Università Roma Tre

Women and faith in Middle Ages: feminine protagonism or social compulsion?
The lessons want to analyse the link between women’s experience and religious life in Middle Ages. Specifically, they question the objectives, the forms and ways of this participation. Is it a form of social compulsion in which women are submitted to men’s predominance – as in social dimension of family happens – or they are able to find a personal fulfilment thanks to religious dimension, also because they escape familiar contest? Which link is established with men, which are still present in religious and ecclesiastical contest like spiritual counsellors, religious Order’s founders or popes? We will try to ask these questions and others through the study of some of the most representative figures of the medieval period like Clare of Assisi, Frances of Rome, Catherine of Siena, Angela of Foligno and others. The lessons will be seminars in which we will dialogue and discuss different ideas.

1) Learning material - lecture notes and/or pdf depending on the evolution of the plague - will be elaborated during the lessons with attending students on the basis of: A. Bartolomei, Santità e mistica femminile nel medioevo, Spoleto 2013. Non-attending students must study all chapters of A. Bartolomei, Santità e mistica femminile nel medioevo, Spoleto 2013. For a deal with the publisher (CISAM) it is possible to buy the book online with a discount of 50%.

2) G. Vitolo, Medioevo. I caratteri originali di un'età di transizione, Sansoni 2000: only for students who have never taken an exam of medieval history

3) All students must develop a subject of medieval history in an essay that must be arranged with the teacher during the class for the attendees, in the teacher’s office for non-attending students.