gender, religion, and politics in an early modern catholic state
- Categories
- Book/Boek
- Creator
- Strasser, Ulrike
- Publish Year
- 2004
- Shelfmark
- B6292 - B
- Thesaurus
- seksualiteit, politiek, burgerschap, huwelijken, religieuze gemeenschappen, prostituees, sociale klasse, reinheid, Duitsland, middeleeuwen, vroegmoderne periode
- Description
- In premodern Germany, both the emerging centralized government and the powerful Catholic Church redefined gender roles for their own ends. Strasser's study of Catholic state-building examines this history from the vantage point of the virginal female body. Focusing on Bavaria, Germany's first absolutist state, she recounts how state authorities forced chastity upon lower-class women to demarcate legitimate forms of sexuality and maintain class hierarchies. At the same time, they cloistered groups of upper-class women to harness the spiritual authority associated with holy virgins to the political authority of the state. The state finally recruited upper-class virgins as teachers who could school girls in the gender-specific morals and type of citizenship favored by authorities.