Feminist scholars and popular writers have lamented for a long time about the allegedly miserable situation medieval and early modern women had to suffer from/under, being muted, silenced, repressed, abused, or the like. It has become a mantra by radicalized gender researchers to identify women's condition in the pre-modern era as horrible and disgraceful. This has meant that the fight for women's rights must go on so that we can shed the last remnants of a frightful past and allow today women to gain complete equality with men. There is nothing wrong with that ideal, but much wrong with the historical perspective because women's history has gone through many changes, ups and downs, and without being more specific and focused on the relevant sources, we are liable to continue with many misconceptions and even outright stereotypes, such as that the past was really bad, and that the present is so much better, at least for women. A quick glance at Afghanistan today confirms that currently the women there have a much worse destiny than 20 years ago. Even in the USA, the Women's Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution has not yet passed and might never reach that goal. Considering the huge debate about abortion in 2024 and 2025, American women now fare considerably worse than 60 years ago when Roe vs. Wade had passed. Hence, value judgments are relative.

Of course, medieval women faced huge hurdles; they never could become priests, not to speak of popes. Kingship was reserved for men; only when the husband died early and the male heirs were still too young, could the widow become the regent for them. But at the same time, when we look at Spain, at England, or Sweden, more women sat on the throne and ruled by themselves than modern people might even imagine. Women were, I admit, mostly excluded from the official production of secular literature, but they certainly had their own ways of expressing themselves, especially in the genre of mystical visions and revelations. As to authority in the Church, anchorites, for instance, exerted a tremendous influence, and mystics in general, if acknowledged as such, were more powerful than even the pope. Many female saints were highly admired and worshipped, such as Elizabeth of Thuringia or Catharine of Siena. The list could be easily expanded.

In the present book, Amy R. Huesman turns to fifteenth-century Italian female saints and discusses their successful struggle to gain religious status and recognition. Because those women submitted themselves to so much self-sacrifice, with fasting, sleep deprivation, poor clothing, and self-wounding, they quickly gained the status of saints, especially because they regularly reported of serious struggles against the devil or demons tempting them. In parallel to Christ, who had fasted for forty days in the desert to defy the devil, these saints achieved spiritual victory and thus enjoyed much authority as religious leaders during their time by way of submitting their bodies to very similar self-tortures, which we have to read along the phenomenon of anchorites, such as Frau Ava (ca. 1060-1127) and Julian of Norwich (ca. 1343-after 1416). Those women also enjoyed tremendous respect for their devotion and spirituality.

Huesman presents one Augustinian woman, Elena Valentina da Udine (1395/96-1456), one Franciscan woman, Santa Catarina da Bologna (Caterina Vigri; 1413-1463), and Colomba Guadagnoli da Rieti (1467-1501), a Dominican Tertiary (third order, committed to the care of the old and sick), all of whom have been mentioned so far only in passing in relevant scholarship. Thus, the author enters new territory, examines narratives (vitae) heretofore rarely considered, and so opens a new chapter in the history of (Italian) women in the pre-modern era, shedding significant light on the way of how those women gained their legitimacy and authority as individuals graced by God because of their devotion, spirituality, and commitment to His service.

There is much more to the topic, however, as the author quickly demonstrates, offering detailed background information about the history of the Church in fifteenth-century Italy and Europe, deeply shaken by the Black Death, the move of the Holy Sea to Avignon, and the horrible schism during the previous decades, not to speak of the extensive criticism of the clergy at large. Christians were looking for renewal, reform, and the rediscovery of God, which these three women offered and represented through their saintly lives and their endurance in their battle against demons and the devil, their santa vita. Whereas in Northwestern Europe, devout but secular women joined spiritual communities called beguinages, in Italy, the same institutions emerged, called bizzocaggi. Huesman also points out the severe conflicts within the Franciscan Order pitting the Spiritualists against the Observants (to some extent also in the Dominican Order), using this as an important backdrop for these fifteenth-century saints who produced, according to their biographers, numerous miracles, which granted them their highly elevated status within the religious life of their time.

Those women consistently reported about their great need to fend off the devil, proving their inner strength resisting this evil force, which put them on a comparable level with Christ. Hence, as the author emphasizes, the effort to imitate Christ (imitatio Christi) played a significant role both for the saints' struggle against the demons and the devil and for their desire to get as close to Christ as possible by way of "imitative suffering" (110), which found a significant parallel in the contemporary art focused on Christ's Passion. But these women assumed the particular role of combatting the devil and to defeat him through their devotion and spiritual strength, which was documented by their constant praying often substituting for eating, punishment of their flesh, and meditations.

But there were growing concerns in the Church, which the final chapters of the book outline clearly, that is, how to discern between a true mystic and a witch. Tragically, as we know only too well, with authors such as Heinrich Kramer (Malleus maleficarum), in due course the witch craze began, and this mostly shut the doors for those religious women, although we would have to consider numerous other factors explaining this new phenomenon. Huesman skillfully traces the rising discourse directed against the women from the treatises by the Parisian rector of the University, Jean Gerson, to Kramer and others, which demonstrates a sharp trajectory of anti-feminist agitation especially since the late fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The clock turned against women, particularly in the Church.

However, interwoven, Huesman also comments on Church history and female mystics at large during the early fifteenth century, which then led to the rising witch craze supported by Johannes Nider, Kramer, and others. While the fear of witchcraft rose considerably, the three women saints discussed here did not have to deal with any charges of that kind because they were actively involved in fighting against those demons, a crucial part of their mysticism. The one exception was Colomba who encountered several serious detractors who tried to slander her, and she was even examined by an inquisitor. Although Pope Alexander VI met her in private and later praised her as a living saint, she continued to be questioned by medical doctors and philosophers. The same kind of criticism of mysticism was then raised by the late nineteenth century, again in the name of science, and ultimately failed, although it had a deep impact, if we think of the highly respected researchers, Jean-Martin Charcot and Sigmund Freud. Colomba and the two other saints remained unscathed, but thousands of other, not-saintly women then were burnt at the stake over the next two hundred years or so. These saintly women proved to be highly useful as role models for the Church at large, for their respective Orders in their reform efforts, and for their communities. Many others were not so fortunate and had to suffer a terrible death.

This excellent study concludes with the bibliography and a very welcome index. The only criticism I would have is that the author often summarizes the major texts written about those women rather uncritically and comments on them as factual accounts. More critical distance would have been necessary because we are dealing here with hagiographical narratives.

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