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The Ram in the Thicket: A New Novel of Julian’s Norwich

by David Townsend
Book cover

“This book is begun… but not yet performed, as to my sight,” observes Julian of Norwich very near the end of the Long Text. The distillation of twenty years’ additional reflection on her vision of 1373 remains, she thus tells us, work in progress: to be completed not in her own further writing, but in the continuous unfolding of its meaning for those who take it up and read. Those multiple unfoldings will in turn, inexhaustibly, remain work in progress. Julian is grounded in absolute certainty that imagination is an essential mode of human cognition. There is no room in her theology for epistemological mistrust of subjective response. Her model of imagination is furthermore intersubjective: the Long Text is shot through with evidence of her interlocutors’ participation in the working out of her understanding.

     Despite her nearly total reticence about the details of her own life, the longing to know Julian herself, amidst the thick texture of her world both before and after her enclosure, is often enough one locus of imagination toward which her readers are drawn. One of the most vivid incitements to such an imagining comes not from Julian’s own writing, but from the chapter early in the Book of Margery Kempe in which Margery is recommended to Julian, after which they spend signfiicant time, we’re told, in “holy dalliance.”
     What, in God’s name, might that have been like, in the year 1413 when it appears to have occurred? In the middle of a prosperous and complex medieval city, where we know that rival factions were actively struggling for political and economic control? Where a thriving Jewish community had disappeared 120 years earlier, but its memory remained inscribed both in urban geography and in the local cult of Europe’s earliest blood libel “saint?” Where the stakes over accusations of heresy carried increasingly deadly potential consequences, especially in the wake of Arundel’s Constitutions of 1409?
     The enterprise of history is inevitably also the enterprise of disciplined imagination. I find it hard to think of a medieval author who gives a fuller warrant for disciplined imagination than Julian herself. And historical fiction is arguably a genre in which knowledge is not merely reflected, but in some important phenomenological sense actively created.
     I first became obsessed with the dynamics of Julian’s encounter with Margery over twenty-five years ago. I set out to imagine it for myself in the first draft of a novel. The end result of my impossibly protracted process has now appeared as The Ram in the Thicket: A Novel of Medieval Norwich, and in a Substack (@davidrtownsend) that offers short notes on the book’s background.
     Recovery of the lives of uncloistered religious women entails resistance to overly literal credence of severe ascetic restrictions that (male-authored) medieval sources set out to impose on anchoresses. Modern representations have often espoused a kind of reverse romaticism about their circumstances: literally bricked up, isolated, and unwavering in an intense devotion that keeps them from going crazy. It’s easy for the popular (and/or pious)  imagination to make Julian into a two-dimensional cutout of mystical fervour. Since I began work on this project, at least two other fictional narratives have appeared–each of which, to my taste, falls victim to insuffiiciently interrogated stereotypes.
     The Julian I’ve imagined has a grainy practical side. She’s unafraid of the life of the body, and she’s used to talking to women trapped in bad marriages. She knows what it’s like to doubt her own vocation, and occasionally to long desperately for the wider world she’s renounced. She’s survived trauma, and grieved the family she lost in the second wave of the Plague when she was eighteen. She has no use for religious austerity for its own sake. Her maid Alice has been her companion since long before she entered the cell. She dearly loves the wealthy merchant whose life she saved as a newborn orphan who needed a wetnurse to survive. She loves his feisty eleven-year-old daughter like her own. She banters back and forth with Alice about what’s happening in Norwich. She knows the stakes of running afoul of religious authorities. She finds Margery a handful. And needless to say, there’s a cat.
     The book is begun, but not yet performed, as to my sight.

TOS at the 2025 American Historical Association in New York

Some of our organizers and collaborators were present and speaking at the 138th Annual Meeting of the AHA in New York, thanks to a session organized by Meghan Lescault (who received for the occasion an award from the American Catholic Historical Association); see the abstract below:

AHA Session 98: The Other Sister: Noncloistered Religious Women in the Middle Ages

American Catholic Historical Association 11

Saturday, January 4, 2025: 10:30 AM-12:00 PM

Chair: Kate Bush, College of the Holy Cross

  • Katherine Ann Clark Walter, State University of New York, College at Brockport:
  • Ashley Tickle Odebiyi, Arizona State University:
  • Emma Gabe, University of Toronto:

