Within Walls

What different mechanisms did women religious use to interpret the communal and individual aspects of enclosure throughout history? To what extent was enclosure a pivotal feature of Christian spiritual, social and cultural life? How did social and political contexts shape the strategies of nuns and beatas in accepting or rejecting strict enclosure?

Within Walls explores the diverse experiences of enclosure within female Christian spiritualities, presenting it as a crucial concept for a deep understanding of the history of women religious. The volume primarily aims to show the different ways in which women religious lived, negotiated and redefined enclosure in its material and symbolic dimensions. Covering the period from the New Testament era to the late sixteenth century, and spanning regions from the Holy Land and Egypt to Western Europe and colonial Mexico, it  explores the evolving meanings and uses of the confined life as experienced and shaped by women religious in Christianity.

The case studies presented in this volume—from the strategies of seclusion of early Christian anchoresses to the plethora of voices of Mediaeval and Early Modern female communities and the authority wielded by individual nuns, pilgrims, prioresses, reformers and mystics—argue that there was by no means a single form of enclosure in female Christian religious life. Instead, inspired by Philip Sheldrake’s interpretation of sacred spaces as polyphonic, this volume stresses the multivocality and multilocality of the term. Adopting an interdisciplinary approach that integrates microhistory, human geography, the cultural analysis of materiality, literary studies, feminist and gender studies, indigenous methodologies, art studies, postcolonial anthropology and the philosophy of religion and spirituality, Within Walls provides fresh perspectives on the most intricate dimension of religious life in history.