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2 - Prayer for the Dead:

Women, Death and Salvation

from Part I - Entwined Lives and Multiple Identities

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 September 2021

Julie Barrau
Affiliation:
University of Cambridge
David Bates
Affiliation:
University of East Anglia
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Summary

This chapter highlights women’s roles in medieval death practice, arguing that women’s traditional care for the dying and dead and their social role as mourners were consistent with, and in fact fundamental to, the spiritual role of nuns as valued intercessors. As custodians of family memory, women were central to medieval remembering; however, nuns have typically been seen as marginal to the monastic practices of liturgical memoria – the ritualized prayer for the dead that is generally thought to have become the specialised work of ordained monks by the Central Middle Ages. Focusing on the commemorative and intercessory roles of women as wives and mothers, the place of women in biblical narratives of the Passion and Resurrection and the social and spiritual contributions of female monasticism, this chapter argues that women’s ties to death, as both a practical and a spiritual matter, provided nuns with a central and valued role in medieval memorial practice and intercessory prayer.

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Chapter
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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

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