Claire L. Sahlin

During her pilgrimage to the Holy Land and subsequent return to Rome in
1372, Birgitta of Sweden traveled through Cyprus, where she summoned
rulers and nobility to hear God's words concerning the fate of the island.
Birgitta, who was advanced in age and growing physically weak, claimed
to speak to the Cypriots on behalf of God. She boldly announced on sev-
eral occasions that God would soon destroy the kingdom, unless its leaders
and people began to love Christ and carry out his will. In the city of
Famagusta, Christ proclaimed his words of judgment through her: "This
city is Gomorrah, burning with the fire of lust and of superfluity and of
ambition. Therefore its structures shall fall, and it shall be desolated and
diminished, and its inhabitants shall depart, and they shall groan in sorrow
and tribulation, and they shall die out, and their shame shall be mentioned
in many lands, because I am angered at them" ( Rev. 7. 16:5-6).¹

These demands for reform received wide-ranging responses in Cyprus
and became the occasion for both praise and ridicule of her activities as
God's emissary, according to witnesses who testified in favor of her canoni-
zation.² Some members of her audience were simply astonished, appar-
ently because of her claims to have received messages directly from God;
others greatly revered her and asked her to pray for them. Still others dis-
believed Birgitta altogether, and derided her. Simon, a Dominican theolo-
gian and astronomer, asserted that it would be foolish to believe her proc-
lamations, since she obviously was demented (una mente capta) ( A et P,
430). Several religious men, perhaps including Brother Simon, also discred-
ited her by saying that it was "nearly impossible that God would speak
with an ignorant little woman [ignara muliercula]" ( A et P, 390). Presum-

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