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Carolyn Goodman Plampin http://home.netcom.com/~cplampin
Series-Subjects Relevant to an Informed Opinion about Christian Women in Ministry
MEDIEVAL CHURCH
First created in January, 1996, Revised January 10, 2007
Baptist Women in Ministry http://www.bwim.info/index.php/welcome
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Carolyn Goodman Plampin
Coordinator Subjects Relevant to an Informed Opinion
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(408) 734-5141
Master of Teaching, Universidade Federal do Paraná, Brazil, March 20, 1968
Master of Divinity, Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary, June 2, 1978
Missionary to Brazil of the International Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention, 1957-1988
Academic dean (without title) and professor, Instituto Biblico Batista, A.B. Deter
and Seminário Teológico Batista do Paraná, Curitiba, 1959-1979
Academic dean and professor, Seminário de Educacao Crista, Recife, 1980-1986
e-mail: cplampin@ix.netcom.com
CONTENTS
GENERAL BIBLIOGRAPHY
MONASTICISM
THOMAS AQUINAS, 1225-1274 A.D.
THE RENAISSANCE, 14TH TO 16TH CENTURIES
"THE MYTH OF SOULLESS WOMEN"
THE GREAT CHAIN OF BEING
THE INQUISITION (WITCH HUNTING), 13th-18th CENTURIES
THE REFORMATION, 16th CENTURY
THE COUNCIL OF TRENT, LAST SESSION, DECEMBER 25, 1563
GENERAL BIBLIOGRAPHY
CHRISTIAN HISTORY, Vol. X, No. 2, Issue 30. This issue is on women in the medieval church.
McLaughlin, Eleanor Commo. "Equality of Souls, Inequality of Sexes: Woman in Medieval Theology," in Ruether, Rosemary Radford, ed. RELIGION AND SEXISM, IMAGES OF WOMAN IN THE JEWISH AND CHRISTIAN TRADITIONS. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1974, pp. 213-266.
MONASTICISM
When monasticism became the ideal, that slowly the ordained orders for women in the church were terminated. Only the abbess and possibly one or two members in administration in the monastery would have been ordained as deaconesses. The removal of ordained women from the churches to a distance away took place in the twelfth century when celibacy for the priesthood became enforced (p. 15). They did not go willingly.In Germany: Three reforms were imposed on the Institute of Saint Mary's Uberwasser, Munster, Westphalia, in A.D. 1130, 1484 and finally 1617. The repeated attempts to reform the Canoness Institute by imposing the Benedictine Rule fully with strict enclosure caused the break-up of the Institute (pp. 64-68).
The women's abbeys, in the same way as the men's abbeys, depended on the revenues of large territories. Abbesses received tithes and taxes from their territories. These included villages and towns, arable land and rural districts. Abbesses were in charge of church courts and civil courts. The right of abbesses to this form of jurisdiction was not questioned until about the time of the Council of Trent (A.D. 1545-1563) (p. 17). The effect of the exemptions (of paying tithes to the bishop and taxes to the king) was to give the abbesses as well as the abbots a position of quasi-episcopal jurisdiction; that is, they had the same duties and rights to act within their separated territories ... as had a bishop within his diocese. The right of jurisdiction was quite independent of the power of the priesthood (p. 20). In Italy: The nuns of Saint Benedict in Conversano, Apulia, had to defend themselves against bishops who wanted to take them over in A.D. 1272, 1630, 1659, 1693, and 1748 (pp. 72-75). "By 1810, by order of Napoleon, bishops were elected and told to take their sees without canonical investiture. When Pope Pius VII protested, he was taken prisoner and kept in Fontainebleau. ... By this time all religious orders were under the diocesan rule with bishops of Napoleon's choosing" (p. 81). In Spain: "The last abbess to hold this position was the Abbess Bernarda Ruiz Puente of Las Huelgas of Burgos, Spain, whose right of jurisdiction was abolished in 1874" (p. 20). "All institutes were to be put under the jurisdiction of the bishop of the diocese in which the houses were situated; this corresponds to the main point of the Concordat arranged between Pius VII and Napoleon, and which was still in force." (p. 97)
(Morris, THE LADY WAS A BISHOP).
So it was a political and not a church decision that put women out of leadership.
Bibliography on Monasticism
Eckenstein, Lina. WOMAN UNDER MONASTICISM. New York: Russell and Russell, 1963.
Morris, Joan. THE LADY WAS A BISHOP, THE HIDDEN HISTORY OF WOMEN WITH CLERICAL ORDINATION AND THE JURISDICTION OF BISHOPS. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1973.
