Welcome to Centuries of Sisters–a space for discussion of the history of women religious, writ large across geographies and chronologies.
Curiously, the idea for this blog is grounded in the present. On July 22 Pope Francis issued an apostolic constitution to direct the lives of contemplative nuns (see the full text here). This document prompted a discussion among various historians of nuns who work on the medieval, early modern, and modern periods. These conversations on Twitter (yay, social media!) prompted the idea for an online forum to discuss the apostolic constitution in more depth. A series of blog posts will excerpt passages from that document and invite glosses, discussion, and commentary from a historical perspective.
Although we will launch this site with a fairly directed and specific discussion, we welcome conversations across a broad range of topics and ideas and hope that this will be a place for scholars of female monasticism to meet and share ideas. In the tradition of other similar blogs, we are eager to host guest blog posts. Please contact the current administrator, Prof. Elizabeth Lehfeldt at e.lehfeldt@csuohio.edu if you are interested in contributing content or have an idea for future posts.
In the meantime, please join us on subsequent blog posts as we begin to discuss Pope Francis’ apostolic constitution, Vultum Dei quaerere, “Seeking the face of God.”
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