“NOWADAYS men are less disposed to receive divine illuminations than are women because in their pride their hearts are puffed up to apply all the glory and authority to themselves instead of referring it to God; and they cannot endure that a simple woman, such as I am, speaks of divine matters.”
When the French-Flemish mystic Antoinette Bourignon (1616-80) wrote these words, women had been actively engaged in Europe’s Reformations for more than a century. Bourignon was an unorthodox figure who was condemned by both Catholic and Protestant authorities for her criticism of organised religion and for her visionary spirituality. But in her determination to defend her beliefs, to provide spiritual guidance to her followers, and to circumvent the patriarchal structures that threatened to silence her voice, she was typical of many of the women whose stories are recounted here.
As Wiesner-Hanks notes, both Protestant and Catholic Christianity “contained strong elements of misogyny”. Europe’s institutional Churches were controlled by men, and women were expected to be obedient and subservient: the command to remain silent attributed to St Paul was frequently cited (1 Timothy 2.11-15). Yet, as this book shows, the Reformations could not have happened without their active engagement, from Katharina von Bora, who managed Luther’s household, to the women who assisted with missionary ventures around the world. In all, the book examines the lives of 261 named women and of thousands of anonymous others involved with religious change from the late 15th to the 18th centuries
Wiesner-Hanks’s method is to “start with women’s actions and ideas, and expand out from these”, filling in context when necessary. This makes for a compelling read and provides a remarkably rich picture of the variety of women’s religious activities and experiences. In six chapters — monarchs, mothers, migrants, martyrs, mystics, missionaries — Wiesner-Hanks demonstrates the diverse contributions that women made to establishing, advancing, and resisting religious reform, and points to the many ways in which the changes of the period affected women’s spiritual lives.
Some stories are familiar: queens and noblewomen who acted as patrons of reform; female martyrs; famous mystics and missionaries. Some are much less so: the book highlights, for example, the importance of women’s religious activity in the domestic sphere, and of networks of family and friends which enabled women to communicate and disseminate religious ideas.
Throughout, Wiesner-Hanks highlights the difficulty of recovering women’s voices. She pays tribute to the decades of work by women’s and gender historians which have made it possible to write this history by scouring archives for neglected writings and by reading between the lines of frequently hostile accounts by church authorities. Wiesner-Hanks’s expertise is incomparable, and her suggestions for further reading will be invaluable for all who teach in this field.
The global perspective that recent research has enabled is undoubtedly key to the significance of the book, with rich discussions of women’s religious activities and experiences in both Catholic and Protestant missions and in Europe’s early colonial settlements. Wiesner-Hanks’s book convinces us of women’s significance in the male-dominated world of early modern religious reform through its accumulation of fascinating examples, and provides rich food for thought for readers reflecting on women’s roles in the Christian churches of today.
Dr Bridget Heal is Professor of Early Modern History at the University of St Andrews.
Women and the Reformations: A global history
Merry E. Wiesner-Hanks
Yale £25
(978-0-300-26823-2)
Church Times Bookshop £22.50