Thibodeaux, Jennifer D.

English

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Ranft sees the roles of confessor and spiritual director converging in theReformation era and argues that this conjoining gave women leverage sincethey were now encouraged to choose a confessor carefully. Ranft believes thatwomen gained a buffer from societal critics when they entered the penitentialsystem, and shows how a powerful personality like Teresa of Avila (whoreceives more attention than any other woman in this work) could effectivelybecome the director of her confessor. Still, Ranft seems to bypass the pointthat women could not serve in this merged confessor-director role since theywere not allowed to perform sacramental duties. Those duties were de-emphasized in Protestant circles, and while this meant women directors wereknown and accepted, it also meant that both confession and direction wereless common overall.Ranft is at her best when she is describing the women she counts as spiritualdirectors. She examines their varying methods of direction, giving readers, achance to see how these methods changed over time. Less successful, I think,is her thesis that "spiritual direction .. .is the vehicle Christians utilize toaddress the issues of meaning" (194). Spiritual direction can address theseissues, but Ranft's statement passes over the vast majority of Christians pastand present who do not participate in spiritual direction. Most laypersons falloutside the system of direction, a fact made clear when we notice that Ranft'swork focuses almost exclusively on women engaged in the religious life.While this often cannot be helped given the resources, it leaves us lacking aportrait of how women who followed other paths in society might haveengaged in direction.I was disappointed to see typos and some jarring sentences in this work,something unexpected from a fine writer like Ranft and a well-knownpublisher. These are merely blips, though, on what is overall a thoughtful,engaging, and well presented work. Thanks to Ranft, this "forgotten history"has been brought enjoyably to light.-Cynthia Stewart, Nashville, TennesseeShahar, Shulamith. Womell ill a Medieval Heretical Sect: Aglles andHuguette the Waldensians. Trans. Yael Lotan. Rochester: Boydell Press,2001. 129 pp + appendix.Women in a Medieval Heretical Sect: Agnes and Huguette the Waldensiansattempts to fill a gap that Shahar perceived in the history of women in theWaldensians. It will disappoint those expecting a history akin to ShannonMcSheffrey's treatment of Lollard women,' with its application ofJudithButler's performativity theory, but Shahar states that she did not intend toexamine gender in the Waldensian sect. The book, she asserts, is aboutwomen and as such, it does provide an excellent basic introduction to thehistory of women's participation in the Poor of Lyons.Shahar challenges feminist historians' assumption, one she herself made inThe Fourth Estate: A history of women in the Middle Ages (1990), that womenenjoyed more rights and opportunities for leadership roles within hereticalgroups than in the orthodox Church. Now she argues that women in the Poorof Lyons were doubly marginalized; once as heretics and again as women(xiii). She begins with the foundation of the Waldensians, by Peter Waldes, awealthy burgher, and the movement's early history. As Shahar notes, thereluctance of Waldes' wife to join the group did not augur well for femalefollowers. Waldes' chronicler condemns Waldes' wife for choosing earthlyvalues over spiritual ones. In addition, Waldes' daughters were sent to theconvent at Fontevrault, clearly showing that Waldes himself did not direct hiscall for the vita apostolica to women.In chapter two, Shahar examines the role of women in other sects as well asconcepts ofthe masculine and feminine elements of the divinity in suchgroups. The Guillelmites are the only medieval group used in thiscomparison. Oddly she uses the eighteenth-century Anglo-American Shakersand Quakers in her comparison, a move perhaps best relegated to thefootnotes. One cannot help wondering why she did not choose other medievalgroups such as the Lollards and the Cathars as a better, more historically validcomparison. The Cathars do appear in a later chapter, when Shahar points outthat the Waldensian Brothers did not share the dualistic Cathars' fear offemale pollution (101-2). Unlike the Shakers and the Quakers, theWaldensians did not accept a female element in their concept of the divinity,nor did they believe in either a spiritual or earthly equality between men andwomen. The assumption that women enjoyed equality originated withhistorians who looked only at the accusations made in inquisitorial and otherCatholic sources and not at Waldensian chroniclers.Women did preach in the early days ofthe