With the rising importance of intentionality in determining a person's spiritual profile in the high Middle Ages, the title of bride could be applied and appropriated to laywomen who were nonvirgins as well. Such instances of democratization coincided with the rise of bridal mys…
Following a long trajectory from late antiquity to the High Middle Ages, Dyan Elliott offers a provocative analysis of the changing religious, emotional, and sexual meanings of the metaphor of the sponsa Christi and of the increasing anxiety surrounding the somatization of femal…
Following a long trajectory from Late Antiquity to the High Middle Ages, Dyan Elliott offers a provocative analysis of the changing religious, emotional, and sexual meanings of the metaphor of the sponsa Christi and of the increasing anxiety surrounding the somatization of femal…
In the fourth century, clerics began to distinguish themselves from members of the laity by virtue of their augmented claims to holiness. Because clerical celibacy was key to this distinction, religious authorities of all stripes - patristic authors, popes, theologians, canonist…