A Feature, Not a Bug: The Legal Ambiguity of the Secular Chapter of Nivelles

Session Abstract: Throughout the history of Christianity, there have been diverse groups of women who led recognizably religious lives outside of traditional monastic structures. The Middle Ages saw a particular abundance of these forms of non-cloistered life. Despite their great numbers, these women were often met with suspicion, marginalization, and opposition by ecclesiastical figures of authority who considered aspects of their lives to be mutually exclusive, defining the religious and lay realms in complete contrast to each other. While we might have expected modern scholars to transcend these strict categories imposed by medieval clerics, it remains the case that non-cloistered religious women receive inadequate treatment in the scholarly literature despite the fascinating insights they offer in the areas of religious, social, cultural, economic, intellectual, legal, and material history. This is at least in part due to a historiographical tradition that imposes a monastic model on female religious life—the “good” religious woman was the cloistered nun. It is now time, however, to give these non-cloistered women their proper place in the historical record.
This session aims to fill this gap by drawing attention to the numerous forms of medieval female religious life and highlighting a few in particular. In featuring different kinds of non-cloistered women in different regions, it will display the great diversity found among these women while recalling their basic similarities. Moreover, the broad thematic range of the session will reflect the great variety of activities, lifestyles, and networks of non-cloistered religious women in the Middle Ages.

Together, these papers will highlight the far-reaching influence and important presence of medieval non-cloistered women in the Middle Ages in many areas—from art to politics to religion to canon law and more—and in different geographical regions. They will also reveal the mixed reception that such women could meet with in medieval society—from welcome and approval to suspicion and distrust.

The Other Sister Research Seminar Brides of Christ: Varieties of Women’s Religious Expression in Ireland

by Julia Cole

On Friday, October 18, 2024, The Other Sister Research Group had a thematic meeting on the topic of Irish women religious.

Our invited scholars and readings were:

  • Colmán Ó Clabaigh OSB, “Marginal Figures? Quasi-Religious Women in Medieval Ireland,” in Brides of Christ: Women and Monasticism in Medieval and Early Modern Ireland M. Browne, T. Collins, C. Ó Clabaigh, & B. A. McShane (Four Courts Press, 2023), pp. 118-135.
  • Bronagh Ann McShane, “Who Were the Nuns in Early Modern Ireland,” in Brides of Christ: Women and Monasticism in Medieval and Early Modern Ireland ed. M. Browne, T. Collins, C. Ó Clabaigh, & B. A. McShane (Four Courts Press, 2023), pp. 148-170.
  • Victoria Anne Pearson, “Deeds, Not Words: Reconciling Enclosure with a Missionary Ethos in Eighteenth Century Ireland”, in Bishop Francis Moylan, A Merchant Prince of the Catholic Church, 1735-1815, PhD thesis, Ulster University, 2024, chapter 4.
  • For background, we also circulated Tracy Collins and Bronagh McShane, “Introduction,” to Brides of Christ: Women and Monasticism in Medieval and Early Modern Ireland M. Browne, T. Collins, C. Ó Clabaigh, & B. A. McShane (Four Courts Press, 2023), pp. 1-6.

Alison More started the meeting by reminding attendees of the ongoing mission of The Other Sister, to uncover the stories of women religious. In this meeting, the group heard about and discussed Irish women religious, a group which has been largely ignored by the scholarship.

The first presentation was from Colmán Ó Clabaigh, who was one of the editors of the volume from which two of the papers presented came, Brides of Christ: Women and Monasticism in Medieval and Early Modern Ireland. Bronagh Anne McShane, one of the other presenters, and Tracy Collins, an attendee of the session, were also editors of the volume. The fourth editor of the volume was Martin Browne.

Colmán began by expressing his gratitude at seeing so many of the scholars whose work he had used to inform his own. First, he explained the volume and then presented the chapter he authored. The fifth Glenstal history conference was the starting point of the volume. The area that these conferences focus on is Irish material and history overall. Female monasticism was a long-hoped for topic for Colmán, and this was realized in 2021, supported by the work of Bronagh Ann McShane and Tracy Collins. The volume that arose from this conference was a long-awaited work on female monasticism in Ireland, a field that has been under-studied so far.

“Marginal figures? Quasi-religious women in medieval Ireland” was the title of Colmán’s chapter, a fitting topic for The Other Sister. The image gracing the cover of the book, a fifteenth-century depiction of the Virgin Mary sheltering a group of possibly Franciscan nuns under her mantle, shows (upon close examination) that diverse groups of women (and men) religious are represented. He began with a discussion of the difficulty of terminology, such as pallium, which is an early Latin borrow word in the Irish language, a word used for many meanings, from a widow leading a penitent life to a witch.

