Patterns of Piety: Women, Gender and Religion in Late Medieval and Reformation England

Description

This 2003 book offers an interpretation of the transition from Catholicism to Protestantism in the English Reformation, and explores its implications for an understanding of women and gender. Central to this is an appreciation of the significance of medieval Christocentric piety in offering a bridge to the Reformation, and in shaping the nature of Protestantism in the period up to the Civil War. Not only does this explain much of the support for Protestantism, but it also suggests the need to question assumptions that the 'loss' of the Virgin Mary and the saints was detrimental to women. The Reformation undermined the ritual role of the Catholic godly woman but its definition of the representative frail Christian as a woman devoted to Christ meant that it was not an alien environment for the weaker sex. The Christocentric piety of the late medieval parish shaped the Reformation and paved the way for a more subtle understanding of gender.

Graduating from St Hugh's College, Oxford, the author travelled widely in Eastern Europe on a Leverhulme Scholarship and was a Fellow at the Warburg Institute before transferring to Oxford. She has published articles based on the first part of her doctoral thesis in Past and Present and Continuity and Change. This is her first book.

"...this book will be of value to libraries supporting graduate level coursework in religiuous or social history." Catholic Library World "Christine Peters' contribution is a very significant one...It will be required reading for anyone with a serious interest in late medieval religion, Protestantism, and the effects of the Reformation on the piety of men and women, and on perceptions of gender." American Historical Review "This important contribution to the history of the Reformation and its impact on women and gender relations will undoubtedly stimulate much further research." Anglican and Episcopal History, Martha Skeeters, Norman, Oklahoma "This book is beautifully produced with many illustrations and a full bibliography as well as notes. It deserves to be widely read." Renaissance Quarterly