ABSTRACT
Religion was of central importance in the lives of women in England in the early modern period. Women found spiritual satisfaction from their beliefs and a meaning for life. Frequently contemporaries recognised the intensity of female spirituality, and saw that it differed from male religiosity. Female spirituality was affected by assumptions about the two sexes and the consequent constraints upon women. Women’s religious experiences were different from men’s. Even when they attended the same worship, and received the same theological messages as men, they experienced the gender symbols in religion differently. 1
