Feminae: Medieval Women and Gender Index


  • Record Number: 8572
  • Author(s)/Creator(s): Schlager , Bernard.
  • Contributor(s):
  • Title: Foundresses of the Franciscan Life: Umiliana Cerchi and Margaret of Cortona [models of sanctity for lay women from the order of penitents which became the Franciscan Third Order].
  • Source: Viator 29, ( 1998): Pages 141 - 166.
  • Description:
  • Article Type: Journal Article
  • Subject (See Also): Franciscan Order Hagiography Lay Piety Margaret of Cortona, Franciscan Penitent and Saint Orthodoxy Penitents Umiliata dei Cerchi, Penitent and Saint Women in Religion
  • Award Note:
  • Geographic Area: Italy
  • Century: 13
  • Primary Evidence:
  • Illustrations:
  • Table:
  • Abstract: This article examines the earliest vitae of Blessed Umiliana of Cerchi (1219-1246) and Saint Margaret of Cortona (1247-1297), two Franciscan penitents from Tuscany. In an era when many Friars Minor resisted any official relationship between themselves and lay penitents, the authors of these vitae argued that such penitents might be legitimately incorporated into a lay branch of the Franciscan order. Both women were offered by their hagiographers, therefore, not only as models of the penitential life and examples of a new form of feminine sanctity, but as foundresses and patronesses of the Franciscan Third Order. [Reproduced from the journal website: http://brepols.metapress.com/content/121213/?p=afdbc79947a4444b9739ff05942fde63&pi=0]
  • Related Resources:
  • Author's Affiliation: University of New Hampshire
  • Conference Info: - , -
  • Year of Publication: 1998.
  • Language: English
  • ISSN/ISBN: 00835897