Women in the Church - Ecclesiastical History Society

This volume offers a historical assessment of the role of women in the Christian Churches - their actions, thoughts and reputations - from their position in the fourth-century Church to the twentieth century. The emphasis is upon ordinary women, as they provide the domestic setting for the spiritual life of the family, or go to church, or to confession, or to be churched after childbirth, or to give hospitality to male itinerant preachers. However, there is also discussion of the influences of some empresses and queens, such as Empress Judith, wife of Louis the Pious and Queen Victoria.;The female saints of illuminated manuscripts, stained-glass window and rood-screen also evoke home and family. Yet not all women were conventially pious: some drifted into heresy, superstition or fanaticism, such as Elizabeth of Spalbeek in the thirteenth century, or the Anabaptist Frena of Appenzell, both of whom saw themselves as reincarnations of Christ. The comtemplatives too have their place here: they range from the the noble nun Immena, in the Carolingian period, to working-class women in Victorian convents. But many preferred a more active life: perhaps as Quaker itinerant Ministers, overseas missionaries, founders or members of religious sects, or as evangelists in Victorian cities.;The book's scope is broad, ranging across Europe from the nuns of the middle ages to female Puritans of the 17th century and social Catholics in turn-of-the-century France, to Edwardian supporters of the ordination of women. The authors aim to reveal how throughout the history of the Christian Churches, women have had to struggle against theological prohibition and prejudice.