Augustinianism and gender: women and holiness according to some fourteenth-century hermit friars of Saint Augustine

The paper focuses on female taxonomy in the texts written by Augustinian friars in the fourteenth century, a very important period for the Order’s identity. The analysis focusses on the Liber Vitas Fratrum and other pastoral and spiritual works, with special attention to those by Simone da Cascia and Girolamo da Siena. In these works, the holiness of women coincided with that of the apostolic age; or that of the time after the Last Judgement. Such holiness was possible as it was defined by the Regula Augustini, the Augustinian spiritual father’s guidance. The Augustinian perspective is, therefore, not to be found in consideration of the female gender as such but rather in the centrality of Scripture and conformity to Christ for women as well as men.