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Women, men, and spiritual power [electronic resource] : female saints and their male collaborators / John W. Coakley.
Author
Coakley, John W. (John Wayland)
[Browse]
Format
Book
Language
English
Published/Created
New York : Columbia University Press, c2006.
Description
1 online resource (367 p.)
Availability
Available Online
Ebook Central Perpetual, DDA and Subscription Titles
EBSCOhost Academic Search Ultimate
JSTOR DDA
Details
Subject(s)
Women mystics
[Browse]
Authority
—
Religious aspects
—
Catholic Church
[Browse]
Power (Christian theology)
[Browse]
Church history
—
Middle Ages, 600-1500
[Browse]
Monasticism and religious orders
[Browse]
Series
Gender, theory, and religion
Summary note
In Women, Men, and Spiritual Power, John Coakley explores male-authored narratives of the lives of Catherine of Siena, Hildegard of Bingen, Angela of Foligno, and six other female prophets or mystics of the late Middle Ages. His readings reveal the complex personal and literary relationships between these women and the clerics who wrote about them. Coakley's work also undermines simplistic characterizations of male control over women, offering an important contribution to medieval religious history.Coakley shows that these male-female relationships were marked by a fundamental tension between power and fascination: the priests and monks were supposed to hold authority over the women entrusted to their care, but they often switched roles, as the men became captivated with the women's spiritual gifts. In narratives of such women, the male authors reflect directly on the relationship between the women's powers and their own. Coakley argues that they viewed these relationships as gendered partnerships that brought together female mystical power and male ecclesiastical authority without placing one above the other. Women, Men, and Spiritual Power chronicles a wide-ranging experiment in the balance of formal and informal powers, in which it was assumed to be thoroughly imaginable for both sorts of authority, in their distinctly gendered terms, to coexist and build on each other. The men's writings reflect an extended moment in western Christianity when clerics had enough confidence in their authority to actually question its limits. After about 1400, however, clerics underwent a crisis of confidence, and such a questioning of institutional power was no longer considered safe. Instead of seeing women as partners, their revelatory powers began to be viewed as evidence of witchcraft.
Notes
Description based upon print version of record.
Bibliographic references
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Language note
English
Contents
Frontmatter
Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction: "You Draw Us After You"
Chapter 1. The Powers of Holy Women
Chapter 2. Revelation and Authority in Ekbert and Elisabeth of Schönau
Chapter 3. A Shared Endeavor?
Chapter 4. James of Vitry and the Other World of Mary of Oignies
Chapter 5. Self and Saint
Chapter 6. Hagiography and Theology in the Memorial of Angela of Foligno
Chapter 7. The Limits of Religious Authority
Chapter 8. Hagiography in Process
Chapter 9. Managing Holiness
Chapter 10. Revelation and Authority Revisited
Chapter 11. Authority and Female Sanctity
Notes
Abbreviations
Bibliography
Index
Show 16 more Contents items
Other format(s)
Issued also in print.
ISBN
0-231-50861-1
OCLC
64394427
979751594
Doi
10.7312/coak13400
Statement on language in description
Princeton University Library aims to describe library materials in a manner that is respectful to the individuals and communities who create, use, and are represented in the collections we manage.
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Other versions
Women, men, and spiritual power : female saints and their male collaborators / John W. Coakley.
id
9992526633506421
Women, men, and spiritual power : female saints and their male collaborators / John W. Coakley.
id
9948548783506421