He then discussed four categories: vowesses, virgins and widows; anchoresses and recluses; tertiaries (mainly of the Franciscan tradition); and finally nursing sisters in Ireland. It is challenging to overstate the fragmentary nature of the sources in Ireland; there is no material comparable to that, for example, of female monasticism in England. Therefore, he explained, much of the scholarly process to bring the stories of these women to light is wondering if one has enough source material to do so.

The second presentation was by Bronagh Anne McShane (Trinity College, Dublin), president of the steering committee of the “History of Women Religious of Britain and Ireland”, whose research is involved in exploring the voices of early modern women religious in Ireland and Europe. Bronagh agreed with Colmán on the fragmentary nature of the sources for this topic, comparing her work to weaving a tapestry together to paint a picture of the women found in the sources.

She then discussed the idea of enclosure regarding early modern women religious in Ireland. She specifically highlighted how contested and varied this phenomenon was across the period and between different institutions, as well as how it operated, compared to how it was prescribed to operate. For most nuns in Ireland, it was impossible to observe strict enclosure, not for lack of zeal but due to the ongoing conflicts, upheavals, and wars in Ireland. Further, the imposition of penalties against the practice of Catholicism in Ireland meant that many nuns had to leave for the continent. Bronagh was struck by how mobile early modern nuns were, especially at a time when travel could be challenging. She spoke about a specific group of Irish Poor Clares, who, upon their return to Ireland in 1629 with the intent of establishing a foundation in Dublin, were expelled from the city, and later emerged in a rural area, which foundation did not last long. Bronagh also pointed out that the term enclosure is being thought about and contested by modern communities, especially in the context of the digital age which enables unprecedented access ‘to the world’.  Finally, Bronagh highlighted that the live and experiences of tertiary sisters remain a poorly understood dimension of Irish history. She highlighted how Colmán’s work has been essential to our understanding of the function and operation of tertiary communities medieval Ireland. But as yet we know very little about third order sisters in the modern era. She concluded by raising a call to arms to find out more about third order secular, and religious female foundations in Ireland and the wider European context.

Next Victoria Pearson, financial officer of the “History of Women Religious of Britain and Ireland” group, PhD Researcher at Ulster University, and scholar of the life and work of Dr. Francis Moylan, Bishop of Kerry, spoke. She explained her work as the study of a bishop and by extension the examination of institutional impacts on women religious. She is interested in how Tridentine Catholicism was applied to the Irish context and how it emerged in Ireland in the late eighteenth century to revitalize Catholic life. She again echoed the challenges of the fragmentary sources which survived into the period of increased Catholic acceptance in the eighteenth century. This context of reform is vital to her exploration of the relationship between Francis Moylan and ‘Nano’ Nagle, which includes the idea that there was a change in both the leadership of the Irish Catholic Church and stewardship of the Catholic Nation. Their relationship is especially interesting considering that Nagle was from an old Irish Gaelic aristocratic family and Francis represented a new group. This new group was Catholics who had eked out an existence for themselves under the restrictive laws, by pursuing businesses and using their capital to grow their communities. This shift highlights the emerging middle class. There was a change in ownership, values, and ideas about respectability. Nagle never believed that enclosure would work in Ireland, and she had always envisioned that enclosure would not be part of her community. Moylan came around to her way of thinking when he returned home to Ireland, seeing the schools in Cork that Nagle had formed, and attempted to get her community under the protection of the Catholic Church. Nagle herself did not take vows until she was in her fifties, likely because of her desire to work in the community. Moylan knew of communities in France who did this and tried to find a way to apply this knowledge in the Irish context. This creates an intriguing story, in which the bishop argued with his superiors and authorities in Rome that Nagle’s community should not be enclosed. This issue dragged on for the congregation, but after Nagle’s death, the community decided they were willing to accept enclosure in the early 1800s. By this point, many changes had occurred in Ireland, both culturally, politically, and in terms of the workings of the congregation.

