Medieval Holy Women in the Christian Tradition c. 1100-c. 1500 ed. by Alastair Minnis and Rosalynn Voaden (review)

This engaging collection of essays, a compendium on female spirituality in Western Europe, is invaluable for teaching and research. The general introduction to the volume is followed by five topical essays covering major debates in medieval spirituality. The remaining essays that comprise the volume are organized by region (British Isles; France; German Territories; Iberian Peninsula; Italy; Low Countries; and Scandinavia). Each regional division begins with a detailed survey that includes an overview of the holy women from that area. A handy reference chart for each region lists the women, the relevant dates, their social status and their religious affiliations. With the exception of the Iberian Peninsula and Scandinavia, each of the regional surveys is followed by a selection of essays on individual women. The bibliographies included with all of the essays are a boon to anyone wishing to do further reading and research.

The five topical essays on women’s spirituality could be considered “a book within the book.” Each reviews the relevant scholarship related to its topic and suggests new directions of inquiry. In her essay “Flesh and Spirit,” Dyan Elliott presents a nuanced synthesis of debates about the sanctity of the female body. She outlines the various approaches in modern historiography to questions of women’s agency and notes that these debates reflect scholarly agendas with a “distinct lineage” in our own moment (pp. 30–1, 35). In “Religious Roles: Public and Private,” Alastair Minnis gives one of the clearest definitions to date of “public” and “private” spheres for speaking, teaching and preaching as these concepts are conceived of and policed in the high and late Middle Ages. He also illustrates how women finessed these distinctions to provide pastoral care and accomplish the holy work of advising and admonishing public figures, speaking as prophets, and praying privately. In “Women’s Textual Authority,” John Coakley argues that clerics who served as women’s editors, confessors and amanuenses emphasize the value of holy women’s informal authority but also distinguish it from the authority of the institutional church. His perceptive reading of the evidence highlights a collaborative but complex process of production. John Van Engen’s magisterial essay “Communal Life: The Sister-Books” provides a counterpoint to Coakley’s essay (about men writing for women) by examining biographies that women write about and for other women (pp. 105–6). These include the nine surviving sister-books produced in the first half of the fourteenth century at Dominican houses in southern Germany and three Devout books, which are the surviving sister-books produced in the fifteenth century at communities of the Modern Devotion movement in the Netherlands. Van Engen contrasts approaches to virtue in the Dominican and Devout books, and suggests that these books may have been used for new forms of private reading. Peter Biller’s essay “Women and Dissent” focuses on women’s roles in heretical movements, especially the Waldensians and the Cathars. Biller, like Minnis, defines his terms precisely at the outset (pp. 134–5). His example of orthodox Catholics who are regarded as dissenters in communities where heretical faiths predominate is a good reminder that social networks are an important locus of religious authority. Biller’s analysis of the role of older women in certain Waldensian communities is compelling, as is his call for more research on Cathar and Waldensian women (p. 154).

The survey by geographical region allows for coverage of many holy women who do not achieve special fame or wide recognition during their lifetimes, or enjoy great followings thereafter. Among the best of these essays is Renate Blumenfeld-Kosinski’s survey of holy women in France. She provides a substantial introduction to French visionaries and mystics and, in doing so, also broadens the context for our understanding of Joan of Arc (who, curiously, is not covered in this volume). Walter Simons’s survey of the...