List of illustrations -- Preface and acknowledgements -- Introduction: women writing in the late Middle Ages -- 1. Late Medieval nunneries: accounts by women -- 2. The "women's religious movement" and the observant movement: female piety and the establishment -- 3. Women of reform -- 4. Opponents of the reform and enclosure -- 5. Did nuns have a Renaissance? Libraries and literary activities -- 6. "Femininity-in-writing": new heroines, strategies, and roles in late Medieval piety -- Notes -- Selected bibliography -- Index.