Next, the group turned to the discussion period. Michael Hahn led the discussion, beginning with a question posed by Eleonora Cappuccilli. She asked Bronagh about her definition concerning transnational religious experiences, considering the mission of the “counter-reformation” to recover territories lost to the faith, and the work of missionaries. She wondered about how scholars are defining the transnational experiences of women, and if shared models can be applied in these cases. She asked: how can the nation be defined not in ethnic terms, but in religious terms? She also discussed Teresa of Avila and her influence in this period, wondering if there is evidence of her influence in Ireland. Bronagh began her response by connecting both transnational and local sites and emphasizing the importance of understanding these in conjunction. She highlighted the Tridentine context on one hand, and the local Irish context on the other. In her work, there is a complex context in Ireland in which Catholicism is suppressed by the state, but “counter-reformation” ideas are being explored. Exile as an aspect of religious identity for Irish women religious is also important to consider, as being exiled from Ireland and going to religious houses on the continent informed women’s experiences. This brings up interesting tensions between women of different nationalities within these houses on the continent. She also discussed the ethnic vs. religious question, giving the example in Ireland in this period that saw the coming together of ethnic groups such as Gaelic and Old English groups. Finally, she agreed that Teresa of Avila had significant influences on Irish nuns and concepts of ecstasy, on which some work has been done in Ireland. Victoria Pearson also elaborated that Nagle was known to engage in long hours kneeling in prayer, and aspects of bodily mortification, and taking up the cloak of a beggar to collect money for her community, even before she took any vows.

Next, Isabelle Cochelin asked about an example of a pregnant tertiary, and Colmán’s discussion of tertiaries who were married. She wondered how common this was in Ireland? She also asked about the proportion of male to female religious communities. Colman answered that these women were secular tertiaries, and marriage and child-rearing was allowed under the secular tertiary rule. They were further not expected to follow the same fasting regulations as the others. Bronagh elaborated further by highlighting the need to clarify the third order and regular vs. secular tertiaries in the scholarship. She explained that male communities survived both exile and ongoing conflict in higher numbers than female houses, not to mention the head start those men had due to the establishment of seminary training houses. Victoria Pearson also highlighted the fact that scholars are only starting to understand how much was lost from female houses when the exile happened. She also stated that considerations which acknowledge tertiary lifestyles are allowing scholars to reconsider how secular women led lives of community service which can be seen as forms of religious life. Exile and return were part of the tradition of St Patrick and the great saints, and this means Nagle was following this same tradition.

Next, Devon Sherwood asked a general question about the fragmentary nature of the sources in both the medieval and early modern period, and if there is any difference in the nature of the sources in these times. She wondered what types of sources are still available. She also asked about religious self-identity of women religious and the phases of religious life these women may pass through; further, how the acceptance of enclosure could change the self-perception of these women. Victoria Pearson answered that Nagle’s successor, Sister Angela Collins, was in a liminal space for much of her life, living as a religious woman in a community. However, she did not take solemn vows nor was she officially recognized by the community until later in life. The sources, she states, are fragmentary, but sometimes sources remain unknown and therefore research is needed. This is especially true of the sources which are stored in other places, or sources which were brought back and forth to the continent, which may not be known yet. Colmán discussed the medieval sources, sharing that it is sometimes necessary to interrogate what sources are available and in what new ways known sources can be used to highlight female monasticism and religious activity. He also says that many have not interrogated the vernacular sources, which are vital to understanding and exploring the topic.  Finally, on identity, he said that there is evidence of groups redefining themselves between their exile and subsequent movement, especially many communities oscillated between Augustinian, Cistercian, and Benedictine identities.

In the meantime, Sioban Nelson asked how much influence there was from the Vincentian movement, in which humble women cared for the sick and the poor. Bronagh answered that the Vincentians did not come to Ireland, but that there were examples of women living out a form of religious expression that was not defined by claustration, between the closure of the monasteries and the official dissolution of religious life. At the end to these restrictions, there were groups which emerged to provide community services and observed some form of religious community life but were not restricted in the sense of enclosure. This, of course, upset many Jesuits, who had worries about the close working relationship between these women and the missionaries charged with their care. Especially the Tridentine clergy posed questions about these groups.

Margot Fassler recommended some sources on liturgical life. She highlighted the need to give the sources which do exist more attention, and especially to organize and present them clearly. Bronagh agreed, sharing works which catalogue the collections and will be instrumental in future research. Colman added an exciting upcoming edition of the anchoritic Rule of Godwin of Salisbury which will be released soon and will add to the corpus of available works. We will update this post with a reference to this new edition as soon as possible.

Alison More wrapped up the meeting with thanks to the speakers and those who attended, noting the fruitful session even amidst internet service interruptions due to inclement weather in Ireland.

