Includes bibliographical references and index.

Acknowledgments -- Currency, Names, and Translations -- Abbreviations -- Introduction -- PART ONE -- CONFRATERNITIES AND HOSPITALS -- Chapter One: Religious Solidarity and Civic Power:Confraternities in Bergamo -- Chapter Two: She Offers Herself and Her Belongings:Hospitals in Bergamo -- PART TWO -- CHARITY AND CHURCH -- Chapter Three: Alms for the Poor! Confraternal Charity and the Poor -- Chapter Four: You Do and Say Evil! Lay Men, Women, and the Clergy -- PART THREE -- WRITTEN RELIGION -- Chapter Five: Testaments, Gender, and Religious Culture -- Conclusion -- Works Cited -- Primary Sources -- Secondary Sources -- Index.

This book examines the tension between social mores and religious activities among the laity in the Italian diocese of Bergamo during the later Middle Ages (1265-c.1400). Comparing the religious activities of lay men and women, both rich and poor, across a range of pious and ecclesiastical institutions, including confraternities, hospitals, parishes and the diocese, Roisin Cossar shows how the laity's access to these institutions increasingly came to depend on their gender and social status during the fourteenth century. At the same time, she argues that all lay people, regardless of gender and social status, viewed themselves as equal members of a lay ordo. The book thus illuminates the complexity of late medieval religious culture, as it simultaneously reflected and challenged secular social values.

Description based on print version record.