Placeholder text

Go to cart

Apostate Nuns in the Later Middle Ages

By Elizabeth Makowski

Apostate Nuns in the Later Middle Ages Philosophy

Apostate Nuns in the Later Middle Ages

By Elizabeth Makowski

0 - Default Title
Description
"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 law: 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.
Product details
Number of Pages:
248
Release Date:
2019-08-16
Publication Date:
2019-07-19
Publisher:
Boydell Press
Languages:
Original: English
ISBN10:
1783274263
ISBN13:
9781783274260
Weight:
448 g
Height:
145 cm
Width:
222 cm
Thickness:
17 cm
Buy on Amazon
Currently sold out