IMC 2012: Sessions

Session 617: 'Forms of Life': Rules and Other Normative Texts in Late Medieval Female Religious Communities, 1200-1500, II

Tuesday 10 July 2012, 11.15-12.45

Sponsor:Research Project 'Religious Orders & Religious Identity Formation', Radboud University Nijmegen
Organiser:Alison More, Afdeling Geschiedenis, Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen
Moderator/Chair:Alison More, Afdeling Geschiedenis, Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen
Paper 617-aRules and House Constitutions in Late Medieval Clarissan Houses
(Language: English)
Bert Roest, Afdeling Geschiedenis, Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen
Index terms: Ecclesiastical History, Monasticism, Religious Life, Women's Studies
Paper 617-bConstructing Female Observant Identity through Hagiography: Rome, Biblioteca Casanatense, MS 4067
(Language: English)
Elisabetta Amaini, Dipartimento di Filologia classica e italianistica, Università di Bologna
Index terms: Hagiography, Monasticism, Religious Life, Women's Studies
Paper 617-cA Vita in Poetry and Prose: Villana de' Botti in Late Medieval Florence
(Language: English)
Eliana Corbari, Department of Theology & Religious Studies, University of Bristol
Index terms: Daily Life, Hagiography, Language and Literature - Italian, Literacy and Orality, Religious Life, Sermons and Preaching, Theology, Women's Studies
Abstract

This session sheds light on the way in which ‘forms of life’, religious rules, house constitutions and other normative texts (such as exemplary hagiographic dossiers) were used to shape the life of a large variety of late medieval female religious communities, both those considered to be fully monastic (such as Damianite/Poor Clare and female Dominican houses) and those that had a much more indeterminate status, such as communities of female beguines and ‘Franciscan’ and non-Franciscan tertiaries. Participants are asked to approach this issue from four different angles, namely: authority; content (the way of life is proposed in these normative texts); Sitz im Leben; and diachrony.