The Pastoral Care of Women in Late Medieval England (Gender in the Middle Ages, 3) - Softcover

Barr, Beth Allison

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1837650098 ISBN 13: 9781837650095

Publisher: Boydell Press, 2022

Synopsis

A close examination of religious texts illuminates the way in which parish priests dealt with their female parishioners in the Middle Ages.

The question of how priests were taught to think about and care for female parishioners is the topic of this book. As neither misogynist villains nor saintly heroes, clerical authors of pastoral vernacular literature persisted both in their characterization of women as difficult parishioners and in their attempts to recognize women as ordinary parishioners who deserved ordinary pastoral care. Focusing on the important vernacular writings of John Mirk, his Festial and Instructions for Parish Priests, the author reveals how even a small number of influential sermon compilations, exempla, and pastoral guides could have significantly shaped the perceptions, attitudes, and- perhaps - actions of fourteenth- and fifteenth-century priests. Shedding light on the mental universe of the late medieval parish, this study offers important new insights into the reality of how priests perceived and fulfilled their spiritual obligations to the women they served.

BETH ALLISON BARR is Assistant Professor of European Women's History at Baylor University.

Edition details

• Publisher: Boydell Press
• Publication date: 2022
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1837650098
• ISBN 13: 9781837650095
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 182