, share the show with on the profane popes of the early medieval papacy. Those guys were, they were extra. Let's just put it that way. And remember, if you've enjoyed the podcast, please leave a review, share the show with your friends, subscribe to Your Dead to Me on BBC Sound

so you never miss an episode. But all that's left for me to do is say a huge thank you to our guests in History Corner. We had the magnificent Professor Michelle Sauer from the University of North Dakota. Thank you, Michelle. Thank you. It was awesome.

And in Comedy Corner, we had the sublime Sophie Duker. Thank you, Sophie. Bless you, Greg. Bless you, Michelle. Thank you. It was awesome. And in Comedy Corner we have the sublime Sophie Duker. Thank you Sophie. Bless you Greg. Bless you Michelle. Thank you very much. And to you lovely listener, join me next time as we investigate more historical friendships in inverted commas. But for now I'm off to go and offer Satan some of my salami.

Bye! This episode of Your Dead Me was researched by Hannah Campbell-Huson. Army. Bye! and our executive editor was James Cook. Your Dead to Me is a BBC Studios audio production for BBC Radio 4. Hello, lovely listeners. I know, I know you're busy. Well, let me help you, my friends, with my brand new Friday night comedy, Catherine Bohart, TLDR, Too Long Didn't Read. I'll be going beyond the headlines to get to the bottom of one big news story each week.

You know that story that is huge and constantly being discussed but you miss the details and now it feels like it's too late to ask? Yeah, that one. I'll be speaking to people who know what they're talking about, then we can pretend we know what we're talking about when it comes up at a family dinner. So join me for Catherine Bohart TLDR, a new Friday night comedy from Radio 4 available on BBC Sounds.