Reading mystics, building saints. Impact and reception of Carthusian holy women within the Order

Abstract
Carthusians are well known for the attention they devoted to mysticism, whether it concerned women or men’s texts. However, if we look inside the female branch of this order, it may be surprising how few texts are produced inside the Carthusian cloisters by women. In the medieval period, we only find one writer, Marguerite d’Oingt. But if we look further, and we focus on the posterity that her writings had, either inside or outside the Order, the surprise is even greater. Although her works contain some mystical teachings close to those of other female mystics of the 13th and 14th centuries, the resonance her texts found in the centuries after her death was extremely poor. This article will analyse the construction of the female exemplary figures inside and outside the Carthusian Order with a study of the manuscript tradition that contains the experiences, thoughts, and actions of Marguerite d’Oingt, Béatrice d’Ornacieux and Roseline de Villeneuve up to the 17th century. Together with providing sometimes unpublished, sometimes neglected information on the early-modern reception of these figures, this article will also make a critical contribution to the methodological discussion of the historical construction of mysticism.