Kimm Curran & Janet Burton 
Medieval Women Religious, c. 800-c. 1500 
New Perspectives

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.

Table of Content

List of Figures

List of Contributors

Preface

List of Abbreviations


Introduction

KIMM CURRAN AND JANET BURTON


1.
Reform, Change, and Renewal: Women Religious in the Central Middle Ages, 800-1050

STEVEN VANDERPUTTEN


2
. New Movements of the 12th Century: Diversity, Belonging, and Order(s)

KATHARINE SYKES


3.
Change and Renewal: Mendicants and Tertiaries in Later Medieval Europe

ALISON MORE


4.
On the Fringes: Anchorites

CATE GUNN


5.
`Quasi-religious’: Vowesses

LAURA RICHMOND


6.
Authority and Agency: Women as Heads of Religious Houses

ELIZABETH A. LEHFELDT


7.
Women Religious, Secular Households: The Outside World and Crossing Boundaries in the Later Middle Ages

RACHEL M. DELMAN


8.
Literacies, Learning, and Communal Reform: The Case of Alijt Bake

DIANA DENISSEN


9.
Family and Friends: Gift Giving, Books, and Book Inscriptions in Women’s Religious Communities

SARA CHARLES


10.
Communities of Medieval Religious Women and Their Landscapes

YVONNE SEALE


11.
Materiality and Archaeology of Women Religious

TRACY COLLINS


12.
Between Collective Memory and Individual Remembrance in Women’s Religious Communities

MERCEDES PÉREZ VIDAL


Select Bibliography

Index

About the author

CATE GUNN is an independent scholar who has written on thirteenth-century anchoritic and pastoral literature.