Women and Preaching in Medieval Orthodoxy, Heresy, and Saints' Lives

Abstract

"Women and Preaching in Medieval Orthodoxy, Heresy, and Saints' Lives." Although there had been contention in the early church about women's eligibility for the preaching ministry, debate became more urgent, more elaborate, and more paradoxical during the thirteenth century. On the one hand the male prerogative over preaching was reinforced; on the other, there was renewed emphasis on everyone's responsibility to put to good use any God-given preaching talent, while hagiographic narratives developed the preaching exploits of popular female saints, notably Saint Mary Magdalene. In the universities lecturers sought to resolve such inconsistencies in the orthodox position in ways which disclose a context of revisionist challenge. That some of the paradoxes were perceived beyond academic circles is apparent from evidence in Bernard of Fontcaude's report on Waldensian views about women and preaching. Key elements of the debate reappeared later in Lollard controversy, though by a twist of irony the Lollards rejected those very legends of female saints which, within orthodoxy, so strongly substantiated the public preaching role for women which orthodoxy continued to prohibit.