Throughout the history of Christianity, there have been diverse groups of women who led recognizably religious lives outside of traditional monastic structures. The Middle Ages saw a particular abundance of these forms of non-cloistered life. Despite their great numbers, these women were often met with suspicion, marginalization, and opposition by ecclesiastical figures of authority who considered aspects of their lives to be mutually exclusive, defining the religious and lay realms in complete contrast to each other. While we might have expected modern scholars to transcend these strict categories imposed by medieval clerics, it remains the case that non-cloistered religious women receive inadequate treatment in the scholarly literature despite the fascinating insights they offer in the areas of religious, social, cultural, economic, intellectual, legal, and material history. This is at least in part due to a historiographical tradition that imposes a monastic model on female religious life—the “good” religious woman was the cloistered nun. It is now time, however, to give these non-cloistered women their proper place in the historical record.

This session aims to fill this gap by drawing attention to the numerous forms of medieval female religious life and highlighting a few in particular. In featuring different kinds of non-cloistered women in different regions, it will display the great diversity found among these women while recalling their basic similarities. Moreover, the broad thematic range of the session will reflect the great variety of activities, lifestyles, and networks of non-cloistered religious women in the Middle Ages.

Katherine Clark Walter’s paper will focus on widows who remained chaste after the deaths of their husbands and will show the importance of these non-cloistered religious women in art and text in Germany and the Low Countries. Ashley Tickle Odebiyi will showcase one particular woman, Francesca Romana, and her role in the realm of Renaissance papal politics. Emma Gabe’s paper will discuss laysisters in late medieval Germany and emphasize their spiritual and religious vocations. Meghan Lescault’s paper will concern secular canonesses in the Low Countries and will discuss their ambiguous status in canon law and their interactions with the ecclesiastical hierarchy.

Together, these papers will highlight the far-reaching influence and important presence of medieval non-cloistered women in the Middle Ages in many areas—from art to politics to religion to canon law and more—and in different geographical regions. They will also reveal the mixed reception that such women could meet with in medieval society—from welcome and approval to suspicion and distrust.