ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at recognised and contested means of spirituality and sinfulness, with sainthood and witchcraft and demonism as the extreme opposite ends of the continuum of gendered religious experience. Religious participation during the Middle Ages and early modern era was both individual and communal; inner spirituality was a prerequisite, but religion was practised together. The Protestant idea of salvation by faith alone was based on the inability of humans to avoid sin. Therefore, flawed, sinful humans could only be saved if they admitted to their sinfulness and submitted to divine grace. The bodily nature of doing religion and gender gave the experiences of faith or gender a sense of immediacy that could be transferred between people and consequently shared within communities. The body was not only a means of individual experience of faith and gender but also of sharing and negotiating those with other individuals and whole communities.
