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Contributing to the growing interest in early modern women and religion, this essay collection advances scholarship by introducing readers to recently recovered or little-studied texts and by offering new paradigms for the analysis of women's religious literary activities. Contributors underscore the fact that women had complex, multi-dimensional relationships to the religio-political order, acting as activists for specific causes but also departing from confessional norms in creative ways and engaging in intra-as well as extra-confessional conflict. The volume thus includes essays that reflect on the complex dynamics of religious culture itself and that illuminate the importance of women's engagement with Catholicism throughout the period. The collection also highlights the vitality of neglected intertextual genres such as prayers, meditations, and translations, and it focuses attention on diverse forms of textual production such as literary writing, patronage, epistolary exchanges, public reading, and epitaphs. Collectively, English Women, Religion, and Textual Production, 1500-1625 offers a comprehensive treatment of the historical, literary, and methodological issues preoccupying scholars of women and religious writing. Cover -- Contents -- List of Figures -- List of Contributors -- Acknowledgements -- List of Abbreviations -- Introduction -- PART 1: Women and Religious Communities -- 1 Living Stones: Lady Elizabeth Russell and the Art of Sacred Conversation -- 2 "Theise dearest offrings of my heart" -- 3 Anne Dacre Howard, Countess of Arundel, and Catholic Patronage -- 4 "Ensigne-Bearers of Saint Clare" -- 5 Lady Anne Clifford and the Uses of Christian Warfare -- PART 2: Reading Intertextual Prose Genres -- 6 Prospecting for Common Ground in Devotion -- 7 "Halff a Scrypture Woman" -- 8 Authority, Scripture, and Typography in Lady Grace Mildmay's Manuscript Meditations -- 9 Lady Margaret Beaufort's Translations as Mirrors of Practical Piety -- 10 "Nether bitterly nor brablingly" -- Works Cited -- Index.
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