| Medieval widows who adopted religious life, such as vows of chastity or living in a nunnery, are often recorded by name in the Province of York during the late Middle Ages. Widow's roles in the medieval church were based upon scriptural statements and this study traces the development of ideas about widows and religious life from early Christianity through the high Middle Ages. The forms of official religious life available for widows were relatively static in theory by the late Middle Ages. In practical terms, women's ability to take advantage of these options was affected by the location and the economic and social status of individuals. In England, religious vocations for widows were limited to entrance into a nunnery, service as a sister in a hospital, enclosure as an anchoress and the assumption of perpetual chastity as a vowess. Though these options were available in England throughout the Middle Ages, the names of women are not recorded in significant numbers until the fourteenth century. The parameters of these vocational options and the individual women who can be identified as adopting life-long, ecclesiastically supervised forms of religious observance during the late Middle Ages in northern England are analyzed. A wide variety of sources, including wills, episcopal records, family histories, legal documents and collections of letters, provides an understanding of the life histories of individuals adopting religious vocations. These are analyzed cumulatively to evaluate trends in this phenomenon. This project examines widows from the perspective of ecclesiastical history, examining issues of recording, lay education, and women's position in the church structure, and of social history, discussing the relationship of widow's vows to topics such as marriage, motherhood, household structure and participation in the community. |