The Other Sister Research Seminar: Vowesses

by Emma Gabe and Laura Moncion

On 19 November 2021, The Other Sister group hosted a research seminar on the topic of vowesses. These non-cloistered women religious were usually widows who took a vow to remain chaste perpetually while living in the world. This session was organized by Isabelle Cochelin and Alison More.

The three speakers at this session, and their pre-circulated papers, were:

  • Michelle M. Sauer, “The Meaning of Russet: A Note on Vowesses and Clothing,” Early Middle English 2.2 (2020): 91-97.
  • Katherine Clark Walter, The Profession of Widowhood: Widows, Pastoral Care and Medieval Models of Holiness (CUA Press, 2018), more specifically her chapter on canon law.
  • Laura M. Wood (now Richmond), “In Search of the Mantle and Ring: Prosopographical Study of the Vowess in Late Medieval England,” Medieval Prosopography, 34 (2019): 175-205.

Laura M. Richmond addressed the interesting problem of vowesses breaking their vows, typically because of they had since married, which called their religious vows into question. As breaking vows was a serious matter, they adopted strategies in their petitions such as claiming that they had taken the vow of chastity due to grief or pressure to remarry. Katherine Clark Walter discussed the differences between available sources in Great Britain and mainland Europe, and a few notable examples of vowesses, including St Elizabeth of Thuringia and Yvette (also known as Juette/Iuetta) of Huy. She noted that liturgical texts differentiated between virgin and widowed nuns, and addressed the consecration of widows. She also observed that tertiaries seem to take the place of vowesses in mainland Europe. Michelle M. Sauer presented vowesses as one of several groups of religious women who can be considered “anchorite adjacent”, similar to recluses or anchorites in their paradoxical retreat from and engagement in the world. She also addressed how vowesses’ clothing became a visible symbol of their “renewed purity”.

The discussion afterwards touched on issues of source material by region, particularly the usefulness of bishops’ registers in Britain, and a certain lack of clear evidence for a person called the “vowess” in some other regions, such as Cologne. The conversation addressed whether or not the vowess was a distinctly English form of life. The concept of women’s “self-fashioning” was also discussed in relation to vowesses, women late in life and with relative power over their lifestyles. The clothes that they wore––or did not wear––were an important element of this “self-fashioning.” In choosing to live as vowesses, women in medieval Europe could create a space for themselves in religious life, but the expression of this religious life and how these women fit into their social surroundings depended also on local practices and customs.

Partial Bibliography of Publications on Non-Cloistered Religious Women, 2020–21

Please see the summaries of The Other Sister Research Seminars for discussions of other recent works and works in progress. 

Another bibliography post of this kind will be forthcoming in early 2022; please contact isabelle.cochelin@utoronto.ca or a member of our graduate student team if you have suggestions for this list. Suggestions for additional titles from 2020-21 may also be appended to this blog post in the comment section below.

Partial Bibliography of Publications on Non-Cloistered Religious Women, 2020-21

Pablo Acosta-García, ‘En viva sangre bañadas: Caterina da Siena y las vidas de María de Ajofrín, Juana de la Cruz, María de Santo Domingo y otras santas vivas castellanas’, Archivio italiano per la storia della pietà 33 (2020), 143–72. English summary available here.

_____, ‘Radical Succession: Hagiography, Reform, and Franciscan Identity in the Convent of the Abbess Juana de la Cruz (1481-1534)’, in Religions 12, 223 (2021). Discussed in The Other Sister Research Seminar on Iberian Non-Cloistered Religious Women.

Cristina Andenna, ‘Female Religious Life in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries’, in Cambridge History of Monasticism in the Latin World vol. 2, ed. A. Beach and I. Cochelin (Cambridge University Press, 2020), 1039–56.

Lucy Barnhouse, ‘Disordered Women? The Hospital Sisters of Mainz and Their Late Medieval Identities’, in Medieval Feminist Forum 55, 2 (2020), 60–97.

Nancy Ann Bauer, ‘“Moniales et sorores”: La distinción canónica entre monjas y hermanas con particular referencia a las benedictinas’, in Nova et vetera: pensamiento y mundo monástico 90 (2020), 109–43.

Giulia Barone, ‘Vivere la propria vocazione religiosae dentro e fuori dal chiostro’, in Vivere la Città: Roma nel Rinascimento, ed. I. Ait and A. Esposito (Viella, 2020), 189–204.

