Shaping Female Identity and Agency Through Seventeenth-Century French Sacred Songs

This chapter reveals the role of French-language sacred songs, written primarily for women, in the development of a new reformed discourse used by the Catholic Church to reach out to the laity in an effort to enforce a standard of belief and behavior for women. Memorizing and singing sacred songs in the vernacular became a useful means of teaching basic principles of Catholicism and reaching into the heart, mind, and soul to alter the way women lived their lives. Ultimately, sacred songs would not only be part of an effort to mediate and shape the role of women in French society but would also provide a means of gaining respect and agency.