Women and the Reformation gathers historical materials and personal accounts to provide a comprehensive and accessible look at the status and contributions of women as leaders in the 16th century Protestant world. Explores the new and expanded role as core participants in Christian life that women experienced during the Reformation Examines diverse individual stories from women of the times, ranging from biographical sketches of the ex-nun Katharina von Bora Luther and Queen Jeanne d’Albret, to the prophetess Ursula Jost and the learned Olimpia Fulvia Morata Brings together social history and theology to provide a groundbreaking volume on the theological effects that these women had on Christian life and spirituality Accompanied by a website at www.blackwellpublishing.com/stjerna offering student’s access to the writings by the women featured in the book

"An updated text based on James I. Good's Famous women of the Reformed Church."

In this pioneering work Roland Bainton surveys the contribution to the church of women of the sixteenth century in Germany and Italy. Along the way, he assesses the effect of the Reformation on the role of women in society in general. Included in this volume are Katherine von Bora, Ursula of M]nsterberg, Katherine Zell, Elisabeth of Brandenburg, Anabaptist women, Giulia Gonzaga, Isabella Bresegna, Olympia Morata, and others.

Books on the history of the Reformation are filled with the heroic struggles and sacrifices of men. But this compelling volume puts the spotlight on five strong and intellectually gifted women who, because of their absolute and unconditional commitment to the advancement of Protestant Christianity, paid the cost of their reforming convictions with martyrdom, imprisonment, and exile. Anne Boleyn (1507-1536) introduced the Reformation to England, and Katharine Parr (1514-1548) saved it. Both women were riveted by early versions of the "justification by faith" doctrine that originated with Martin Luther and came to them through France. As a result, Anne Boleyn was beheaded. Katharine Parr narrowly avoided the same fate. Sixteen-year-old Jane Grey (1537-1554) and Anne Askew (1521-1546) both dared to criticize the Mass and were pioneers of Protestant views concerning superstition and symbols. Jane Grey was executed because of her Protestantism. Anne Askew was tortured and burned at the stake. Catherine Willoughby (1520-1580) anticipated later Puritan teachings on predestination and election and on the reformation of the church. She was forced to give up everything she had and to flee with her husband and nursing baby into exile. Paul Zahl vividly tells the stories of these five mothers of the English Reformation. All of these women were powerful theologians intensely interested in the religious concerns of their day. All but Anne Boleyn left behind a considerable body of written work - some of which is found in this book's appendices. It is the theological aspect of these women's remarkable achievements that Zahl seeks to underscore. Moreover, he also considers what the stories of these women have to say about the relation of gender to theology, human motivation, and God. An important epilogue by Mary Zahl contributes a contemporary woman's view of these fascinating historical figures. Extraordinary by any standard, Anne Boleyn, Anne Askew, Katharine Parr, Jane Grey, and Catherine Willoughby remain rich subjects for reflection and emulation hundreds of years later. The personalities of these five women, who spoke their Christian convictions with presence of mind and sharp intelligence within situations of life-and-death duress, are almost totemic in our enduring search for role models.

Publisher description

The dawn of humanism in the Renaissance presented privileged women with great opportunities for personal and intellectual growth. Sexual and social roles still determined the extent to which a woman could pursue education and intellectual accomplishment, but it was possible through the composition of poetry or prose to temporarily offset hierarchies of gender, to become equal to men in the act of creation. Edited by Katharina M. Wilson, this anthology introduces the works of twenty-five women writers of the Renaissance and Reformation, among them Marie Dentière, a Swiss evangelical reformer whose writings were so successful they were banned during her lifetime; Gaspara Stampa, a cultivated courtesan of Venetian aristocratic circles who wrote lyric poetry that has earned her comparisons to Michelangelo and Tasso; Hélisenne de Crenne, a French aristocrat who embodied the true spirit of the Renaissance feminist, writing both as novelist and as champion of her sex; Helene Kottanner, Austrian chambermaid to Queen Elizabeth of Hungary whose memoirs recall her daring theft of the Holy Crown of Saint Stephen for her esteemed mistress; and Lady Mary Sidney Wroth, the first Englishwoman known to write a full-length work of fiction and compose a significant body of secular poetry. Offering a seldom seen counterpoint to literature written by men, Women Writers of the Renaissance and Reformation presents prose and poetry that have never before appeared in English, as well as writings that have rarely been available to the nonspecialist. The women whose writings are included here are united by a keen awareness of the social limitations placed upon their creative potential, of the strained relationship between their gender and their work. This concern invests their writings with a distinctive voice--one that carries the echoes of a male aesthetic while boldly declaring battle against it.