movement, but this was anexpression of Waldensian enthusiasm. Women's equality was never one of theWaldensians' tenets. These female preachers, the "Sisters," were not allowedto administer the Eucharist, allocate funds, or attend councils with theWaldensian Brothers. Shahar assumes that because the Sisters did preach andteach some of the time, they must have received some kind of instructionfrom the Brothers. She proposes that the Sisters must have found "greaterspiritual satisfaction" (64) than Catholic nuns because the Sisters chose to jointhe Waldensians, while nuns often did not choose their religiouscommunities, concluding that "a consciousness of choice and the voluntaryparticipation in a persecuted community, requiring a major commitment fromits members, and the tension of clandestine life, probably shielded them frommonotony and inner dissatisfaction"(64). Despite the Sisters' ability to preachto the Believers, "essentially the same hierarchy and gender roles prevailedbetween the Brothers and Sisters as between the nuns and the monks orcanons in the Catholic Church" (64-5).Chapter four brings Shahar to the two female Believers at the center of herstudy, Agnes Francou and Huguette de la Cote. Pointing out that JacquesFournier's inquisitorial records do not indicate that inquisitors addresseddifferent questions to women and men, Shahar asserts that there is no "genderperspective" in these records (88). The questions asked of Agnes and Huguettevaried little from those asked of the male members Raymond and Jean. It isdifficult, Shahar argues, to find a "distinctive feminine identity" in theseinterrogatories, although at least one other historian, Peter Dronke, has foundsuch an identity for Cathar and Catholic women (88). Agnes and Huguettewere not questioned as women but as Waldensians. Thus the Waldensianwomen were marginalized as the heretical "other," not the female "other."In Chapter five, Shahar describes the differences in spiritual practicesbetween Waldensian women and their Catholic counterparts. Waldensianwomen, like Protestant women, were deprived ofthe feminine element andsymbol present in Catholicism. Waldensians in general did not venerate theVirgin Mary or female saints, but there was a "blurring of the 'otherness' ofwomen" among the female Believers (100). The teachings of the Brothers didnot refer to gender concepts or boundaries, and the Brothers did preach toboth men and women.Shahar argues that the Waldensians fit the profile of a persecuted, clandestinegroup kept alive by the cooperation of its members. In such a group,traditional gender categories tend to be "neutralized" even if female equalityis not a tenet of faith. Shahar concludes her study with a chapter on themethod of execution used for male and female Believers. Having establishedthat gender roles were "blurred" or "neutralized" for women, she states that"in the execution of heretics the difference was blurred in the oppositedirection, the men being treated in the same way as women usually were" (119).Shahar's study contributes to the field of women's history by making availablethe translations of the interrogatories of Agnes and Huguette, which can be usedby undergraduate and graduate students alike, and for its exploration ofwomen's participation in the Poor of Lyon. Its contribution might have beengreater if Shahar used feminist theoretical tools to glean a "feminine" voice fromthe interrogatories. Shahar relies heavily on Peter Biller's work on theWaldensians, agreeing with and reiterating it to the extent that, at times, verylittle seems original. Good editing might have tightened her thesis and made herconclusions sound less contradictory to each other; but this could very well bedue to the English translation. Shahar denies that Waldensian women enjoyedspecial privileges or rights; yet, she asserts frequently that they preached andthat there was a blurring of male and female roles among the Believers. In thisreviewer's opinion, it sounds as though these particular heretical women didenjoy a status and privilege not enjoyed by many of their Catholic counterparts.This study will be useful for undergraduates studying heretical groups. Forscholars expecting a well-documented and tightly woven thesis, it is less so.-Jennifer D. Thibodeaux, University ofKansas1 Shannon McSheffrey, Gender and heresy: women and men in Lollardcommunities, 1420-1530,(Philadelphia: Univ. of Pennsylvania Press, 1995).

Shulamith Shahar, Women in a Medieval Heretical Sect: Agnes and Huguette and the Waldensians. Boydell Press, 2001

https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1265&amp;context=mff

Shulamith Shahar, Women in a Medieval Heretical Sect: Agnes and Huguette and the Waldensians. Boydell Press, 2001

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