Standing Committee on Medieval Studies
Harvard University

In a 2014 article appearing in the Harvard Gazette, Professor Kienzle acknowledges the role of the Houghton Library. Click here to read entire article and get a look at a digitized image of a medieval scroll. “Kienzle made clear the [importance of the] contributions of Houghton staff. We can’t emphasize how much the library did in making this available so the students could do what they did.” The digitized scrolls are available through the Harvard Library’s page delivery service.

“Digital is helping more people have an experience of the material culture of the Middle Ages, Kienzle added. It’s fantastic.'”(Article by Beth Giudicessi)

Specialists in medieval sermon studies talk shop at Harvard (2012)

The conference presented above was held in honor of Professor Beverly Mayne Kienzle.

In a Harvard Gazette article published September 27, 2012, staff writer Corydon Ireland reports on the above conference on the sermons, art, and music of medieval and early modern Europe. You can learn more about Professor Kienzle’s participation at this momentous conference by clicking here.

Basile assisting Professor Kienzle with her work in palaeography.

Religious Studies

Saintly Women: Medieval Saints, Modern Women, and Intimate Partner Violence
by Nancy E. Nienhuis and Beverly Mayne Kienzle
New York: Routledge, 2018.
xv + 197 pp. $155.00 (hb); $27.48 (ebook)

“Violence against women occurs in all religious traditions” (p. 38). The focus of this brilliant and challenging book by Nancy E. Nienhuis and Beverly Mayne Kienzle is the exploration of the interconnections between intimate partner violence (IPV) and the ways religious traditions reinforce abuse against women and make it difficult for women to escape violence. Most of the cited narratives are from the Christian tradition, although the authors also include Jewish and
Muslim perspectives, and analyze the narratives Book Reviews 749 from a multiplicity of perspectives, including theology, history, psychology, psychiatry, medicine, and literature, to investigate the deeply inscribed attitudes toward intimate partner violence across traditions.

Through comparative study of both historical (especially medieval) and contemporary religious narratives, the authors demonstrate how religious leaders have used sacred texts to justify the need for women to endure relationships under the guise of obedience and family stability. “Historical and contemporary narratives reveal striking similarities in religious arguments that praise the suffering obedience of the victim and minimize the culpability of the batterer” (p. 4).

In addition to identifying how religious traditions reinforce intimate partner violence, most commonly against women, Saintly Women also addresses positive religious sources of resistance to abuse. Just as religious traditions are a source of women’s oppression, they also are a source of resistance and empowerment. “With a feminist critical analysis of history, it deconstructs male-centric institutions, norms, and binaries, and fosters narratives of individual empowerment and mutual equality, with which wo/men represent their own experiences, work together for justice, and know themselves to be created in the image of that which is most divine and holy” (p. 163).

An introduction adroitly establishes the books major theological themes related to intimate partner violence, as well as narratives of holiness and suffering from the fourth through the twenty-first centuries. Nienhuis and Kienzle unfold their thesis through five additional chapters and a conclusion. Chapter 1, “What Is Domestic Violence?,” defines the pervasive nature of intimate partner violence in religion: “As long as interpretations of sacred texts reinforce male privilege and power and remain uninterrogated and unchallenged, clergy in all traditions will continue to enforce sexist norms in their advice to abused women while believing they are following the will of God” (p. 49). Chapter 2, “Analysis of Narrative and Reading Strategies,” sets the stage for the following chapters by detailing the authors’ theoretical method, grounded in feminist theory and feminist liberation theologies, of analyzing both the words and the power analysis behind the narratives. The middle chapters of the book detail the interconnected themes that run through both medieval and contemporary religious narratives of intimate partner
violence. Chapter 3 focuses on suffering and patience, noting that if a woman believes suffering is integral to God’s plan, “then she is working against God if she tried to change her suffering” (p. 96). Religious beliefs that encourage patient suffering, the authors argue, need to be dismantled and deconstructed, lest they glorify needless suffering, and encourage women to remain in abusive relationships. Similarly, Chapter 4 argues that religious models of obedience not only emphasize women’s subordination but also reinforce the historically associated belief in a God-ordained “natural order” that placed men as superior to women in both social and theological hierarchies. Chapter 5 connects belief in women’s moral inferiority with the concepts of ownership and power. “In this theological view, a male-headed household reveals God’s divine will for how human relationships are to structured” (p. 22). The authors argue that when religious narratives equate God with men and women with the body and sin, then a “theology of ownership” remains unchallenged. Nienhuis and Kienzle argue that the idea that women are in need of men’s moral correction is present in every era of recorded history. “Such a rule gives husbands a moral justification for beating their wives at every turn” (p. 126).

The overall purpose of Saintly Women is a constructive one. Despite all the narrative evidence suggesting that religious traditions have historically supported intimate partner violence, the intent of the book is to argue that it is possible to learn from this history and use theologies to resist violence and empower women. The rise in the number of contemporary religious programs dedicated to ending gender-based violence is a testament to this reality. In conclusion, the authors emphasize the sources of communities of resistance today, such as those found in ubuntu and minjung theologies: “In a world in which violence against women is institutionalized, as routine as it is global, a critical feminist liberation theology of resistance and empowerment forces liberation theologies to see women’s lives as human lives and non-liberation theologies to see women at all” (p. 165). This powerful book is a must-read for all who take seriously the connections between religion and violence, and who desire to study, teach, and preach religious traditions as sources of freedom and empowerment. The selected filmography of Hollywood films that offer a nuanced portrait of intimate partner violence is an added bonus.

~Sheryl A. Kujawa, Holbrook Anglican Theological Review
Claremont School of Theology, Bloy House, Claremont, California