An open, multidisciplinary dialogue focused on the female experience of religion and spirituality during the medieval period has taken place at the annual congress of the Spanish Society for Medieval Studies (SEEM). Titled Religious Women in the Middle Ages: Material and Spiritual Expressions, the event was held on 29 and 30 October at the Institute of Culture and Society (ICS) of the University of Navarra and the Public University of Navarra.
This academic gathering brought together experts from various national and international universities to explore the lives of religious women in Western Europe during the medieval era and their impact on written, artistic, and material heritage.
Inauguration and tributes
The congress began with a minute of silence for the victims of a recent train accident in Urda, Toledo. Key figures in the opening included Rebeca Esnaola, the Minister of Culture, Sport and Tourism for the Government of Navarra; Jaime García del Barrio, the ICS Director General; Juan Francisco Jiménez Alcázar, SEEM President; and researchers Julia Pavón from ICS and María Soler from the University of Barcelona.
Blanca Garí from the University of Barcelona delivered the inaugural session, introduced by María Bonet Donato from the Rovira i Virgili University. Jiménez Alcázar expressed gratitude to all institutions and research teams involved in the congress, while also commemorating the medievalist Ángel J. Martín Duque on the centenary of his birth, stating that the tribute represents “recognition of an entire generation.”
Significance of the congress
Minister Esnaola remarked that the event is a “top-tier scientific meeting” that fosters necessary debates and reflections on women in the Middle Ages. She noted that research has revealed women as active protagonists in building religious communities, sustaining monasteries, maintaining family memory, and articulating power during their time.
Pavón emphasised that studying medieval religious women goes beyond simply adding new names to a known narrative; it involves questioning and valuing their ways of life, authority spaces, spiritual practices, and the material and documentary traces that help us better understand those societies.
Soler highlighted the need to approach medieval female spirituality from a broad perspective, encompassing religious practices, spaces, objects, and landscapes inhabited by these women. She stated that this meeting would advance interdisciplinary approaches and contribute to a richer interpretation of medieval religious women.
Del Barrio reiterated that understanding the past is not an isolated scholarly exercise but a crucial foundation for building social sciences and analysing the present. He asserted that through rigorous and profound knowledge, society can progress. He also noted that projects and meetings like this are only possible through collaborative efforts and inter-institutional cooperation.
The congress received support from projects such as The Memories of the Temple and the Hospital in the Crown of Aragon and Navarra (12th-15th centuries), co-directed by Julia Pavón Benito and María Bonet Donato, and Freilas: Women in Military and Hospital Orders in the Crown of Aragon (12th-16th centuries), directed by María Soler and Núria Jornet, both funded by the Ministry of Science and Innovation.
