Women And Religion In England

Patricia Crawford explores how the study of gender can enhance our understanding of religious history, in this study of women and their apprehensions of God in early modern England. The book has three broad themes: the role of women in the religious upheaval in the period from the Reformation to the Restoration; the significance of religion to contemporary women, focusing on the range of practices and beliefs; and the role of gender in the period. The author argues that religion in the early modern period cannot be understood without a perception of the gendered nature of its beliefs, institutions and language. Contemporary religious ideology reinforced women's inferior position, but, as the author shows, it was possible for some women to transcend these beliefs and profoundly influence history.

Women, Religion and Education in Early Modern England is a study of the nature and extent of the education of women in the context of both Protestant and Catholic ideological debates. Examining the role of women both as recipients and agents of religious instruction, the author assesses the nature of power endowed in women through religious education, and the restraints and freedoms this brought.

Nuns and devout noblewomen were sometimes celebrated for their achievements in the literature of the medieval period, but more often than not these women only appear on the side-lines of history, while the ordinary wife and mother is virtually invisible. These papers, written by historians and archaeologists, discuss the religious devotion and spiritual life of medieval women from all walks of life. From an analysis of the architecture and economic organisation of nunneries, to an assessment of the medieval Church's response to the pain and perils of childbirth, these papers consider the influence of the church on the lives of women, and the influence that women had on the life and worship of the Church.

Women's literary histories usually start in the later Middle Ages, but recent scholarship has shown that actually women were at the heart of the emergence of the English literary tradition. Women, Writing and Religion in England and Beyond, 650–1100 focuses on the period before the so-called 'Barking Renaissance' of women's writing in the 12th century. By examining the surviving evidence of women's authorship, as well as the evidence of women's engagement with literary culture more widely, Diane Watt argues that early women's writing was often lost, suppressed, or deliberately destroyed. In particular she considers the different forms of male 'overwriting', to which she ascribes the multiple connotations of 'destruction', 'preservation', 'control' and 'suppression'. She uses the term to describe the complex relationship between male authors and their female subjects to capture the ways in which texts can attempt to control and circumscribe female autonomy. Written by one of the leading experts in medieval women's writing, Women, Writing and Religion in England and Beyond, 650–1100 examines women's literary engagement in monasteries such as Ely, Whitby, Barking and Wilton Abbey, as well as letters and hagiographies from the 8th and 9th centuries. Diane Watt provides a much-needed look at women's writing in the early medieval period that is crucial to understanding women's literary history more broadly.

First Published in 2001. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

This edited collection provides interdisciplinary, global, and multi-religious perspectives on the relationship between women’s identities, religion, and social change in the contemporary world. The book discusses the experiences and positions of women, and particular groups of women, to understand patterns of religiosity and religious change. It also addresses the current and future challenges posed by women’s changes to religion in different parts of the world and among different religious traditions and practices. The contributors address a diverse range of themes and issues including the attitudes of different religions to gender equality; how women construct their identity through religious activity; whether women have opportunity to influence religious doctrine; and the impact of migration on the religious lives of both women and men.