Who are the religious medieval women? The sidestepping of the feminine identity: from symbol to stereotype

Abstract

The question of medieval women’s identity, such as visionnaries and mystical seers, has been studied in many precious and pertinent ways. These women however remain elusive because their femininity, although it can be patently identified through a cultural masculine framework, calls to overtaking this social status, in order to put gender into news and secondary perspectives. In this paper, we aim to show how religious medieval women sidestepped our feminine identity and faded into the background beside their spiritual aspirations and writings. Their femininity shirked in order to impose itself further genders, in basing on masculine social patterns, in using topic literaries allegories and symbols of feminine theology, through stereotyped transmission of biblical doctrine.