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

by Christine Peters

• ISBN13: 9780521580625
• ISBN10: 0521580625
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2003-06-30
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

This 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. Moreover, although scriptural texts could reinforce patriarchy, they were complemented by subtle discussions of the ambiguities of gender and responsibility in the stories of Susanna and Bathsheba. The Christocentric piety of the late medieval parish shaped the Reformation and paved the way for a more subtle understanding of gender.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Part I: 1. Religious roles

2. Religious choices

3. The Virgin Mary and Christo-centric devotion

4. The saints

5. Eve and the responsibility for sin

Part II: 6. Responses to Reformation change

7. Parish religion in the Reformation

8. The godly woman

9. The Virgin Mary and the saints

10. The return to the Old Testament

11. Martyrs

12. Adam's fall

13. Godly marriage

Conclusion

Appendix

Bibliography.