Abstract
It was a commonplace in early modern culture that women were ‘to piety more prone’.1 The stereotype of the godly woman was a natural part of the idea that the soul and the true church were brides of Christ. Conversely, of course, the false church of Antichrist was the Whore of Babylon. Following this model, protestants could describe the popish mass as Mistress Missa, whilst the reformed communion was a ‘simple maid’.2 However, as well as being a useful metaphor to convey the stark contrast between good and evil, the general association of women with piety was descriptive of actual practice and was rooted in the characteristics associated with gender. The nurturing, emotional female could be the ritual specialist in a catholic world, and was also particularly well suited to making the leap of faith required for true devotion in both confessions. However, although this means that the upheavals of the Reformation were particularly important for women, the impact of these changes, and the comparative attractiveness of different religious positions, is less clear. Even in broad terms the balance sheet of the effect of the Reformation on women is hard to draw up. In many ways, protestantism might be thought to have created a religious environment that was hostile to this style of female piety.
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Notes
For a more detailed discussion of the material relating to England in this chapter, see C. Peters, Patterns of Piety: Women, Gender and Religion in Late Medieval and Reformation England (Cambridge, 2003).
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I.B. Cowan, The Scottish Reformation: Church and Society in Sixteenth- Century Scotland (London, 1982), p. 2.
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J. Galbraith, ‘The Middle Ages’, in D. Forrester and E. Murray (eds), Studies in the History of Worship in Scotland (edinburgh, 1984), pp. 17–32;
C. Carter, ‘The Arma Christi in Scotland’, Proc. Soc. Antiq. of Scotland 90 (1959), pp. 116–29.
C.W. Bynum, Fragmentation and Redemption: Essays on Gender and the Human Body in Medieval Religion (New York, 1991), p. 153.
P. Lake, ‘Feminine piety and personal potency: The ‘emancipation’ of Mrs Jane Ratcliffe’, The Seventeenth Century 2 /2 (1987), pp. 143–65.
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S.M. Dunnigan, ‘Scottish women writers, c.1560-c.1650’, in D. Gifford and D. McMillan (eds), A History of Scottish Women’s Writing (edinburgh, 1997), pp. 31–33. A.A. MacDonald notes the popularity among presbyterians of Granada’s Spiritual and Heavenly Exercises, which emphasises the sinfulness of mankind, the vanity of the glory and magnificence of the world, and an ever-present fear of death.
A.A. MacDonald, ‘Early modern Scottish literature and the parameters of culture’, in S. Mapstone and J. Wood (eds), The Rose and the Thistle: Essays in the Culture of Late Medieval and Renaissance Scotland (East Linton, 1998), p. 90.
For the development of festal communions see L.E. Schmidt, Holy Fairs: Scottish Communions and American Revivals in the Early Modern Period (Princeton, 1989).
D.G. Mullan, ‘Mistress Rutherford’s narrative: A Scottish puritan autobiography’, Bunyan Studies 7 (1997), pp. 13–37.
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M. Prior, ‘Reviled and crucified marriages: the position of Tudor bishops’ wives’, in M. Prior (ed.), Women in English Society, 1500–1800 (London, 1985), p. 125.
M. Mahoney, ‘The Scottish hierarchy, 1513–65’, Innes Review 10 (1959), p. 43.
G. Williams, ‘Wales and the reign of Queen Mary I’, Welsh History Review 10 (1980), pp. 340–45, suggests clerical acceptance and public hostility. Cwndidau in the diocese of Llandaff expressed hostility to married priests and their behaviour, but the high ratio of deprivations for clerical marriage as a result of the policy of Mary I (1554–55) indicates that a large number of priests had seized the opportunity to legitimise their unions.
The representation of wives on monuments to English bishops is discussed in Prior, ‘Reviled and crucified marriages’, pp. 140–41; I.D. Whyte and K.A. Whyte, ‘Wed to the manse: The wives of Scottish ministers, c.1560–1800’, in E. Ewan and M.M. Meikle (eds), Women in Scotland c.1100-c.1750 (East Linton, 1999), p. 224.
M.H.B. Sanderson, Ayrshire and the Reformation: People and Change, 1490–1600 (East Linton, 1997), p. 133.
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Rev. C. Rogers, Monuments and Monumental Inscriptions in Scotland 2 vols (London, 1871–72), vol. 1, p. 461.
J. Gwynfor Jones, ‘Welsh gentlewomen: Piety and christian conduct, c.1560–1700’, Jnl. of Welsh Religious History 7 (1999), pp. 1–37.
G. Dyfnallt Owen, Elizabethan Wales: The Social Scene (Cardiff, 1962), p. 58; Graham, Uses of Reform, p. 256.
A. Fox, Oral and Literate Culture in England, 1500–1700 (Oxford, 2000), p. 46.
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© 2004 Christine Peters
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Peters, C. (2004). Female Piety and Religious Change. In: Women in Early Modern Britain, 1450–1640. Social History in Perspective. Palgrave, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-230-21278-7_6
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