ABSTRACT
Throughout the period 1500–1700 the functions of the priesthood, which involved preaching and the administration of the sacraments, were regarded almost exclusively as male preserves. This led the clergy, in particular, to emphasize the divisions between the public sphere as a male arena and the private sphere as a women’s arena. The religious strictures placed on women were justified particularly through reference to the New Testament writings of St Paul, a key example being his injunctions to the Corinthians, which in Tyndale’s influential revised translation of 1534 read ‘let your wives keep silence in the congregations. For it is not permitted unto them to speak: but let them be under obedience, as saith the law. If they will learn anything, let them ask their husbands at home’ (1 Corinthians, 14).
