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Pope Boniface VIII (1294-1303) published a decree in 1298 that transformed long-standing attitudes toward nuns into universal Church law. Referred to as Periculoso, the first word of the Latin text, this decree announced that all nuns, no matter what rule they observed and no matter where their monasteries were located, were to be perpetually cloistered. With the exception of those who were contagiously ill, nuns were under no circumstances to break the law of enclosure, either by leaving their monasteries or by inviting unauthorized persons into them. Ultimately, the decree altered the lives of nuns, while indirectly abetting the move toward alternatives to the cloister. Although historians of women religious have frequently cited Periculoso as a milestone, the text of the law and the legal comment that its publication occasioned have never before been exhaustively studied. Canon Law and Cloistered Women provides the most thorough examination to date of the landmark decree. Elizabeth Makowski surveys precedents for Periculoso as well as some of the problems Boniface VIII hoped to solve with his legislation. She further analyzes the commentary on Periculoso, much of it written by practicing lawyers, which unveils late medieval attitudes toward nuns and their male counterparts. Finally, she concludes with a discussion of the attempts to enforce the legislation. Makowski's analysis illustrates not only the contribution that similar investigations of local efforts on the Continent might make to our understanding of conventual life, but also the difficulties—so often alluded to by medieval canonists—of making the "ideal" real.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Elizabeth Makowski is associate professor of history at Southwest Texas State University. She is the coauthor of Wykked Wyves and the Woes of Marriage: Misogamous Literature from Juvenal to Chaucer (SUNY Press, 1989) and the author of numerous articles and book reviews. PRAISE FOR THE BOOK: "This is a significant contribution to the study of female monasticism. . . . Makowski's work is a welcome effort to understand the monastic discipline of enclosure and its application to convents. . . . What Makowski does in this fine study is to help scholars understand what [Periculoso] meant, both in the context in which it was fashioned and in the world of subsequent commentary. . . . An important book that should be required reading for all scholars of male and female monasticism."—Sixteenth Century Journal

"This is a clearly written survey of the decree and of medieval commentaries on it up to the Council of Trent. It will be of interest to historians both of legal and social history as well as throwing light upon the background of a much debated topic among religious orders."—English Historical Review "[The] work is well-written, contains helpful information on the topic in context, and should be a useful resource for those interested in this historical era as well as for those intrigued by the institutional Church's less than even-handed treatment of cloistered contemplative women through the centuries."—Studia Canonica "The clearly written survey of legal commentary on Periculoso is this book's greatest contribution. Even technical points of law are explained with sufficient clarity, so that the matters at issue can be understood even by one who is not a specialist in mediaeval canon law."—Ecclesiastical Law Journal

"This study provides insight into the way in which the leaders of the late medieval Church dealt with what they saw as the threat that women's spirituality posed to the Church and how to control it. To that extent alone, it is a valuable contribution to scholarship."—Catholic Historical Review

"Makowski has explored the comment

In this edition, the communities of sisters have been arranged according to their general apostolic work, viz., contemplative, domestic, foreign and home missions, nursing, retreat and social work, teaching, and writing and publications.

Since Vatican Council II, convent walls have crumbled. and the structures that once separated nuns from the world are gone. Out of the Cloister is an organizational analysis of the structural and ideological changes that took place in Catholic religious orders of women in the United States. Many nuns today dress in street clothes, choose their own jobs, have a degree of financial independence from the larger order, and may not be recognized by their coworkers as nuns. What might once have been defined as a "total institution" has become, within the span of a few years, a type of voluntary organization where members join together loosely to achieve a common purpose.

Helen Rose Fuchs Ebaugh approaches religious orders as utopian communities and examines how contact with the larger society has affected the distinctiveness and solidarity that hold such groups together. She analyzes the patterns occurring within orders with particular focus on the relationship between organizational change and membership loss. Since changes have been introduced into religious orders at different rates, and since orders vary in such characteristics as size and educational level of members, it is possible to analyze relationships between exit rates and other organizational variables. The complex interplay of education and membership loss is one of the organizational dilemmas the author examines.

