Forgetful of Their Sex : Female Sanctity and Society, ca. 500-1100

Rating:
Summary: Outstanding Resource
Review: FORGETFUL OF THEIR SEX is a truly outstanding resource to those interested in female sanctity and the history of women in general, as well as the history of women and the Christian church. This book came to me highly recommended and did not disappoint. In a decade that has offered so much by the way of investigative scholarship of women's monastic and religious history, this book is a stand-out. This book is by and large very accessible and in general a great read. I especially appreciated the many specific examples and stories included in the text.

While I think this book is terrific for the scholar and amateur historian alike, it is clearly a book of scholarship with a fantastic bib, index and good notes to the text. My only complaint is in the lack of translation of some Latin and German terms and quotations, although the problem is minimal by comparison with some other books of this sort I have seen. Tibbetts does attempt to put terms into appropriate context, and overall, the lack of translation was not problematic enough for me want to reduce my rating to four stars.