Patterns of Piety

Download or read book Patterns of Piety written by Christine Peters and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2003-05-15 with total page 418 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book offers a new interpretation of the transition from Catholicism to Protestantism in the English Reformation, and explores its implications for an understanding of women and gender. It argues that late medieval Christocentric piety shaped the nature of the Reformation, and reasseses assumptions that the 'loss' of the Virgin Mary and the saints was detrimental to women. In defining the representative frail Christian as a woman devoted to Christ, the Reformation could not be an alien environment for women, while the Christocentric tradition encouraged the questioning of gender stereotypes.