‘Make Your House like a Temple’: Gender, Space and Domestic Devotion in Medieval Florence

Catherine Lawless

doi:10.3390/rel11030120

Abstract

This article will discuss domestic devotions by framing them in terms of devotions carried out in the home, defined by its opposition to ecclesiastical, consecrated space. It will examine how women, considered the laity par excellence through their inability to ever attain sacerdotal authority, were advised spiritually by mendicant friars on how to lead a Christian life according to their status as wives, widows or virgins. It will look at the devotional literature that was widespread in mercantile homes and the devotional images designed to move the soul. This discussion will attempt to show the tensions between ecclesiastical and domestic spaces; between the clergy and the laity, and between the corporeal and spiritual worlds of late medieval devotion. It will argue that, despite clerical unease with the female and domestic space, the importance accorded to female piety by the mendicant orders at the close of the Middle Ages was such that women were entrusted with key educational roles in the family, even leading to the astonishing affirmation of them as ‘preachers’ within the borders of their households.

Highlights

In a well-known treatise, Regola del governo di cura familiare, written in 1403, the Dominican friarGiovanni Dominici advised Bartolomea degli Obizzi, widow of the exiled Antonio di Niccolò degliAlberti, on how to practice devotion within the home and raise her four children (Dominici 1860, p. 132; Baxendale 1991, p. 731)
I examine the domestic devotions of women as exemplifying those of a group that was lay in extremis; that is, unable ever to enter sacerdotal functions and spaces
As seen in the advice given by friars to women, spirituality was encouraged by looking at holy images and reading or hearing devotional texts (Paoli, pp. 17–19)

Summary

Introduction

In a well-known treatise, Regola del governo di cura familiare, written in 1403, the Dominican friar. The passage neatly illustrates the difference between the familial space, sometimes, and arguably, governed by the woman, and the ecclesiastical, governed by the male clergy In this contribution, I examine the domestic devotions of women as exemplifying those of a group that was lay in extremis; that is, unable ever to enter sacerdotal functions and spaces. Datini (c.1360–1423) wife of the famous merchant of Prato, Francesco di Marco Datini Her voice is not to be discounted as an important witness of fourteenth-century life, as significant for relaying what her daily concerns were when negotiating the demands of her household and mediating between domestic life and religious requirements. Women, operating largely within a vernacular milieu, were usually responsible for the religious instruction of their children, and were seen as significant players in the late medieval piety, known as affective and penitential. As susceptible to diabolical influence, their piety had to be managed and supervised by the clergy (Bornstein 1998, pp. 82–83)

The Spaces of Devotion

Women’s Space

Devotional Texts

Devotional Images

Conclusions