Women and the Reformations

Merry E. Wiesner-Hanks is distinguished professor of history and women’s and gender studies emerita at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. She is the author or editor of thirty books, including Women and Gender in Early Modern Europe, What Is Early Modern History?, Christianity and Sexuality in the Early Modern World, and The Marvelous Hairy Girls.

“With women rather than men standing front and centre. . . . [Weisner-Hanks] encourage[s] us to see familiar themes with new eyes.”—Peter Marshall, Literary Review“Wiesner-Hanks’ approach to her subjects is empathetic rather than celebratory; she seeks to understand these women in their own terms. . . . [This book] provides a timely reminder of the importance of taking women seriously.”—Katherine Harvey, Engelsberg Ideas“[A] meticulously researched and compelling examination that broadens our understanding of the Reformation by placing women as active agents rather than peripheral figures.”—Luciano Anastasi, Medieval HistoryIncluded in Engelsberg Ideas’ “Books of the Year 2024”“The book is lucid and elegantly written. It will be essential reading for students and those interested in but not experts in Reformation history. But even those with deep knowledge will find much food for thought here, especially in the kinds of connections Wiesner-Hanks draws among the confessions and the book’s long chronological sweep. Everyone who studies, teaches, researches, and writes about the Reformation should read this gem of a book.”—Virginia Reinburg, Sixteenth Century Journal“Open this book at random and you are likely to find a fascinating nugget. . . . Wiesner-Hanks does an excellent job of bringing out the significance of women to the process of Reformation and Counter-Reformation the world over.”—Jenni Hyde, The Historian“Wiesner-Hanks provides fascinating insights into the ways in which Christian religion, religious beliefs and religious change impacted the lives of women . . . [revealing] the extraordinary impact not only of early modern religion on women but also of women on early modern religion.”—Charlotte Methuen, Irish Theological Quarterly“This survey by a leading scholar of early modern women . . . retrieve[s] from the shadows some of the many women whose religious impact has been overlooked.”—Vivienne Larminie, Huguenot Society Journal“[This book] is impressively cohesive without sacrificing the specificity of individual lives or oversimplifying the complexity of the broader picture. . . It belongs in every library, on the bookshelves of every early modernist or student of women and gender.”—Barbara B. Diefendorf, Journal of Religious History2025 CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title"At last, a history of the Reformation and Counter Reformation from the women’s point of view! This wonderful and gripping book is packed with amazing stories – from the Quaker Mary Fisher who went from England to Istanbul determined to convert the Sultan, to the Calvinist Ann Marguerite Pete du Noyer who cross-dressed and assured the Catholic who interrogated her that ‘I am as much a Catholic as I am a boy’, to the exiled Abbess Mary Knatchbull in Ghent who wrote coded letters for Charles I – and escaped suspicion as a mere woman. Wiesner-Hanks has done more than anyone to recreate the lives of women in the religious turmoil of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and this encyclopaedic, astonishing book is the fruit of a lifetime’s research. An utterly unforgettable and transformative book."—Lyndal Roper, author of Martin Luther: Renegade and Prophet“Not a history of ‘women in the Reformation’: this is a whole history of the Reformation with women at its centre, the people who have been written out of the story for so long put back where they belong. You’ll meet hundreds of remarkable women, but your whole sense of the era will also shift on its axis.”—Alec Ryrie, author of Protestants“Vivid portraits, complex dynamics, and a compelling narrative that takes us a wide range encompassing Monarchs, Migrants and Mystics. Wiesner-Hanks portrays women as critical agents reframing religious ideas, communities, and institutions at their core – with conviction, controversy, and global impact.”—Nicholas Terpstra, author of Religious Refugees in the Early Modern World  “This is a tour de force by the leading historian of premodern women, global history, and the Reformations. Wiesner-Hanks offers a brilliant analysis of women’s dynamic participation in a truly global religious phenomenon in a major work that opens up many new avenues for future investigation.”—Susan Broomhall, author of The Identities of Catherine de' Medici“This imaginative and artful historical overview places hundreds of distinctive women where they belong in the global religious upheavals of the early modern era—at the center. I can't think of another book that so skillfully balances the dramas of individual lives of truly diverse backgrounds with larger questions of gender, spirituality, and social change.  Merry Wiesner-Hanks is the ideal guide in this journey of discovery.”—Joel F. Harrington, author of The Faithful Executioner