Barbara Constable’s Advice for Confessors and the Tradition of Medieval Holy Women

Gertz, Genelle

doi:10.4324/9781315616100-8

Cited by 4 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 0 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…The essays here follow the interests of scholars examining Catholicism in other contexts as those issues appear in cloister life. Jenna D. Lay, Jaime Goodrich, and Genelle Gertz, for example, all look at constructions of authorship among the nuns and their implications for gender and faith.…”

Section: English Nuns In Exilementioning

confidence: 99%

Recent Developments in 17th and 18th‐Century English Catholic Studies

Gevirtz

2015

Literature Compass

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The last 15 years have brought a revolution to research in 17th-and 18th-century English Catholicism. New approaches, shaped primarily by New Historicism and gender studies, have expanded the materials, questions, and methods driving scholarly investigations. The article describes several primary trends within this revolution: the development of inward-oriented and outward-oriented studies examining English Catholicism and English Catholicism's relationship with other discourses, respectively; a growing interest in women's experiences of and contributions to English Catholicism, particularly those of English nuns in exile; and a new narrative for 18th-century English Catholicism revealing its public as well as private iterations and impacts. Overall, current scholarship draws on a plethora of materials including material objects, texts, and space to construct an increasingly detailed picture of English Catholicism as a complex, dynamic force, and community during the 17th and 18th centuries.

show abstract

Section: English Nuns In Exilementioning

confidence: 99%

Recent Developments in 17th and 18th‐Century English Catholic Studies

Gevirtz

2015

Literature Compass

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…In other words, like More, she stresses the importance of disobedience to superiors when they command in their own power rather than God's. Although Constable declares she has no intention to teach or to instruct, wishing instead via her manuscript to collect her thoughts and the sayings of holy people on the matter of the spiritual direction of souls, as Jenna Lay (2011), Heather Wolfe (2007), and Genelle Gertz (2013 underlined, this is a strategy Constable used to express her ideas.…”

Section: Obedience To Superiorsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“For as we all differ in face, so do we differ in the manner of our exercises that are interior” Gertrude More's, Catherine Gascoigne's and Barbara Constable's religious writings through a feminist perspective on religious women’s agency and mysticism

Barnabè¹

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This thesis examines the religious writings of three seventeenth-century English nuns, Gertrude More (1606-1633), Catherine Gascoigne (1601-1676) and Barbara Constable (1617-1684), from a feminist perspective on agency and mysticism. All three women lived at the Benedictine monastery of “Our Lady of Consolation” in Cambrai (now in France), exiled from Anglican England because of their Catholic faith. It is argued that the texts of More, Gascoigne and Constable show that their agency was expressed not against or in spite of their religion, but rather through it. On the one hand, they rejected blind obedience to dominant superiors, though without violating religious monastic rule. On the other hand, they developed their own spirituality and mysticism based on medieval and contemplative teachings. More, Constable and Gascoigne, each in their own way, had a close spiritual relationship with their male spiritual instructor, David Baker, whose religious name was Augustine (1575-1641). Baker was a Benedictine monk best known for his writings on mystical spiritual contemplation. He played an important role in the lives of the three nuns, both in their personal and spiritual development. This thesis examines the extent to which More, Constable and Gascoigne mixed their own spiritual perspectives with those of Baker and how this affected their 'agentic capacity'. The study shows that Baker and each of the three nuns influenced each other in a positive way, leading to their personal and spiritual empowerment.

show abstract

Disobedient Women

McClain¹

2018

Divided Loyalties? Pushing the Boundaries of Gender and Lay Roles in the Catholic Church, 1534-1829

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Barbara Constable’s Advice for Confessors and the Tradition of Medieval Holy Women

Cited by 4 publications

References 0 publications

Recent Developments in 17th and 18th‐Century English Catholic Studies

Recent Developments in 17th and 18th‐Century English Catholic Studies

“For as we all differ in face, so do we differ in the manner of our exercises that are interior” Gertrude More's, Catherine Gascoigne's and Barbara Constable's religious writings through a feminist perspective on religious women’s agency and mysticism

Disobedient Women

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About