176 Christina of Markyate
was a growing lack of toleration for religious differences
within Europe.
See alsoANTI-JUDAISM AND ANTI-SEMITISM;BONIFACE
VIII, POPE;HERESY AND HERESIES;HOLYROMANEMPIRE;
INNOCENTIII, POPE;INQUISITION;POLITICAL THEORY AND
TREATISES.
Further reading:Adriaan Hendrik Bredero, Chris-
tendom and Christianity in the Middle Ages: The Relations
between Religion, Church, and Society, trans. Reinder
Bruinsma (Grand Rapids: Mich.: W. B. Eerdmans,
1994.); Peter R. L. Bown, The Rise of Western Christen-
dom: Triumph and Diversity, A.D. 200–1000,2d ed. (New
York: Blackwell, 2003); Deno John Geanakoplos,
Byzantine East and Latin West: Two Worlds of Christen-
dom in Middle Ages and Renaissance, Studies in Ecclesias-
tical and Cultural History(New York: Harper & Row,
1966); Judith Herrin, The Formation of Christendom
(Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1987);
Scott L. Waugh and Peter D. Diehl, eds., Christendom
and Its Discontents: Exclusion, Persecution, and Rebellion,
1000–1500 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1996).
Christina of Markyate (Theodora)(1097–ca. 1159)
virgin, hermit, director of a religious community in
England
Practically the only source for her life was The Life of
Christina of Markyate,a biography by a monk of Saint
Albans. She was born in 1097, the daughter of Autti, a
rich merchant of Huntington in England. She took a vow
of virginity as a teenager. After avoiding the sexual
advances of a prominent bishop, she was to marry a man
chosen by her parents, Burhtred. She absolutely refused
and was imprisoned for her obstinacy. In 1118 she
escaped to a nearby hermitage. In 1122 her unconsum-
mated marriage was annulled, and she returned to
Markyate near Saint Albans to live the life of a hermit.
However, she soon was placed in charge of a convent
there. Other positions as an abbess at major convents
were offered to her, but she remained there the rest of her
life practicing prayer, poverty, embroidery, and solitude
with Christ as her mystical husband. She died sometime
between 1155 and 1161.
Further reading:C. H. Talbot, ed. and trans., The
Life of Christina of Markyate: A Twelfth Century Recluse
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987); Thomas Head, “The
Marriages of Christina of Markyate,” Viator21 (1990):
75–101; Cindy L. Carlson and Angela Jane Weisl, eds.,
Constructions of Widowhood and Virginity in the Middle
Ages (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1999); Kathleen
Coyne Kelly, Performing Virginity and Testing Chastity in
the Middle Ages (London: Routledge, 2000); Karen A.
Winstead, ed., Chaste Passions: Medieval English Virgin
Martyr Legends(Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press,
2000).
Christine de Pisan (of Pisa) SeePISAN,CHRISTINE DE
(OFPISA).Christology and christological controversy Chris-
tology was that part of THEOLOGYthe object of which was
the attempt to describe and understand the qualities of
Christ as the second person of the Trinity, his Incarnation
of the Word as a full human being, and his saving
work, or the REDEMPTIONof humankind. The questions
asked involved the number of persons in the Trinity, their
join actions and wills, and their relationships with one
another. The Council of CHALCEDONin 451 defined the
fundamental principle of all Orthodox Christology and
put an end to several conflicting but not necessarily
mutually exclusive points of view. At that council the
basic idea approved was that there is in Christ one person
and two natures, but theologians continued to discuss
and debate these questions.
See also ANSELM OF CANTERBURY;ARIANISM;
AQUINAS,THOMAS;CHURCH,EASTERNORTHODOX;CYRIL
OFALEXANDRIA;EPHESUS,COUNCIL OF;ISAAC OFSTELLA;Wooden devotional statue showing Christ inside his mother,
Musée Rolin in Autun (Courtesy Edward English)