Ladies of Zamora - Softcover

'Using exciting archive material about a moral scandal in a convent of Dominican nuns in thirteenth-century Spain. Peter Linehan has produced a fascinating study of the problems in the turbulent world of religion and the difficulties facing women trying to make their way in a world dominated by men. What might have been merely anecdotal turns out to be a first-rate in-depth study which sensationally exposes the behaviour and feelings of the entire community. The Ladies of Zamora is a model study.' Jacquesle Goff.

"The Ladies of Zamora" is the story of a convent of nuns in a 13th-century Spanish city, their battles with the bishop, the altogether friendlier relationship with the local Dominican friars and the consequences further afield of their activities. Based on unpublished records of the enquiry into the affair, it brings into sharp focus a number of usually unrelated aspects of the age: the tensions between the mendicant orders and the local ecclesiastical authorities 13th-century religiosity, female religiosity in particular and collusion in high places; both in Castile and at the papal curia. Beyond the tale it tells of nuns observed in flagrante at the convent gate, cornered by tumescent friars in the convent infirmary and oven, giving their prioress the evil eye and threatening their bishop with stout sticks, this account lays bare the realities of life within and beyond the cloister in the later years of the century of Christian Spain's greatest achievements at the expense of Spanish Islam.