research. The book is a much-needed and timely intervention that sets an example for
interdisciplinary approaches to history and religion in an increasingly diverse society.

Jenny Körber, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
doi:10.1017/rqx.2020.178

Saintly Women: Medieval Saints, Modern Women, and Intimate Partner Violence.
Nancy E. Nienhuis and Beverly Mayne Kienzle.
Routledge Studies in Medieval Religion and Culture 12. London: Routledge, 2018.
xvi + 198 pp. $155.

Social movements, most notably Me Too and Black Lives Matter, have fought to draw
attention to the pervasive violence of systemic inequalities. These forms of resistance
have coincided with a rise in the blatant visibility and political support of misogyny,
racism, and religious intolerance across the world. In response to the state of our domes-
tic and global scenes, scholarly communities have challenged each other to engage a
public audience and to use our research for social change. Saintly Women is a crucial
contribution to that effort.

Nancy E. Nienhuis and Beverly Mayne Kienzle confront the complicity of religious
traditions in providing theological justifications for intimate partner violence (IPV).
While the authors recognize current efforts of religious leaders and practitioners from
diverse faith traditions to end abuse, they also reveal that historical studies rarely accom-
pany such critical work. Their book thus focuses on archival narratives of violence to chal-
lenge the continued “misuse and misapplication of religious and cultural beliefs” to excuse
batterers and work against survivors’ attempts to find safety (2). Saintly Women analyzes
hagiographies of medieval and early modern Christian saints and martyrs that cultivated
theologies of suffering, subordination, and ownership through the sanctification of
domestic abuse victims. The staying power of these oppressive theologies, in fact, derives
precisely from turning the records of victims into sacred texts to be emulated by survivors
from our past and in our present.

The strength of the book lies in its accessibility, which makes it a teachable text for
students, non-academic audiences, and especially for groups who offer resources, guid-
ance, and support to survivors of IPV. The first chapter defines IPV and gives an overview
of its ubiquity, affecting people of all religious backgrounds, genders, races, and sexual
orientations. A detailed justification for their methodologies follows with an explanation
of the important perspectives gained through literary analyses guided by feminist criticism
and ethics to dismantle rather than uphold kyriarchal systems. Saintly Women contextu-
alizes hagiographic accounts, uncovers the patterns and attitudes that enable violence,
reads for silences and gaps in narratives, and underscores that oppressive systems of
power have authorized certain voices to be heard, remembered, and extolled over others.

REVIEWS 1079

Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. 06 Apr 2021 at 00:52:55, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use.

https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog?doi=10.1017/rqx.2020.179&domain=pdf
https://www.cambridge.org/core


For example, rather than take 1 Timothy and 1 Peter with their strong injunctions
against women as indicative of feminine subordination in early Christian communities,
the authors insist that such instructions point to women’s enfranchisement during a
time of widespread religious persecution due, in part, to the perceived radical egalitarian
practices of early Christians. The command for women’s submission adhered to the
dominant Greco-Roman standards of the family and society. Women were called “to
sacrifice themselves on the altar of male domination in order to blend in more unob-
trusively to the surrounding culture” (103).

Through a comparative study of primary sources on holy women (e.g., Saint
Monica, Hildegard of Bingen, Radegund, Godelieve of Gistel, Umiliana dei Cerchi,
Dorothy of Montau, and Catherine of Genoa), the book questions the motivations
behind the commemoration of domestic abuse victims, whose hagiographies conve-
niently align with oppressive social, economic, and political patriarchal norms.
Ambitious in its scope, the book also considers the effects of Christianity on the cultural
practices of Native populations like the Montagnais during the colonization of New
France, as well as the theological groundings espoused in defense of the transatlantic
slave trade. The book, therefore, can be placed in dialogue with existing scholarly
work on critical race studies, the global spread of Christianity, and on the erotics of
masochism and submission.

Some particularly poignant moments include excerpts from the diary of Abigail
Abbot Bailey and the testimonies of contemporary women of faith who painfully dem-
onstrate the internalization of the messages contained in medieval hagiographic
accounts. Despite its focus on victimization, the book also provides a message of
hope. Buried in the archives—the authors stress—lies a history of resistance to violence,
such as the records of Merovingian women, medieval women exegetes, the Cathar
woman Guilhelme Maury, and Matteuccia Francisco of Todi. Their voices reveal the
strength of communities that challenge oppressive structures. Saintly Women provides a
historically based theological support for such communities endeavoring to empower
those who suffer abuse as they make the decisions to become survivors.

Kirsten N. Mendoza, University of Dayton
doi:10.1017/rqx.2020.179

The Reform of Zeal: François de Sales and Militant French Catholicism.
Thomas A. Donlan.
St Andrews Studies in French History and Culture 9. St Andrews: University of St
Andrews, 2018. iv + 146 pp. Free.

In his short book, Thomas A. Donlan offers a new interpretation of François de Sales’s
spirituality, arguing that the Savoyard saint developed a piety that was the opposite of a

RENAISSANCE QUARTERLY1080 VOLUME LXXIII, NO. 3

Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. 06 Apr 2021 at 00:52:55, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use.

https://www.cambridge.org/core