THOMAS AQUINAS, 1225-1274 A.D.
In the thirteenth century Aristotle's position as the Philosopher was undisputed except to those theologians whose point of view had been shaped by their loyalty to Augustine. Albert the Great devotes a great part of his work to Aristotle and he was followed in this by Thomas, who made commentaries on texts that had been translated directly from the Greek. His purpose was to incorporate Aristotelian ideas into his philosophical-theological system, and this entailed a certain manipulation of pagan theories in order to make them fit the views expressed in the Bible.Bibliography on Thomas Aquinas Clark, Elizabeth and Herbert Richardson. "Thomas Aquinas: The Man Who Should Have Known Better, Selections from the Summa Theologica," in WOMEN AND RELIGION, A FEMINIST SOURCEBOOK OF CHRISTIAN THOUGHT. New York: Harper and Row, Publishers, 1977, pp. 78-101. Borresen, Kari Elisabeth. SUBORDINATION AND EQUIVALENCE, THE NATURE AND ROLE OF WOMAN IN AUGUSTINE AND THOMAS AQUINAS. Text and citations translated from the revised French original by Charles H. Talbot. Washington, D.C.: University Press of America, 1981.These two authorities, Augustine and Aristotle, face one another particularly in those passages which relate to the nature and function of woman. The interpretation given to the account of creation and the fall, whilst remaining within the framework erected by Augustine, is influenced by the anthropological ideas of Aristotle. The problem central to this study is not approached by Thomas in the same way as it is by Augustine. In contrast to Augustine, for whom the presence of woman was so important before his conversion that it almost took the place of God, there was no woman in the life of Thomas. Any passage which deals with the subject is treated in its general context, like the treatise on creation, the doctrine of original sin, the explanation of the sacraments. Thus, Thomas has no original views on the condition of woman, and his arguments taken from the physiology of Aristotle have already found a place in the writings of Albert the Great. pp. 144-145 (Borresen, SUBORDINATION AND EQUIVALENCE, THE NATURE AND ROLE OF WOMAN IN AUGUSTINE AND THOMAS AQUINAS.)
THE RENAISSANCE, 14TH TO 16TH CENTURIES
In the 14th century the Italian poet and writer put forward the idea that since the fall of the Roman Empire, Italy had been in the Dark Ages, a period of decline and ignorance. If man could return to the styles and ideas of the Roman Empire there would be a new age of glory (READER'S DIGEST ILLUSTRATED ENCYCLOPEDIC DICTIONARY, Vol. 2. Pleasantville: Reader's Digest Association, 1987.) It was the return to a pagan Greco-Roman culture that brought about a return to a low evaluation of women. By the sixteenth century the opinion of Aristotle vied with that of Christ. It was only at this time that monks began to think they could not be in obedience to a woman. Leadership took on the pagan character of patriarchal domination instead of the Christian ideal of humble service. Women were turned out of professions and trades, and they were turned out of the service of the Church, pp. 100-101.
(Morris, THE LADY WAS A BISHOP, find under Monasticism.)
Bibliography on the Renaissance
Cannon, Mary Agnes. THE EDUCATION OF WOMEN DURING THE RENAISSANCE. Washington, DC: National Capitol Press, Inc., 1916.
"THE MYTH OF SOULLESS WOMEN"
The Second Council of Macon (585), however, says again in the fourth canon:
Every Sunday the faithful, men and women, must offer bread and wine at the altar.(31)Bibliography on the Myth of Soulless WomenThis is the same council at which, according to Gregory of Tours, a bishop appears to have said that a woman could not be designated as a human. For an estimate of this story -- which was later often rejected -- one can compare Hefele-Leclercq on the passage. It is not, in any case, possible to find a trace of this incident in the canons. And the interpretation of that bishop's expression is too disputed to be able to conclude from it that he or many others of that time had doubted that a woman is a human being. Perhaps -- but we have no proof for this -- it is an echo of the assertions of Pseudo-Augustine and of Ambrosiaster (cf. above in chapter III) that a woman is not "an image of God." (WOMEN PRIESTS IN THE CATHOLIC CHURCH? Haye van der Meer, Temple University Press, Philadelphia, 1973, pp. 90-105, http://www.womenpriests.org/classic2/meer04.asp.
It was still contended that the women of newly discovered America belonged to the brute creation, possessing neither souls nor reason. As late as the end of the sixteenth century an anonymous work appeared, arguing that women were no part of mankind, but a species of intermediate animal between the human and the brute creation. (Mulieres non est homines, etc.) Medieval christian writings show many discussions upon this point, the influence of these old assertions still manifesting themselves.
