Cloister? Not cloistered?

[Nunsuch]

4 hours ago, Egeria said:

I'm afraid I don't understand your reasoning. I am neither defending nor attacking Aquinas, but to dismiss his influence strikes me as silly. The categorisation of religious as either contemplative or apostolic had a major influence on women religious in later centuries. In particular, it had serious consequences for monastic women who were forced into categories that were not really appropriate for them. (The same thing happened to monastic men, but with less obvious consequences because of the enclosure thing). But it also had serious consequences for women earlier than that in that the rise of the second order mendicants created a new sort of hybrid religious who had a dual identity (part monastic and part Dominican, Franciscan, etc.) that was specifically feminine - and aspects of this (enclosure, bridal imagery, the notion of "contemplative", just read Verbi Sponsa) have been imposed on women in the earlier monastic tradition for whom it is not really appropriate.

Of course it had serious consequences for women; see, in particular, the work of Elizabeth Makowski on de Periculoso, and that of Elizabeth Rapley on the counter reformation. But for those who believe that women should have agency over their own lives and spirituality, it is highly problematic. Finally, in my original response to you, I was simply trying to suggest that drawing a distinction between active and contemplative *for women* at the time Aquinas wrote was pointless, since vowed women were not permitted such a choice.