The Powers of the Holy: Religion, Politics, and Gender in Late Medieval English Culture

Theological Studies, Sept, 1997 by Penny J. Cole

Adherents of Derrida and Foucault, to mention only a few of the postmodernist names that are dropped throughout this study, will find this book engaging. So, too, will students of so-called cultural history. And, indeed, A. and S. say much that is interesting and insightful about the political consciousness of some of the late medieval English mystics and vernacular writers.

In the final analysis, however, much of their discussion is undermined by a rhetoric of axe grinding. Their central thesis concerning the repressive agenda of the medieval Catholic Church is not new; and it is a thesis which is notoriously difficult to substantiate, leading even the most cautious into injudicious overstatement and unacceptable selectivity in the use of documents. A. and S. are convinced of the validity of their position, but conviction is no substitute for evidence.