Although she is no longer a part of organized religious life, Ebaugh spent ten years as a nun and during that time collected much of the data presented in this book. As a nun she also helped conduct a number of self-studies and evaluations involved with the post-Vatican II reform and renewal efforts. She is therefore in the unique position of a researcher who collected data as an insider and analyzed it as an outsider.

This book is one of the first systematic, empirical studies of religious orders in the United States and one of the few sociological investigations of convents and the changes occurring within them.

"Lora Ann Quiñonez and Mary Daniel Turner once again serve American religious women well. Although their book focuses on the development of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, it...is also an account of the thought development of American women religious.... Besides describing areas of change, Quiñonez and Turner analyze and interpret them thoroughly and objectively and also compassionately, courageously, and readably." --Review for Religious During the past four decades, radical changes have occurred in the personal and corporate lives of Roman Catholic nuns in the United States; in their institutions and ministries; in their relations with laity, clergy, and hierarchy; and in their presence in the public sphere. In this book, Lora Ann Quiñonez and Mary Daniel Turner explore this transformation: the experiences that marked these changes, their effects on the women, and the future suggested by the nature of the reforms. The movement for change picked up speed in the decade after Vatican Council 11, which mandated the adaptation of religious communities to contemporary milieu. The impact of American culture on the sisters generated a struggle to reconcile American belonging and religious commitment into one identity. The Women's Movement caused a gradual awakening to the reality of gender as an element of personal and corporate identity. It made American nuns confront the structural questions that occur to awakened women and also confront the male Church hierarchy. This book is the first comprehensive analysis of the forces that directed the process by which American sisters have redefined themselves. "[Quiñonez and Turner ] offer a privileged perspective on the transitions that have taken place in the past 25 years.... [This] is an important work that will enlighten and challenge. It contains pieces of the ongoing transformation that are not found in the many other books on American women's religious life today. American sisters will appreciate this splendid effort to synthesize their experience. Others in the church will find that the experience of American sisters has much resonance with their own." --National Catholic Reporter "This well-written and well-documented book shows the energy, creativity, and highly organized response of these women to Vatican Council II and to the momentum which they themselves created. It is a testimony to the dynamism and creativity of the women in religious life in the past forty years. The book is a work of love and a tribute to all those women who have suffered and celebrated the transition thus far." --Marie J. Giblin, Maryknoll School of Theology

In Unlikely Entrepreneurs, Barbra Mann Wall looks at the development of religious hospitals in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and the entrepreneurial influence Catholic sisters held in this process. When immigrant nuns came to the United States in the late nineteenth century, they encountered a market economy that structured the way they developed their hospitals. Sisters enthusiastically engaged in the market as entrepreneurs, but they used a set of tools and understanding that were counter to the market. Their entrepreneurship was not to expand earnings but rather to advance Catholic spirituality.

Wall places the development of Catholic hospital systems (located in Illinois, Indiana, Minnesota, Texas, and Utah) owned and operated by Catholic sisters within the larger social, economic, and medical history of the time. In the modern health care climate, with the influences of corporations, federal laws, spiraling costs, managed care, and medical practices that rely less on human judgments and more on technological innovations, the “modern” hospital reflects a dim memory of the past. This book will inform future debates on who will provide health care as the sisters depart, how costs will be met, who will receive care, and who will be denied access to health services.

When we think of Catholicism, we think of Europe and the United States as the seats of its power. But while much of Catholicism remains headquartered in the West, the Church’s center of gravity has shifted to Africa, Latin America, and developing Asia. Focused on the transnational Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur, Unequal Partners explores the ways gender, race, economic inequality, and colonial history play out in religious organizations, revealing how their members are constantly negotiating and reworking the frameworks within which they operate.

Taking us from Belgium and the United States to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, sociologist Casey Clevenger offers rare insight into how the sisters of this order work across national boundaries, shedding light on the complex relationships among individuals, social groups, and formal organizations. Throughout, Clevenger skillfully weaves the sisters’ own voices into her narrative, helping us understand how the order has remained whole over time. A thoughtful analysis of the ties that bind—and divide—the sisters, Unequal Partners is a rich look at transnationalism’s ongoing impact on Catholicism.