Patterns of Piety
Women, Gender and Religion in Late Medieval and Reformation England

This 2003 book offers an interpretation of the transition from Catholicism to Protestantism in the English Reformation.

Christine Peters (Author)

9780521093446, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 11 January 2009

412 pages, 50 b/w illus. 10 tables
22.9 x 15.2 x 2.1 cm, 0.6 kg

"This book is beautifully produced with many illustrations and a full bibliography as well as notes. It deserves to be widely read." Renaissance Quarterly

This 2003 book offers an interpretation of the transition from Catholicism to Protestantism in the English Reformation, and explores its implications for an understanding of women and gender. Central to this is an appreciation of the significance of medieval Christocentric piety in offering a bridge to the Reformation, and in shaping the nature of Protestantism in the period up to the Civil War. Not only does this explain much of the support for Protestantism, but it also suggests the need to question assumptions that the 'loss' of the Virgin Mary and the saints was detrimental to women. The Reformation undermined the ritual role of the Catholic godly woman but its definition of the representative frail Christian as a woman devoted to Christ meant that it was not an alien environment for the weaker sex. The Christocentric piety of the late medieval parish shaped the Reformation and paved the way for a more subtle understanding of gender.

Introduction
Part I: 1. Religious roles
2. Religious choices
3. The Virgin Mary and Christocentric devotion
4. The saints
5. Eve and the responsibility for sin
Part II: 6. Responses to Reformation change
7. Parish religion in the Reformation
8. The godly woman
9. The Virgin Mary and the saints
10. The return to the Old Testament
11. Martyrs
12. Adam's fall
13. Godly marriage
Conclusion
Appendix
Bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: Gender studies: women [JFSJ1], History of religion [HRAX], Early history: c 500 to c 1450/1500 [HBLC], British & Irish history [HBJD1]