Conversions: Gender and Religious Change in Early Modern Europe ed. by Simon Ditchfield and Helen Smith (review)

CONVERSIONS: GENDER AND RELIGIOUS CHANGE in Early Modern Europe is the product of a multiyear research project (Conversion Narratives in Early Modern Europe 1550–1700: A Comparative and Cross-Confessional Study) and symposium (Gender and Conversion in Early Modern Europe, University of York, 26–27 July 2012). The collection of essays investigates the often-ignored gendered contexts and scripts that structured religious conversion in early modern Europe. Edited by Simon Ditchfield and Helen Smith, the work offers a range of suggestive methods and means for approaching this important topic.

The volume is concerned with addressing identity shifts that accompanied religious conversion and how such transformations "were not simply refracted through but reshaped gendered experiences and ideologies" (1). The introduction draws from Judith Butler's theories about gender-as-performance to argue that, fundamentally, "[b]oth conversion and gender raise questions of performance and repetition" (5). Conversion narratives, whether for the stage or elsewhere, were performed and repeated in the hopes of encouraging similar transformations within the audience. Far from being restricted to the stage, this collection ranges from architecture to soundscapes in its probing of what "audiences" of conversions—whether on stage or in the wider world—expected and how such performances were bound by gendered norms. The editors' introduction is followed by twelve chapters arranged in three parts—"Gendering conversion," "Material conversions," and "Travel, race, and conversion"—with an afterword by Matthew Dimmock.

Part 1, "Gendering conversions," opens with Eric Dursteler's chapter calling for greater nuance in the study of conversion in the early modern Mediterranean. While early modern conversion is commonly assumed to be a predominantly male phenomenon in this region, the author suggests that the number of women involved in religious transformations was greater than previously believed and that studies of their experience of conversion must take into account the gendered contexts in which these occurred. Following this larger historiographic imperative, David Graizbord "microscopically" (41) investigates an inconspicuous, or, as he terms it, "quiet," case of a woman of dubious Jewish origin requesting baptism before inquisitors in late eighteenth-century Spain. Although in reality a very independent and resourceful woman, Carlota Liot portrayed herself as vulnerable and in need of male guidance to fit the stereotype of female converts. Although not entirely convinced, the inquisitors accepted her narrative as plausible for the sake of resolving her case and bringing her into the Church. Bringing souls into the bosom of the "true church," in this case the Catholic Church, is also the subject of Hannah Crawforth's inquiry into the writings of the underground Jesuit Robert Southwell as he sought to convert individuals, especially his father, in Protestant England. Studying "the relationship between the idea of generation and concepts of gender in Southwell's literary work" (61), the author investigates how Southwell attempted to minister to those denied a church of their own. The volume's first part closes with an exploration of the foregrounding of female experiences in the collected Protestant conversion narratives composing The Spirituall experiences of sundry beleevers (1653), which Abigail Shinn argues "valued and assimilated" (98) female voices in its effort to expand the congregation of believers.

If part 1 studies how conversions and conversion narratives are treated in written texts, whether authored by inquisitor or proselytizer, part 2, "Material conversions," demonstrates that this is far from the only source to study such phenomena. The contribution of Claire Canavan and Helen Smith studies English women's needlework as "a pervasive and effective technology for the conversion or confirmation of others" (107). As a highly visible, shared, and social activity, stitchcraft provided women with the opportunity not only to express their devotion but also to encourage spiritual transformation in others. The remaining essays in part 2 challenge the reader to broaden their understanding of religious conversion to encompass not only a change of faith but also a change of status within the same faith. Elizabeth A. Lehfeldt's essay delves...