Until the time of Peter the Great, women were not recognized as human beings in that great division of Christendom known as the Greek church, the census of that empire counting only males, or so many 'souls' -- no woman named. Traces of this old belief have not been found wanting in our own country within the century. As late as the Woman's Rights Convention in Philadelphia, 1854, an objector in the audience cried out: 'Let women first prove they have souls; both the Church and the State deny it.' pp. 26-27. (Gage, WOMAN, CHURCH & STATE)
Gage, Matilda Joslyn. WOMAN, CHURCH & STATE, THE ORIGINAL EXPOSÉ OF MALE COLLABORATION AGAINST THE FEMALE SEX. Watertown, MA: PersephonePress, 1980, reprint of 1893.
Noland, Michael. "OPINION, THE MYTH OF SOULLESS WOMEN": http://www.firstthings.com/ftissues/ft9704/nolan.html.
Marshall, Molly T. WHAT IT MEANS TO BE HUMAN. Macon, GA: Smyth & Helwys Publishing, 1995.
Masseym, Marilyn Chapin. FEMININE SOUL: THE FATE OF AN IDEA. Boston: Beacon Press, 1985.
Mystic Rose, "THE ALLEGED 'SOULLESS WOMEN' DOCTRINE". http://home.nyc.rr.com/mysticalrose/object.html
van der Meer, Have. WOMEN PRIESTS IN THE CATHOLIC CHURCH? Temple University Press, Philadelphia, 1973, pp. 90-105, http://www.womenpriests.org/classic2/meer04.asp.
THE GREAT CHAIN OF BEING
The Great Chain of Being is a "hierarchical conception of the universe" in which "the cosmic order was likened to a great chain stretching from heaven to earth, teeming with every possible type of created being -- from orders of angels down to the most minute particle of matter ... By the Middle Ages and into the Renaissance period, this vision of the world was taken for granted. ... The idea fitted well, too, with keeping women in a subordinate place since a woman's position on the 'scale of nature' was considered lower than a man's," pp. 14-18.
Scanzoni, "The Great Chain of Being and the Chain of Command," THE REFORMED JOURNAL.
Bibliography on the Great Chain of Being
Dubois, Page. CENTAURS AND WOMEN: WOMEN AND THE PRE-HISTORY OF THE GREAT CHAIN OF BEING. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1982.
Lewis, C.S. "Hierarchy" (great chain of being and chain of command), in PREFACE TO PARADISE LOST. London: Oxford University Press, 1944, c1942.
Lovejoy, Arthur Oncken. THE GREAT CHAIN OF BEING: A STUDY OF THE HISTORY OF AN IDEA. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1936.
Malcolm, Kari Torjensen. "Shaky Foundations: The Three-Layered Wedding Cake" (Chain of Command), THE REFORMED JOURNAL, June 1978, pp. 22-26.
Patrides, C. A. MILTON AND THE CHRISTIAN TRADITION. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1966.
Pope, Alexander. ESSAY ON MAN, THE VAST CHAIN OF BEING. London: Metuchen: New Haven: Yale University Press, n.d.
Scanzoni, Letha. "The Great Chain of Being and the Chain of Command," THE REFORMED JOURNAL, October 1976, pp. 14-18.
The Great Chain of Being: a powerful visual metaphor for a divinely inspired universal hierarchy ranking all forms of higher and lower life; humans are represented by the male alone. From Didacus Valades, Rhetorica Christiana (1579). Reproduced here from Anthony Fletcher's Gender, Sex, & Subordination. http://www.stanford.edu/class/engl174b/chain.html
The Great Chain of Being, Peter Suber. Scroll down to Great Chain of Being in 17th and 18th century Philosophy. http://www.kheper.net/topics/greatchainofbeing/
Tillyard, E. M. W. THE ELIZABETHAN WORLD PICTURE (THE GREAT CHAIN OF BEING). London: Chatto and Windus, 1943.
THE INQUISITION (WITCH HUNTING), 13th-18th CENTURIES
"The ratio of women to men accused of witchcraft ranged anywhere from 20-1 to 100-1. In some cases, almost the entire female population of a village was killed. For example, Trevor-Roper reports that 'in twenty-two villages 368 witches were burnt between 1587 and 1593, and two villages, in 1585, were left with only one female inhabitant apiece.' ... It is hard for us to imagine the immensity of the victimization. Estimates range from a low of 50,000 deaths to a high of over a million. ... The persecution of witches began in the thirteenth century and continued for 500 years, being waged with special ferocity between 1500 and 1700."Bibliographjy on the Inquisition (Witch Hunting) Clark, Elizabeth and Herbert Richardson. "The Malleus Maleficarum: The Woman as Witch," in WOMEN AND RELIGION, A FEMINIST SOURCEBOOK OF CHRISTIAN THOUGHT. New York: Harper and Row, Publishers, 1977.
