Institutionalizing Penitential Life in Later Medieval and Early Modern Europe: Third Orders, Rules, and Canonical Legitimacy

Abstract

In the early thirteenth century, informal communities of pious lay women in urban areas of Northern Europe came to the attention of the Church. These women lived in their own homes or small communities, and played a prominent role in secular society. However, these women soon found themselves both the subject of controversy, and increasingly steered toward a monastic model. Attempts were made to create and institutionalize a “middling” status. These primarily took the form of the creation of “third orders” or “tertiary groups” attached to official religious orders. Using the example of the so-called Franciscan third order, this article explores the evolution and institutionalization of penitential life from the thirteenth through sixteenth centuries. It both traces the evolution of the fictive Franciscan penitential order, and places it in its wider context. In so doing, it explores the norms and controversies associated with this way of life in later medieval and early modern religious culture.