The Medieval Studies Seminar (SEM) – 2026 edition, dedicated in its first semester to the theme “Women in a Monastic Context in the Middle Ages”, continues on April 9 (Thursday), at 4:00 pm, with its third session, in webinar format.
The session will feature Luís Rêpas (Centre for the History of Society and Culture, University of Coimbra), who will present a paper entitled “Women in Religion: Literary Representations in the 13th and 14th Centuries.”
Abstract
This presentation explores the various ways in which female presence in religious contexts is represented in medieval Iberian literature, with particular emphasis on the Galician-Portuguese tradition. By focussing on both sacred and secular troubadour lyric, it highlights the ambivalent roles attributed to women: at times they appear as models of virtue and devotion, especially when associated with monastic institutions or sanctity; at others, they emerge as figures of desire or symbolic mediation in the poetry of courtly love, thus revealing tensions between the spiritual and the worldly spheres.
The analysis also draws on documentary, chronistic and genealogical sources, particularly the Portuguese books of lineages of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Taken together, these materials reveal a complex female imagery in which devotion, virtue and social presence are closely intertwined, while coexisting with narratives concerning a lack of religious vocation or accounts of transgressive sexual behaviour. Such sources therefore offer a range of perspectives on the representation of women within the religious sphere of the medieval world.
About the Speaker
Luís Rêpas holds an MA and a PhD in Medieval History from the University of Coimbra (2000 and 2021) and is a full researcher at the CHSC (UC) and a collaborating member of the IEM (NOVA FCSH). He specialises in Portuguese medievalism, focussing on religious, social and cultural history, particularly monasticism, nobility and women’s history.
His Master’s dissertation, Quando a Nobreza Traja de Branco: A Comunidade Cisterciense de Arouca durante o abadessado de D. Luca Rodrigues (1286-1299), was published in 2003, and in 2021 he completed his doctoral thesis, which was awarded the A. de Almeida Fernandes Prize (for Portuguese Medieval History). Among his other publications are several articles and book chapters on Cistercian nunneries and their communities, on liturgical manuscripts from Cistercian houses, and on palaeography, diplomatics and sigillography. He undertook his postdoctoral research within the framework of the project Books, rituals and space in a Cistercian nunnery: living, praying and reading in Lorvão (13th-16th centuries), funded by the FCT.
Currently, he is Assistant Professor at the University of Coimbra.