So says Clark and Richardson, pp.116-130.
Daly, Mary. "European Witchburnings: Purifying the Body of Christ," in GYN/ECOLOGY, THE METAETHICS OF RADICAL FEMINISM. Boston: Beacon Press, 1978, pp. 178-222.
Dworkin, Andrea. "Gynocide: The Witches," in WOMAN HATING. New York: E.P. Dutton, c1974, pp. 118-150.
Gage, Matilda Joslyn. "Witchcraft," in WOMAN, CHURCH AND STATE, THE ORIGINAL EXPOSE OF MALE COLLABORATION AGAINST THE FEMALE SEX. Watertown, MA: Persephone Press, 1980. Reprint of 1893, pp. 94-128.
Gibbons, Jenny. "Recent Developments in the Study of The Great European Witch Hunt." http://www.cog.org/witch_hunt.html
The Malleus Maleficarum. http://www.malleusmaleficarum.org/mmtoc.html
"The Secret History of the Witches". http://www.suppressedhistories.net/articles/articles.html
THE REFORMATION, 16th CENTURY
The Reformation returned to a Hebrew and Old Testament evaluation of women, which allowed her a position in the home but in subservience to her husband. It was John Knox who, in his subversive pamphlet 'The First Blast of the Trumpet, against the Monstrous Regiment of Women,' revived the idea that women had no right to rule over men. This was quite contrary to the idea of the Middle Ages as seen at the Foundation of Fontevrault. There the idea of the vow of obedience taken by clergy and monks, besides the nuns, to the abbess was considered a highly commendable act. It did not occur to the clergy or monks that it was below them to take a vow to a woman until well into the fifteenth century.Bibliography on the Reformation Clark, Elizabeth and Herbert Richardson. WOMEN AND RELIGION, A FEMINIST SOURCEBOOK OF CHRISTIAN THOUGHT. New York: Harper and Row, 1977.It was not until the sixteenth century that the priests and monks definitely planned independence of the abbess. In the lawsuit brought up by the monks against the nuns, they repeated John Knox's phrase that it was against nature and against God for a man to be in obedience to a woman. The judges, however, confirmed the authority of the abbess as it was an age-long practice. ... Authority, according to Christian doctrine, did not permit one person to dominate another, but entailed service -- humble service. All this was forgotten and changed by the return of Greco-Roman and Hebrew ideas of male predominance,
so says Morris in THE LADY WAS A BISHOP, p. 101.
Douglass, Jane Dempsey, "Women and the Continental Reformation," in Ruether, Rosemary Radford, ed. RELIGION AND SEXISM, IMAGES OF WOMAN IN THE JEWISH AND CHRISTIAN TRADITIONS. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1974, pp. 292-318.
Huber, Elaine C."'A Woman Must Not Speak': Quaker Women in the English Left Wing," in Ruether, Rosemary and Eleanor McLaughlin, eds. WOMEN OF SPIRIT, FEMALE LEADERSHIP IN THE JEWISH AND CHRISTIAN TRADITIONS. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1979, pp. 153-181.
Liebowitz, Ruth P. "Virgins in the Service of Christ: The Dispute over an Active Apostolate for Women during the Counter-Reformation," in Ruether, Rosemary and Eleanor McLaughlin, eds. WOMEN OF SPIRIT, FEMALE LEADERSHIP IN THE JEWISH AND CHRISTIAN TRADITIONS. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1979, pp. 131-152.
THE COUNCIL OF TRENT, LAST SESSION, DECEMBER 25, 1563
By the time of the Council of Trent, the new attitude toward women, due to the Renaissance and the Reformation, had affected all society, including Church authorities. At the last session of the Council of Trent, December 25, 1563, decisions were made regarding the reformation of religious orders. Strict enclosure was enforced on women's orders. No nun was allowed out of the convent grounds without the approval of the bishop. This rule was to apply to exempt orders, so overriding the jurisdiction of the quasi-episcopal abbesses,"The minutes of this council were for a long time kept secret.
so says Morris, pp. 101-102.
Bibliography on The Council of Trent
Morris, Joan. "Appendix VIII, The Effect of the Council of Trent on the Status of Women," in THE LADY WAS A BISHOP, HIDDEN HISTORY OF WOMEN WITH CLERICAL ORDINATION AND THE JURISDICTION OF BISHOPS. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1973, pp. 150-158.
