In the protocol from a 1534 visitation of the convent in Cronschwitz, rather than providing transcripts of responses given by the nuns, visitors opted simply to list whether the nuns wore their habits to the interview or not. A nun's choice to retain her traditional garb or to strip the veil in favor of secular clothing had come to be read as an indication of her general receptiveness to the reform movement. Yet, as Plummer convincingly argues in her close study of female monasticism in sixteenth-century Germany, changing habit did not necessarily or unequivocally translate into changing devotional habits or confessional affiliation. Rather, women's varied responses to the pressure of religious reform display a marked ability and willingness to adapt, accommodate, and blend practices. Convent reform did happen, Plummer asserts—but not in the way expected by theologians, secular officials, or even the nuns themselves (11).
Despite initial violent attacks on monasticism by Reformers, convents remained in operation long past what may have been expected in the early days of the Reformation, as many nuns proved inclined and able to defend their rights to a communal life. Challenging a perceived equation of evangelical reform with the end of monasticism, this study explores why and how convents survived, why evangelical women remained in convents, and how nuns of different confessions managed to live and worship together. In a nutshell, Plummer's thesis is that “the continued presence of nuns is evidence of a more complex lived experience of religious reform than has been assumed and described” (15). Nuns did not passively accept redefinitions of the purpose of their convents or the forms of devotion practiced, nor were nuns’ reactions to religious reform uniform or necessarily in keeping with standard confessional designations. Positing convent congregations as Catholic, Lutheran, or biconfessional does not adequately capture or account for the complexity of women's varied devotional practices and uses of space and sacred objects. Nuns’ active and strategic responses to demands for changes to their way of life forged different resolutions than imagined. This in turn requires adapting alternate terms and conceptual models for discussing the forms of female monasticism that evolved. Plummer offers a concept of hybridity to talk about the adaptable spectrum of practices that emerged as congregations crafted their own resolutions to pressures for reform.
Examining female religious institutions under secular jurisdiction in the German-speaking parts of the Holy Roman Empire, the study proceeds chronologically from around 1520 to the end of the century. Each chapter thematically explores specific issues related to contests and conflicts over religious reform and jurisdiction during the various phases of the reform movement. Drawing on a wide array of printed sources and archival records produced by all participants in the process, Plummer's ability to hone in on nuns’ active responses to the shifting dynamics of confessionalization is compelling. Providing examples of how nuns’ and congregations’ deliberate blending and accommodation of devotional practices could enable them to shape their individual or communal life, the notion of hybridity offers a way to recover female agency. The practice of blending devotional practices could allow nuns to comply with demands without fully adopting their intended meaning as mandated by authorities. Rather than a transitional phenomenon, these new permutations of devotional life proved an enduring and viable way for women to continue to live in religious communities.
Plummer's central thesis about hybridity as one explanation for the survival of convents achieves particular clarity in sections that explore the complexities of female monastic life as a lived and embodied experience. Notably, her discussion of the choir as a spatially private female sphere where congregations could craft resolutions on how to share space and make communal worship possible despite confessional difference adds nuance and vibrancy to the analysis. Augmented by considerations of material culture and sacred objects, this section might fruitfully have been expanded by entering into dialogue with recent scholarship on early modern female convent culture. Adding breadth in geographic and confessional scope, Stripping the Veil is a welcome contribution to a growing body of studies that expand understanding of the multifaceted ways in which nuns’ interactions with the outside world contributed to their crafting of devotional practices, spaces, and identities.
