The religious in movement. French Ursulines and English Dames on the eve of the 17th century

The first decades of the Counter-Reformation were overwhelmed by a wave of renewed female devotion in which women wished to be both religious and active, in imitation of Christ. Yet, female congregations imitating the model of the regular clerks ran directly against the laws set out in tire Council of Trent (1545-1563), according to which no religious woman could remain uncloistered. Thus, the members of new apostolic communities such as the French Ursulines or Mary (Yard's English Institute faced much opposition even front within tire ranks of the Church they sought to serve; eventually, they were forced to choose between their freedom of movement and their religious status. Rooted in manifest misogyny, their detractors' objections reveal a complex subtext in which fear of female subversion of carton law and usurpation of male roles were deeply intertwined. The uncloistered nun, regardless of her desire or leer ability to further the cause of Catholicism, embodied an intolerable threat to the established order of the seventeenth century.