Dominican Penitent Women

Description

Dominican Penitent Women [which "could have been named Catherine of Siena within Her Context ", ref:5.2] presents a fascinating overview of the spirituality, religious practices, and ways of life of medieval Italian women who belonged to the Dominican Order as lay members or penitents. Through selected texts, readers gain a fresh perspective on the institutional and spiritual foundations of Dominican lay life, but also an understanding of how these women refashioned Dominican ideals into practices that best responded to their individual and social means. Their way of life created an important alternative for women who sought religious perfection in the world. The first section consists of two penitent rules: the Ordinationes of Munio from the late 13th century and the formal penitent rule of the early 15th century, which show how penitents were to organize and live their lives. The second section is dedicated to hagiographic sources. The third section is made up of penitent women's religious writing. The texts translated here present an overview of Dominican women's literary production that complements the writings of Catherine of Siena, already available in English. While Dominican penitent women held an important position in medieval piety, aside from Catherine of Siena, their spirituality has not attracted much scholarly attention. As the first comprehensive introduction to medieval Dominican laywomen and Dominican penitent spirituality in English, this book makes a significant scholarly and spiritual contribution. +

The penitent way of life
Munio of Zamora: The Ordinationes (1286 [ref:8.2]) [≠ Dominican Third Order rule approved in 1405, though Dominicans claim it was, ∵ around this time (1289) the Franciscan pope Nicholas IV (ref:6.19) approved the Franciscan Third Order rule]
The Dominican Penitent Rule [of Thomas “Caffarini” of Siena, 1405]

Penitent women as subjects
The Legend of Giovanna of Orvieto
The Miracoliof Catherine of Siena
Thomas [“Caffarini”] of Siena [the promoter of St. Catherine's canonization]: The Legend of Maria of Venice / introduced and translated by Daniel E. Bornstein
Thomas [“Caffarini”] of Siena : the Libellus concerning Catherine of Siena (part one)
Stefana Quinzani's Ecstasy of the Passion

Penitent women as authors
Osanna of Mantua : letters to Francesco Gonzaga -- (a selection)
Lucia Brocadelli : Seven Revelations [Ital. orig.] / introduced and translated by E. Ann Matter.

The introduction (ref:6.1-71) is a good overview of the history of the Dominican Order of Penitents; although initially mostly women ("beguines"), the "beghards" (male counterpart) were prominent in Venice and involved in the 1405 pope-approved Rule; cf.

• Lehmijoki-Gardner, Maiju. “Writing Religious Rules as an Interactive Process: Dominican Penitent Women and the Making of Their Regula.” Speculum 79, no. 3 (July 2004): 660–87. DOI: 10.2307/20462977.

Reinmann's canon law dissertation The Third Order of Secular of St. Francis.

Appendix Medieval Dominican Penitent beatæ in Italy (ref:19.1-19.77) is a short, female-only version of the history of the Dominican Third Order
(Fr. Augustine Thompson, O.P., is writing an history up to 1400 of Dominican tertiaries.)

Bl. Maria of Venice, T.O.P. (ref:13.60):

when she was able to speak with me and hear the word of God after her sacramental confession or on some other occasion apart from the sermon, she received such refreshment and joy from it that even though she was physically worn and wasting away as a result of her fasting and other austerities, nonetheless she grew fat on it mentally—and even physically became all full, festive, and rosy, as if she had recently or just then risen from great bodily banquets and solemn wedding feasts.

Of restriction on food and of on other corporeal penances, necessary to free the soul from unruly passions, Saint Paul says this, contrasting it with “pietas:”

“Nam corporalis exercitatio, ad modicum utilis est : pietas autem ad omnia utilis est…” (1 Tim 4:8)

Spiritual reading and contemplation belong to pietas , and thus cannot be abstained from profitably (utilis). It is accordingly much more difficult to be deprived of them than to deal with the deprivation of corporal food, to concur with your remark. A day without contemplation, however unelevated my own daily exercise undoubtedly is, generates the worst possible sense of loss (as far as the overall day goes, no matter what else might have taken place in it).

ref:20.507 on how the Holy Ghost is the Charity between the Father and the Son (∵ charity is a unifier; cf. “Per Dóminum nostrum Jesum Christum, Fílium tuum: qui tecum vivit et regnat in unitáte Spíritus Sancti Deus, per ómnia sǽcula sæculórum. ”):

• Augustine, De trinitate, Bk. 8; and Peter Lombard, Sentences, Bk. I, dist. XVII, par. I, cap. 1 [pp. 106-8, PDF pp. 190-2] .