131 pp. / Softcover / 2010 / ISBN 978-0-77272-057-3 / $27.95
Edited and translated by Renate Blumenfeld-Kosinski and Bruce L. Venarde.
The Great Schism (1378–1417) divided Western Christendom into two groups: those who recognized a pope in Rome and those who recognized one in Avignon. It was a crisis of authority that brought with it spiritual anxiety and political uproar. This book presents the responses of two late medieval women who refused to be passive bystanders to factions tearing Christendom apart. The rural Constance de Rabastens had dramatic visions indicting the Avignon pope Clement VII, despite his being recognized in her region. The urban Ursulina believed that Christ commanded her to engage in shuttle diplomacy between the Roman and Avignon papacies in order to end the schism. Two Women of the Great Schism translates Raymond de Sabanac’s record of Constance’s visionary experiences and Simone Zanacchi’s biography of Ursulina.
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Renate Blumenfeld-Kosinski is Professor of French at the University of Pittsburgh. Her areas of interest include literature and politics as well as religious issues in the later Middle Ages. She is the author of many articles and numerous books and translations, including The Selected Writings of Christine de Pizan (W. W. Norton, 1997) and Poets, Saints, and Visionaries of the Great Schism, 1378-1417 (Penn State Press, 2006).
Bruce L. Venarde is Professor of History and Classics at the University of Pittsburgh. His books include Women’s Monasticism and Medieval Society: Nunneries in France and England, 890-1215 and Robert of Abrissel: A Medieval Religious Life. He is currently at work on a new edition and translation of the Rule of St. Benedict.
The Catholic Historical Review, 98:1 (January 2012), p. p187. Reviewed by F. Thomas Luongo.
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131 pp. / Softcover / 2010 / ISBN 978-0-77272-057-3 / $27.95
