Female Petitioners in the Papal Penitentiary

Historians do not consider the Vatican Archives to be of major interest to gender studies, especially as regards the history of women. In general this is quite true; not so, however, for the registers of the papal Penitentiary, the central office of the medieval Church for licences, dispensations and absolutions for lay people, clerics, monks and nuns alike. Drawing on the tens of thousands of supplications submitted to, and registered by, the Penitentiary, this article discusses cases concerning female petitioners, such as illegitimate birth, runaway nuns, forced entry into religious orders, matrimonial dispensations, forced marriages etc.