The question of how priests were taught to think about and care for female parishioners is the topic of this book. As neither misogynist villains nor saintly heroes, clerical authors of pastoral vernacular literature persisted both in their characterization of women as difficult parishioners and in their attempts to recognize women as ordinary parishioners who deserved ordinary pastoral care. Focusing on the important vernacular writings of John Mirk, hisFestial and Instructions for Parish Priests, the author reveals how even a small number of influential sermon compilations, exempla, and pastoral guides could have significantly shaped the perceptions, attitudes, and- perhaps - actions of fourteenth- and fifteenth-century priests. Shedding light on the mental universe of the late medieval parish, this study offers important new insights into the reality of how priests perceived and fulfilledtheir spiritual obligations to the women they served.
BETH ALLISON BARR is Assistant Professor of European Women's History at Baylor University.
- ISBN10 1843833735
- ISBN13 9781843833734
- Publish Date 17 April 2008
- Publish Status Out of Stock
- Out of Print 28 May 2021
- Publish Country GB
- Publisher Boydell & Brewer Ltd
- Imprint The Boydell Press
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 182
- Language English