Lived Religion and Gender in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe

This study is an exploration of lived religion and gender across the Reformation, from the 14th-18th centuries. Combining conceptual development with empirical history, the authors explore these two topics via themes of power, agency, work, family, sainthood and witchcraft. By advancing the theoretical category of 'experience', Lived Religion and Gender reveals multiple femininities and masculinities in the intersectional context of lived religion. The authors analyse specific case studies from both medieval and early modern sources, such as secular court records, to tell the stories of both individuals and large social groups. By exploring lived religion and gender on a range of social levels including the domestic sphere, public devotion and spirituality, this study explains how late medieval and early modern people performed both religion and gender in ways that were vastly different from what ideologists have prescribed. Lived Religion and Gender covers a wide geographical area in western Europe including Italy, Scandinavia and Finland, making this study an invaluable resource for scholars and students concerned with the history of religion, the history of gender, the history of the family, as well as medieval and early modern European history. The Introduction chapter of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.

Sari Katajala-Peltomaa is Senior Research Fellow at the Academy of Finland Centre of Excellence in the History of Experiences at Tampere University, Finland. She specialises in late medieval hagiography and especially in canonisation processes. Her publications include Demonic Possession and Lived Religion in Later Medieval Europe (2020). Raisa Maria Toivo is Professor at Tampere University and the Academy of Finland Centre of Excellence in the History of Experiences at Tampere University, Finland. She specialises in history of early modern religion, gender, family and court records. Her publications include Faith and Magic in Early Modern Finland (2016).

1 Introduction to medieval and early modern experiences of gender and faith 2 Lived religion and lived gender in family life 3 Gender in public devotion 4 Spirituality, sinfulness, and gender 5 Conclusions: structures of experiencing gender and religion from the medieval to the early modern period