Review of Related Lives: Confessors and Their Female Penitents, 1450-1750, by J. Bilinkof

Lehfeldt, Elizabeth

English

EngagedScholarship @ Cleveland State University

Cleveland State University
EngagedScholarship@CSU
History Faculty Publications History Department
Fall 2006
Review of Related Lives: Confessors and Their
Female Penitents, 1450-1750, by J. Bilinkoff
Elizabeth Lehfeldt
Cleveland State University, e.lehfeldt@csuohio.edu
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Publisher's Statement
© 2006 by University of Chicago Press. Available on publisher's site at http://www.jstor.org/stable/
10.1353/ren.2008.0399.
Repository Citation
Lehfeldt, Elizabeth, "Review of Related Lives: Confessors and Their Female Penitents, 1450-1750, by J. Bilinkoff " (2006). History Faculty Publications.
9.
https://engagedscholarship.csuohio.edu/clhist_facpub/9
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Original Citation
Elizabeth A. Lehfeldt, "Related Lives: Confessors and Their Female Penitents, 1450-1750, by J. Bilinkoff," Renaissance Quarterly 59 no.
3 (2006): 929-930.
Jodi Bilinkoff. Related Lives: Confessors and Their Female Penitents,
1450–1750.
Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2005. xii + 182 pp. index. illus. bibl. $45. ISBN: 0–8014–
4251–6.
With Related Lives: Confessors and Their Female Penitents, 1450–1750, Jodi
Bilinkoff has made a substantial contribution to the study of early modern
Catholicism. Though scholars have certainly explored the inherently complicated
relationship between holy women and their spiritual advisors, the hallmark of
Bilinkoff’s work is to offer a broader overview than the case studies that have
dominated the existing scholarship, and in turn to stimulate new questions and
directions for future research. Bilinkoff’s book is a well-written and engaging
examination of cases of profound spiritual friendship and collaboration. Particu-
larly notable is the scope of Bilinkoff’s research: she draws on cases from Spain,
Italy, France, Portugal, Spanish America, and French Canada. This allows her to
draw some important conclusions about early modern Catholicism, a field which
she rightly notes has been geographically compartmentalized.
The first chapters establish the contours of the confessor-penitent relationship.
In chapter 1 Bilinkoff examines why women sought out spiritual directors: because
it allowed them “sustained and serious conversation with a member of the opposite
sex” (18). She also examines the motivations of male clergy to take responsibility
for the spiritual lives of these women. Chapter 2 explores a specific manifestation
of the confessor’s enthusiasm: the decision to write a spiritual biography of the
woman in his care.
Chapter 3 analyzes these life stories more closely. As Bilinkoff notes, these
texts defy categorization since many of them were an amalgam of parts authored
both by the penitent and the confessor. While the autobiographical statements of
women in these texts have been used by many scholars to recapture a female voice
in the early modern world, Bilinkoff also focuses closely on the male-authored
portions. This adds a critical and often-overlooked dimension to our understand-
ing of how these life stories functioned narratively and didactically. Confessors
used these texts to glorify their cities and their religious orders. They used their
hagiographies to highlight their spiritual intimacy with exceptional women. In
this, Bilinkoff argues persuasively against those who have seen the male role in the
creation of these texts simply as one that co-opts and controls the voices of women.
REVIEWS 929
Chapter 4 examines the appeal of these texts, arguing that part of what makes
them so compelling is the interpersonal dynamics they reflect. Here we encounter
firsthand accounts of spiritually exceptional women who yearned for spiritual
direction, expressing joy and relief when they were finally matched with responsive
male confessors. For their part, these priests also hungered for intimacy with these
exemplary women, seeking inspiration and even legitimization in their ties to
them.
Chapter 5 explores the dissemination of these texts and their audiences. What
is revealed here is a lively world of religious exchange where women separated by
place and time still had access to the spiritual biographies of their spiritual fore-
mothers. These works served as solace and inspiration to women embarking on
similar paths.
Not all readers will be comfortable with Bilinkoff’s primary reliance on
Spanish examples, a feature of the work that she herself acknowledges at the outset.
This possible objection should not detract, however, from the model that Bilinkoff
has provided. Future studies of the relationships between priests and their female
penitents and the collaborative texts that they produced will find inspiration and
direction in her engaging analysis. This is particularly true in her sensitive handling
of the complexity of her sources. She challenges the notions of these life stories as
so formulaic and didactic as to render them useless to the historian. She argues
persuasively that each has its own unique features. Further, she contends that we
must take this literature seriously because so much of it was produced and widely
disseminated in the early modern period. We simply cannot ignore what these texts
can tell us about the “production and diffusion of cultural values” (9). And this is
the lynchpin of Bilinkoff’s most important conclusions about the enduring vigor
of Catholicism in the early modern world. By demonstrating the appeal of these
texts and the relationships that produced them, Bilinkoff has made a significant
contribution. Her study illuminates the rich and compelling nature of the dynamic
between male confessors and their female penitents, thereby adding tremendous
dimension to our understanding of Catholic devotion in this period.
ELIZABETH A. LEHFELDT
Cleveland State University
RENAISSANCE QUARTERLY930


Review of Related Lives: Confessors and Their Female Penitents, 1450-1750, by J. Bilinkoff

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