Conduct Becoming
Book Description
In the spiritual landscape of late medieval Europe, a remarkable transformation was taking place in how society understood virtue, marriage, and personal growth. Glenn D. Burger explores this pivotal shift through an examination of conduct literature written specifically for wives during the fourteenth century.
This scholarly investigation reveals how medieval writers began crafting a new vision of feminine virtue that moved beyond traditional negative portrayals of women. Rather than viewing the female body as inherently wayward, these texts presented the virtuous wife as a positive force capable of transforming both marriage and society. Through daily Christian guides, secular advice from fathers and husbands, and literary narratives including the famous Griselda story, medieval authors developed practical models for spiritual and moral development.
What makes this exploration particularly compelling is how these conduct manuals understood virtue as fundamentally relational. The process of becoming a good wife was inseparable from the parallel journey of becoming a good husband, creating an interconnected approach to spiritual growth that differed markedly from clerical celibacy models.
Burger demonstrates how this literature offered medieval audiences a revolutionary framework for understanding personal transformation, one that would eventually influence modern concepts of marriage and gender relationships. For contemporary readers interested in the historical roots of spiritual partnership and virtue ethics, this work illuminates how our ancestors grappled with questions of character, relationship, and moral development that remain relevant today.
Who Is This For?
📖 Reading Level: Medium (200-400 pages) (~8 hours)
📄 Length: 272 pages
What You'll Discover
- ✓ Explore Women, religious life
- ✓ Explore Conduct of life
- ✓ Explore History
- ✓ Explore Religious aspects
- ✓ Explore Christianity
- ✓ Explore Wives
- ✓ Explore Literature, medieval, history and criticism
- ✓ Explore Conduct of life in literature