Alison I. Beach and Isabelle Cochelin, ‘General Introduction’, in Cambridge History of Medieval Monasticism in the Latin West vol. 1, ed. A. I. Beach and I. Cochelin (Cambridge University Press, 2020), 1–16.

Marie Brassel, ‘Le cas des repenties à la fin du Moyen Âge entre la France et l’Italie’, in La fama delle donne. Pratiche femminili e società tra Medioevo ed Età moderna, ed. Vincenzo Lagioia, Maria Pia Paoli, and Rossella Rinaldi (Viella, 2020), 57–75.

Angela Carbone, Ritirate dalle cose del mondo. Donne e istituzioni nel Mezzogiorno moderno. Guida Editori, 2020.

Paula Cardosa, ‘Unveiling Female Observance: Reform, Regulation, and the Rise of Dominican Nunneries in Late Medieval Portugal’, in Journal of Medieval Iberian Studies 12 (2020), 365–82.

Megan Cassidy-Welch, ‘Lay Brothers and Sisters in the High and Late Middle Ages’, in Cambridge History of Medieval Monasticism in the Latin West vol. 2, ed. A. I. Beach and I. Cochelin (Cambridge University Press, 2020), 1027–38.

Eva-Maria Cersovsky, ‘Ubi non est mulier, ingemiscit egens? Gendered Perceptions of Care from the Thirteenth to Sixteenth Centuries’, in Gender, Health and Healing, 1250–1550, ed. S. Ritchey and S. Strocchia (Amsterdam University Press, 2020), 191–214. Discussed in The Other Sister Research Seminar on Charity, Caregiving, and Female Social Roles from the Middle Ages to the Early Modern Period.

Elisa Novi Chavarria, Accogliere e curare. Ospedali e culture delle nazioni nella Monarchia ispanica (secc. XVI-XVII). Viella, 2020.

Eloise David, ‘Catherine of Siena: a Dominican Political Thinker in Fourteenth‐century Italy’, in Renaissance Studies: Journal of the Society for Renaissance Studies 35 (2021), 237–54.

Sylvie Duval, ‘Vierges et dames blanches. Communautés religieuses féminines à Milan, XIIe-XIVe siècles’, in Revue Mabillon 31 (2020), 81–107.

Anna Esposito, ‘Le donne in ospedale nell’Italia centro-settentrionale (fine XIV-inizio XVI secolo)’, in Alle origini del welfare: Radici medievali e moderne della cultura europea dell’assistenza, ed. G. Piccinni (Viella, 2020), 427–45.

Lucia Ferrante, ‘“Essendo massime avvezza a stare rinchiusa…”: Fama e segregazione di genere (Bologna, secc. XVI-XVII)’, in La fama delle donne. Pratiche femminili e società tra Medioevo ed Età moderna, ed. Vincenzo Lagioia, Maria Pia Paoli, and Rossella Rinaldi (Viella, 2020),  259–77.

Jeffrey Hamburger and Eva Schlotheuber, eds, The Liber ordinarius of Nivelles (Houghton Library, MS Lat 422): Liturgy as Interdisciplinary Intersection. Mohr Siebeck, 2020.

Isabel Harvey, ‘Braccio di ferro tra una terziaria domenicana e un convento maschile visto attraverso l’Inquisizione napoletana. Il processo per affettata santità contro suor Giovanna Cesarea di Napoli (1672-1682)’, in Donne e Inquisizione ed. Marina Caffiero and Alessia Lirosi (Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 2020), 97-127.

Michelle Marie Herder, ‘Scandal and the Social Networks of Religious Women’, in Women and Community in Medieval and Early Modern Iberia, ed.  M. Armstrong-Partida, A. Guerson, D. W. Lightfoot (University of Nebraska Press, 2020), 214–29.

Sigrid Hirbodian, ‘Religious Women: Secular Canonesses and Beguines’, in The Oxford Handbook of Christian Monasticism, ed. B. M. Kaczynski (Oxford University Press, 2020).

Laura Ingallinella, ‘The Canonization of Piccarda Donati’, in Forum Italicum (2021), 1–22.

Thomas Forrest Kelly and Martin Klöckener, eds. The Liber Ordinarius of the Abbey of Saint Gertrude at Nivelles : Harvard University, Houghton Library MS Lat. 422. Aschendorff Verlag, 2020.

