Dominican Penitent Women (Classics of Western Spirituality) [Paperback]

Maiju Lehmijoki-Gardner (Author), Daniel E. Bornstein (Author), E. Ann Matter (Author), Gabriella Zarri (Author)

Book Description

Series: Classics of Western Spirituality | Publication Date: March 2005

Dominican Penitent Women presents a fascinating overview of the spirituality, religious practices, and ways of life of medieval Italian women who belonged to the Dominican Order as lay members or penitents. Through selected texts, readers gain a fresh perspective on the institutional and spiritual foundations of Dominican lay life, but also an understanding of how these women refashioned Dominican ideals into practices that best responded to their individual and social means. Their way of life created an important alternative for women who sought religious perfection in the world.

The first section consists of two penitent rules: the Ordinationes of Munio from the late 13th century and the formal penitent rule of the early 15th century, which show how penitents were to organize and live their lives. The second section is dedicated to hagiographic sources. The third section is made up of penitent women's religious writing. The texts translated here present an overview of Dominican women's literary production that complements the writings of Catherine of Siena, already available in English.

While Dominican penitent women held an important position in medieval piety, aside from Catherine of Siena, their spirituality has not attracted much scholarly attention. As the first comprehensive introduction to medieval Dominican laywomen and Dominican penitent spirituality in English, this book makes a significant scholarly and spiritual contribution.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Maiju Lehmijoki-Gardner is lecturer in the department of theology at Loyola College, Baltimore, MD, and fellow in the department of church history at the University of Helsinki, where she also directs a research project entitled Gendered Practices in Medieval Mysticism. She is the author of Worldly Saints: Social Interaction of Dominican Penitent Women in Italy, 1200-1500 and co-author, with Tuomas Keikkila, of a history of religious orders in the Middle Ages.

Product Details

• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: Paulist Press (March 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0809139790
• ISBN-13: 978-0809139798
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.4 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,012,094 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The mind of mediaeval women, November 17, 2008

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Mark Montebello Daritama "Mark Montebello" (Malta) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Dominican Penitent Women (Classics of Western Spirituality) (Paperback)

Though this book basically concerns Mediaeval Christian, and particularly Catholic, spirituality, it provides a valuable insight into the mind of Mediaeval women and their way of life. The book deals specifically with religious groups of women that were not formally monastic or bound with any formal ecclesiastical rules. However, their grouping was brought about by their social needs, namely, to have their honour and prestige protected. This was a way of finding their own niche in a society that did not have particular respect to single women or widows. In a sense, then, the book is more than just a spiritual volume. It sheds light on the social conditions of women in the middle ages. The book has three main parts: the first produces a 15th century text of rules; the second, provides five original documents from the 13th, 14th and 16th centuries that deal with women of a particularly spiritual hue; and the third reproduces two original documents, one from the 15th, and the other from the 16th, centuries, of two spiritual women. I found the middle part to be the most interesting, for in it one can not only find a spiritual nourishment but provides interesting insights into the lives and minds of mediaeval women who struggled to be acknowledged and respected within a complex (and, to us, strange) social context. Not much has been published on the subject of this book, and certainly not the original documents that deal with it. So it makes a welcome addition to our knowledge.