Catholic Women and Religious Life in an Early Modern Lithuanian Town: The Case of Kaunas

Abstract

Multicultural, multi-ethnic, and multi-religious Kaunas was one of the biggest towns of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. In Early Modern period, various religious communities such as the Catholic, the Orthodox, the Lutheran and the Jewish coexisted in this town. Relations between the different groups of society were regulated by the Lithuanian Statutes which underwent three redactions in 1529, 1566, and 1588. The last redaction operated till 1842. The Magdeburg law was also adopted in Lithuanian towns. Although the role of women in Lithuanian towns of the sixteenth century determined by the legislation traditions has been investigated, the role of the Catholic women in the religious and social life of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania has not been researched so far.The aim of this article is to describe the three ways in which Kaunas’ Catholic women realized themselves in the religious and social life of the town. In the masculinized society of the Early Modern epoch, the women of Kaunas acted as founders of Catholic churches, convents and altars, as pious women who took care of the veneration of supposedly miraculous images, and as nuns. There were two nunneries in the town – the Bernardine and the Benedictine. Although living under the conditions of strict religious enclosure, Kaunas nuns participated in the judicial processes, defended their material issues, supported other Catholics women in their difficult life situations, and contributed to strengthening the position of the Catholic Church in Kaunas. These examples highlight the previously unnoticed deeds of the Kaunas women and emphasize their role in the Early Modern society outside the private lives.