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Studies in the History of Medieval Religion #49
Apostate Nuns in the Later Middle Ages
A study of women who left their their motives and actions, and the consequences for them.
To make a vow is a matter of the will, to fulfill one is a matter of necessity, declared late medieval canon law, and religious profession involved the most solemn of those vows. Professed nuns could never renege on their vows and if they did attempt to re-enter secular society, they became apostates. Automatically excommunicated, they could be forcibly returned to their monasteries where, should they remain unrepentant, penalties, including imprisonment, might be imposed. And although the law imposed uniform censures on male and female apostates, the norms regarding the proper sphere of activity for women within the Church would prohibit disaffected nuns from availing themselves of options short of apostasy that were readily available to monks similarly unhappy with the choices that they had made.
This book is the first to address the practical and legal problems facing women religious, both in England and in Europe, who chose to reject the terms of their profession as nuns. The women featured in these pages acted, and were acted upon, by the the volume shows alleged apostates petitioning for redress and actual apostates seeking to extricate themselves, via self-help and litigation, from the moral and legal consequences of their behaviour.
ELIZABETH MAKOWSKI is Emerita Professor of History at Texas State University, San Marcos.
To make a vow is a matter of the will, to fulfill one is a matter of necessity, declared late medieval canon law, and religious profession involved the most solemn of those vows. Professed nuns could never renege on their vows and if they did attempt to re-enter secular society, they became apostates. Automatically excommunicated, they could be forcibly returned to their monasteries where, should they remain unrepentant, penalties, including imprisonment, might be imposed. And although the law imposed uniform censures on male and female apostates, the norms regarding the proper sphere of activity for women within the Church would prohibit disaffected nuns from availing themselves of options short of apostasy that were readily available to monks similarly unhappy with the choices that they had made.
This book is the first to address the practical and legal problems facing women religious, both in England and in Europe, who chose to reject the terms of their profession as nuns. The women featured in these pages acted, and were acted upon, by the the volume shows alleged apostates petitioning for redress and actual apostates seeking to extricate themselves, via self-help and litigation, from the moral and legal consequences of their behaviour.
ELIZABETH MAKOWSKI is Emerita Professor of History at Texas State University, San Marcos.
- GenresNonfiction
244 pages, Hardcover
Published August 16, 2019
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July 16, 2023
In Apostate Nuns in the Later Middle Ages, Elizabeth Makowski continues with her work on the history of medieval women religious and canon law, exploring women who abandoned the religious life or who contested their vows. Makowski draws on both documents of practice (largely from England) and prescriptive texts to assess how the gendered nature of canon law shaped women's choices and how women then navigated those restrictions. She writes with nuance and sensitivity about a topic which has been at once understudied and often misunderstood and sensationalised.
However, there are some issues here. This is a short book that for once I wanted to be longer—Makowski has a bit of a tendency to quote at some length from sources (primary or secondary) and let them stand without much by way of interrogation. I wanted more by way of analysis, especially as to what, if anything, it means that "apostasy" could be deployed as such a big umbrella term in the Middle Ages. As for more minor quibbles, I wished for more consistent grounding in time and place—we're not always told when a particular incident occurred, even to the century—and for better proofreading. (Among various dropped prepositions and inconsistently spelled names, we're told about the nuns praying in the church "quire"—c'mon, Boydell and Brewer!)
However, there are some issues here. This is a short book that for once I wanted to be longer—Makowski has a bit of a tendency to quote at some length from sources (primary or secondary) and let them stand without much by way of interrogation. I wanted more by way of analysis, especially as to what, if anything, it means that "apostasy" could be deployed as such a big umbrella term in the Middle Ages. As for more minor quibbles, I wished for more consistent grounding in time and place—we're not always told when a particular incident occurred, even to the century—and for better proofreading. (Among various dropped prepositions and inconsistently spelled names, we're told about the nuns praying in the church "quire"—c'mon, Boydell and Brewer!)
Displaying 1 of 1 review