A multi-disciplinary re-evaluation of the role of women religious in the Middle Ages, both inside and outside the cloister.
Medieval women found diverse ways of expressing their religious aspirations: within the cloister as members of monastic and religious orders, within the world as vowesses, or between the two as anchorites. Via a range of disciplinary approaches, from history, archaeology, literature, and the visual arts, the essays in this volume challenge received scholarly narratives and re-examine the roles of women religious: their authority and agency within their own communities and the wider world; their learning and literacy; place in the landscape; and visual culture. Overall, they highlight the impact of women on the world around them, the significance of their presence in communities, and the experiences and legacies they left behind.
Author(s): Kimm Curran, Janet Burton
Series: Studies in the History of Medieval Religion, 52
Publisher: Boydell Press
Year: 2023
Language: English
Pages: 278
City: Woodbridge
Front Cover
Table of Contents
List of Illustrations
List of Contributors
Preface
List of Abbreviations
Introduction
1. Reform, Change, and Renewal: Women Religious in the Central Middle Ages, 800–1050
2. New Movements of the Twelfth Century: Diversity, Belonging, and Order(s)
3. Change and Renewal: Mendicants and Tertiaries in Later Medieval Europe
4. On the Fringes: Anchorites
5. ‘Quasi-religious’: Vowesses
6. Authority and Agency: Women as Heads of Religious Houses
7. Women Religious, Secular Households: The Outside World and Crossing Boundaries in the Later Middle Ages
8. Literacies, Learning, and Communal Reform: The Case of Alijt Bake
9. Family and Friends: Gift-giving, Books,and Book Inscriptions in Women’s Religious Communities
10. Communities of Medieval Religious Women and Their Landscapes
11. Materiality and Archaeology of Women Religious
12. Between Collective Memory and Individual Remembrance in Women’s Religious Communities
Select Bibliography
Index
Studies in the History of Medieval Religion
