Sherri Franks Johnson explores the roles of religious women in the changing ecclesiastical and civic structure of late medieval Bologna, demonstrating how convents negotiated a place in their urban context and in the church at large. During this period Bologna was the most important city in the Papal States after Rome. Using archival records from nunneries in the city, Johnson argues that communities of religious women varied in the extent to which they sought official recognition from the male authorities of religious orders. While some nunneries felt that it was important to their religious life to gain recognition from monks and friars, others were content to remain local and autonomous. In a period often described as an era of decline and the marginalization of religious women, Johnson shows instead that they saw themselves as active participants in their religious orders, in the wider church and in their local communities.

‘Sherri Franks Johnson's extraordinary picture of women's religious communities in Bologna is based on a painstaking study of archival sources. Her analysis of more than thirty such communities of monastic women in the later Middle Ages contradicts what was until recently a dismal assessment of women's monastic lives after the Gregorian Reform, but also sheds new light on the mendicant orders.'

Constance H. Berman - University of Iowa

'Sherri Franks Johnson’s book provides us with a lucid trajectory into the complex dynamics of conventual life in late medieval Bologna, defining the place of local female religious communities within their orders and the church … undoubtedly a significant contribution to our understanding of the historical place of religious women in late medieval Italy, portraying them as engaged participants in the spiritual development of their orders, civic communities, and of the church at large.'

Giancarla Periti Source: Speculum