Women and Monastic Reform in the Medieval West, c. 1000 – 1500
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Archaeological Remains
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Embroideries and Tapestries
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FIteenth-Century Liturgical Books
Iberia
Ireland
Poitiers
Sainte-Croix
Tenth-Century Female Saints
Tenth-Century Leominster Prayerbook
Western Europe
Product details
- ISBN 9781837652846
- Dimensions: 156 x 234mm
- Publication Date: 01 Jul 2025
- Publisher: Boydell & Brewer Ltd
- Publication City/Country: GB
- Product Form: Paperback
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New approaches to understanding religious women's involvement in monastic reform, demonstrating how women's experiences were more ambiguous and multi-layered than previously assumed.
Over the last two decades, scholarship has presented a more nuanced view of women's attitude to and agency in medieval monastic reform, challenging the idea that they were, by and large, unwilling to accept or were necessarily hostile towards reform initiatives. Rather, it has shown that they actively participated in debates about the ideas and structures that shaped their religious lives, whether rejecting, embracing, or adapting to calls for "reform" contingent on their circumstances. Nevertheless, fundamental questions regarding the gendered nature of religious reform are ripe for further examination.
This book brings together innovative research from a range of disciplines to re-evaluate and enlarge our knowledge of women's involvement in spiritual and institutional change in female monastic communities over the period c. 1000 - c. 1500. Contributors revise conventional narratives about women and monastic reform, and earlier assumptions of reform as negative or irrelevant for women. Drawing on a diverse array of visual, material and textual sources, it presents "snapshots" of reform from western Europe, stretching from Ireland to Iberia. Case-studies focussing on a number of different topics, from tenth-century female saints' lives to fifteenth-century liturgical books, from the tenth-century Leominster prayerbook to archaeological remains in Ireland, from embroideries and tapestries to the rebellious nuns of Sainte-Croix in Poitiers, offer a critical reappraisal of how monastic women (and their male associates) reflected, individually and collectively, on their spiritual ideals and institutional forms.
JULIE HOTCHIN is an Honorary Lecturer in the School of History at the Australian National University. She has published on medieval religious women, manuscript culture, and devotion and emotion. Her current project examines gender and authority in late medieval monastic reform. JIRKI THIBAUT is interested in female religious life in the Early and High Middle Ages. Her PhD research (Ghent University with the University of Leuven, Belgium) focused on how women religious negotiated their institutional identity in ninth- to eleventh-century Saxony. KATIEANN-MARIE BUGYIS is Associate Professor, University of Notre Dame. JULIE HOTCHIN is an Honorary Lecturer in the School of History at the Australian National University. She has published on medieval religious women, manuscript culture, and devotion and emotion. Her current project examines gender and authority in late medieval monastic reform. JIRKI THIBAUT is interested in female religious life in the Early and High Middle Ages. Her PhD research (Ghent University with the University of Leuven, Belgium) focused on how women religious negotiated their institutional identity in ninth- to eleventh-century Saxony.
