11. Preaching the Observant Reform in Female Communities Related to the Devotio moderna

Patricia Stoop

doi:10.54195/XFRB6134

11. Preaching the Observant Reform in Female Communities Related to the Devotio moderna

Authors

Patricia Stoop

University of Antwerp

DOI: https://doi.org/10.54195/XFRB6134_CH11

Synopsis

This chapter investigates surviving sermon collections once kept in female houses connected to the Devotio moderna movement. This makes it possible to draw conclusions about the preachers (both spiritual guides attached to these communities and outside preachers invited to preach there), about the role of the women pertaining to these religious houses in the codification of the sermons, and more in general about the ways in which Observant reformers and their sermons (in particular Middle Dutch sermons that can be traced back to Observant Friars Minor) circulated in the Low Countries at large.

Author Biography

Patricia Stoop, University of Antwerp

Patricia Stoop teaches premodern Dutch Literature in the Department of Literature at the University of Antwerp, Belgium. Her strongly interdisciplinary research focuses on women’s participation in the intellectual, religious, cultural and literary field of the Middle Ages and the Early Modern period. Central themes in her work are (collective) authorship, literacy, authority and autonomy of women. In addition, she focuses on subjects such as the construction of book collections and (literary and intellectual) networks, memoria (both in the sense of memory techniques and the remembrance of persons), commercial book production, and sermon studies.