Description
Book SynopsisIn cities and towns across northern Europe in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, a new type of religious woman took up authoritative positions in society, all the while living as public recluses in cells attached to the sides of churches. In Lives of the Anchoresses, Anneke Mulder-Bakker offers a new history of these women who chose to forsake the world but did not avoid it.
Unlike nuns, anchoresses maintained their ties to society and belonged to no formal religious order. From their solitary anchorholds in very public places, they acted as teachers and counselors and, in some cases, theological innovators for parishioners who would speak to them from the street, through small openings in the walls of their cells. Available at all hours, the anchoresses were ready to care for the community''s faithful whenever needed.
Through careful biographical studies of five emblematic anchoresses, Mulder-Bakker reveals the details of these influential religious women. The life of
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"We are blessed here with a study of rare insight and perception into the functioning of lay religious devotion in northwestern Europe and its interaction with institutionalized and learned clerical religion." * Speculum *
Table of Contents
1. Bees Without a King
2. The Mother of Guibert of Nogent: The Age of Discretion
3. Yvette of Huy: The Metamorphoses of a Woman
4. Juliana of Cornillon: Church Reform and the Corpus Christi Feast
5. Eve of St. Martin: The Faithful of Liège and the Church
6. Lame Margaret of Magdeburg and Her Lessons
7. Living Saints
8. Epilogue
List of Abbreviations
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Acknowledgments