Kathryn Kerby-Fulton, Katie Anne-Marie Bugyis, and John Van Engen, eds., Women Intellectuals and Leaders in the Middle Ages. Boydell and Brewer, 2020.

Beverly Mayne Kienzle, Hildegard of Bingen: Gospel Interpreter. Fortress Academic, 2020.

Racha Kirakosian, The Life of Christina of Hane. Yale University Press, 2021.

Lezlie S. Knox and David B. Couturier, Franciscan Women: Female Identities and Religious Culture in the Middle Ages. Franciscan Institute Publications, 2020. 

Vincenzo Lagioia, ‘“Sotto pretesto di riforme”: le monache di Santa Maria delle Convertite, tra infamia e santità (Bologna, sec. XVI)’, in  La fama delle donne. Pratiche femminili e società tra Medioevo ed Età moderna, ed. Vincenzo Lagioia, Maria Pia Paoli, and Rossella Rinaldi (Viella, 2020), 239–57.

Paulette L’Hermite-Leclercq, ‘Reclusion in the Middle Ages’, in Cambridge History of Monasticism in the Latin World vol. 2, ed. A. Beach and I. Cochelin (Cambridge University Press, 2020), 747–65.

Eliana Magnani, ‘Female House Ascetics from the Fourth to the Twelfth Century’, in in Cambridge History of Monasticism in the Latin World vol. 1, ed. A. Beach and I. Cochelin (Cambridge University Press, 2020), 213–31.

Corinne Marchal, Un âge d’or des chapitres des chapitres nobles de chanoinesses en Europe au XVIIIe siècle: le cas de la Franche-Comté. Brepols, 2021. 

Maya Maskarinec, ‘Nuns as “Sponsae Christi”: The Legal Status of the Medieval Oblates of Tor de’Specci’, in The Journal of Ecclesiastical History 72 (2020), 280–99. 

Karen McLuskey, New Saints in Late Medieval Venice, 1200-1500. Routledge, 2020.

Julia I. Miller, ‘Eve, Mary, and Martha: Paintings for the Humiliati Nuns at Viboldone’ in Speculum 96 (2021), 418–65.

Tanya Stabler Miller, ‘Reviled and Revered: The Importance of Marginality in the Pastoral Care of Beguines’, in Rethinking Medieval Margins and Marginality, ed. A. E. Zimo, T. D. Van Sprecher, K. Reyerson, and D. G. Blumenthal (Routledge, 2020), 146–63.

Alison More, ‘Lay Piety and Franciscan Tertiary Identity’, in Non enim fuerat Evangelii surdus auditor, ed. M. Cusato and S. McMichael (Brill, 2020), 334–47.

Alison More and Anneke Mulder-Bakker, ‘Striving for Perfection in the Lay World of Northern Europe’, in Cambridge History of Monasticism in the Latin World vol. 2, ed. A. Beach and I. Cochelin (Cambridge University Press, 2020), 1057–73.

María Morrás, Rebeca Sanmartín Bastida, and Yonsoo Kim, eds., Gender and Exemplarity in Medieval and Early Modern Spain. Brill, 2020. 

Silvia Nocentini, ‘Una nuova Caterina o un nuovo Raimondo?: Elsbeth Achler (1386–1420), l’eccezione che conferma la regola’, in Archivio italiano per la storia della pietà 33 (2020), 25–41.

Mary Elizabeth Perry, ‘Chapter 5: Chastity and Danger’, in Gender and Disorder in Early Modern Seville (Princeton University Press, 2021), 97–117. 

Pierantonio Piatti, ed., Caterina da Siena e la vita religiosa femminile: un percorso domenicano. Campisano, 2020. 

Sara Ritchey, ed., Acts of Care: Recovering Women in Late Medieval Health. Cornell University Press, 2021.

Rebeca Sanmartín Bastida, ‘La emergencia de la autoridad espiritual femenina ‘ortodoxa’: El modelo de María de Ajofrín’, in Hispania Sacra, 72 (2020), 125–35. 

_____, ‘María de Santo Domingo, desde Aldeanueva’, in Archivio italiano per la storia della pietà, 33 (2020), 119–41. 

_____, ‘Performing Authority through Iconography: On Iberian Visionary Women and Images’, in The Routledge Hispanic Studies Companion to Medieval Iberia, ed. M. Gerli and R. Giles (Routledge, 2021), 600–20. 

