Sacred sisters : gender, sanctity, and power in medieval Ireland / Maeve Callan.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Callan, Maeve Brigid, 1970- author.

Series:

Hagiography beyond tradition ; 1.

Hagiography beyond tradition, 1

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Christian women saints--Ireland--Biography.

Christian women saints.

Women in Christianity.

Christian hagiography--History--To 1500.

Christian hagiography.

History.

Ireland.

Genre:

Biographies.

Physical Description:

308 pages : map, black and white photographs ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

Amsterdam : Amsterdam University Press, [2019]

Summary:

Sacred Sisters' focuses on five saints:, the four female Irish saints who have extant medieval biographies (Darerca, Brigid, Íte, and Samthann), and Patrick, whose writings - fifth-century Ireland's sole surviving texts - attest the centrality of women in Irish Christianity's creation. Women served as leaders and teachers, perhaps even as bishops and priests, and men and women worked together in a variety of arrangements as well as independently. Previous studies of gender in medieval Ireland have emphasized sexism and sex-segregated celibacy, dismissing abundant evidence of alternative approaches throughout the sources, including in the Lives of Ireland's female saints. Sacred Sisters places these generally marginalized texts at its center, exploring their portraits of empowered, authoritative, compassionate women who exemplified an accepting and affirming ethics of gender and sexuality that would be unusual in many mainstream Christian movements in the present day, let alone in the Middle Ages.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 289-304) and index.

ISBN:

9463721509

9789463721509

OCLC:

1119587807