Amanda Scott, The Basque Seroras: Local Religion, Gender, and Power in Northern Iberia, 1550–1800. Cornell University Press, 2020. Discussed in The Other Sister Research Seminar on Iberian Non-Cloistered Religious Women.

Jörg Voigt, ‘Paulerregelnonnen und Barfussenschwestern: Beginen im Umfeld der Dominikaner und Franziskaner in Leipzig im 15. und 16. Jahrhundert’, in Neue Forschungen zu sächsischen Klöstern. Ergebnisse und Perspektiven, ed. E. Bünz, D. M. Mütze, and S. Zinsmeyer (Leipziger Universitätsverlag, 2020), 563–75.

Elise Watson, ‘The Jesuitesses in the Bookshop: Catholic Lay Sisters’ Participation in the Dutch Book Trade, 1650–1750’, in Studies in Church History 57 (2021), 163–84.

Alison Weber, ‘Espacio conventual postridentio: Clausura, disciplina, y caritas en dos comunidades de Carmelitas Descalzas’, in Lo spazio e i luoghi. Cultura Materiale, Storia religiosa, Patrimonio, ed. E. Marchetti. (Longo Editore, 2020), 151–67.

_____. ‘Chapter I: Little Women: Counter-Reformation Misogyny’, in Teresa of Avila and the Rhetoric of Femininity(Princeton University Press, 2021), 17–41.

The Other Sister

The Other Sister is a research blog dedicated to the study of women who pursued forms of religious life outside of the cloister in medieval and early modern western Europe and New France. These women include but are not limited to beguines, tertiaries, penitents, pizzocherebizzochebeatas, lay sisters, recluses, Deo devote, oblates, and secular canonesses. They were especially numerous in cities and from a variety of social backgrounds, unlike their cloistered sisters who were from mostly noble and patrician backgrounds.

Although many non-cloistered religious women played significant roles in society, religiously and socially, they often appear marginal in traditional historiography. This is primarily due to a model that compartmentalizes women’s groups and imposes artificial categories on their lived experiences. The belief that there were only two options for pre-modern women, marriage or cloistered life (aut maritus aut murus), is still prevalent. For this reason, more collaborative research is necessary. 

This project is focused on non-cloistered religious women between the twelfth and eighteenth century, from Italy to New France. By defining and contextualizing the experiences of these women, the research project, The Other Sister, will establish a necessary corrective to the standard historiographical picture. In this way, it will help to clarify the place of religious women in the Church and society.

The main goal of our research project is twofold:

  • To enhance the study of this important and global part of Christian history through workshops, thematic meetings, publications and this blog
  • To challenge the usual boundaries imposed on these non-cloistered religious women

We do not limit ourselves to regional studies; we believe it is key to think also about these women in pan-European and non-European perspectives. For this reason, we have included New France and, hopefully in the future, we will also include other regions of the world. 

We do not want to think about these women only in terms of one group, such as the beguines, but want to explore the similarities and differences that existed beyond the confines of labels.

Two questions animate this project: ‘Who were these women?’ and ‘What were their roles?’ From here, we can build a picture that allows us to understand the multifaceted aspects of their existence. We will:

  • Establish a methodology to reconstruct the individual experiences of devout women living outside ecclesiastical institutional structures
  • Rethink categories used to discuss feminine religious experience in both the Middle Ages and the early modern period
  • Explore the roles and functions of non-cloistered religious women by prioritizing links and continuities outside of traditional temporal or geographic boundaries 

This collaborative blog presents the various stages of the project and tracks the progress of the research. It features the following:

  • Postings concerning the work of the researchers involved
  • Discussions of historiographical issues
  • Presentations of archival findings
  • Case studies of non-cloistered women
  • Interactive maps illustrating the geographical locations of groups of non-cloistered religious women and tracking the development of specific movements

In the long term, we also plan to include a comprehensive searchable bibliographic database of scholarship concerning non-cloistered women.

Through our blog, The Other Sister disseminates the archival, historiographical, and geographical findings about non-cloistered women by the researchers. It sets the stage for an inclusive history of non-cloistered religious women in the Christian world between the twelfth and eighteenth centuries. In addition to giving these women a proper place in the historical record, The Other Sister has as its goal the creation of a medium for exchange and dialogue within and beyond the academic community. To this end, our blog aims to initiate and foster discussion. The posts, archival sources, bibliography, and maps provide information and present avenues for further research, while the ‘comments’ section welcomes insights and reflections from readers.