"Feminine Spirituality in the Middle Ages average," the focus of the " congress " (Medieval Women's Spirituality) event organized by the Spanish Society for Medieval Women's Studies ( programs of study ), held at the ICS and the UPNA

An open, multidisciplinary , and rigorous dialogue on women’s experiences of religion and spirituality in the Middle Ages. This was the theme of the annual “ congress ” of the Spanish Society for Medieval programs of study s (SEEM),“ graduate : Religious Women in the Age average: Material and Spiritual Expressions,” held on October 29 and 30 at the Institute for Culture and Society (ICS) at the University of Navarra and at the Public University of Navarra. The academic meeting , which brought together experts from various national and international universities, explored the ways of life of religious women in the West during the medieval period and their impact on written, artistic, and material heritage.

The opening ceremony, during which a minute of silence was observed for the victims of the train accident in Urda (Toledo), was attended by Rebeca Esnaola, Minister of Culture, Sports, and Tourism for the Government of Navarre; Jaime García del Barrio, General director of the ICS; Juan Francisco Jiménez Alcázar, president of the SEEM; and researchers and professors Julia Pavón, from the ICS, and María Soler, from the University of Barcelona. Blanca Garí, from the University of Barcelona, led the opening session, which was introduced by María Bonet Donato, from Rovira i Virgili University.

Jiménez Alcázar thanked all the institutions and research teams involved in the “ congress ” and paid tribute to the medievalist Ángel J. Martín Duque on the centennial of his birth, noting that the tribute being paid to him during these “ conference ” events represents “a recognition of an entire generation.”

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Councilor Esnaola described it as a “first-rate scientificquotation ” that “fosters necessary debates and reflections on women in the Middle Ages average, a very interesting proposal that helps overcome reductionist views of medieval women and their way of living out their spirituality.” In this regard, she emphasized that “the ‘ research ’ has shown that women were active protagonists in the establishment of religious communities, in the very sustenance of monasteries, and even in the maintenance of family report and the structure of power in their time.”

For her part, Pavón emphasized that “studying medieval religious women is not merely a matter of adding new names to a familiar narrative, but rather of questioning and evaluating the ways of life, spheres of authority, spiritual practices, and material and documentary traces that allow us to better understand those societies.” Along these lines, Soler noted “the need to approach medieval female spirituality from a broad perspective that brings together the religious practices, spaces, objects, and landscapes where these women lived. This meeting will allow us to advance in this interdisciplinary direction and to construct a richer and more comprehensive interpretation of medieval religious women.”

Del Barrio also noted that “understanding the past is not an exercise in isolated scholarship but rather the indispensable foundation upon which the social sciences and the analysis of the present are built. It is precisely through this rigorous and in-depthknowledge that we are able to advance society.” The ICS’s general director also emphasized that projects and events like this one “are only possible thanks to combined efforts and inter partnership .”

The project “ congress ” has been supported by the following projects : “The History of the Templars and the Hospital in the Crown of Aragon and Navarre (12th–15th Centuries): Structures, Functions, and Images” (PID2023-152674NB-I00), co-directed by Julia Pavón Benito and María Bonet Donato; and “Freilas: Women in the Military and Hospitaller Orders in the Crown of Aragon (12th–16th Centuries) (PID2022-136266NB-100), directed by María Soler and Núria Jornet; both funded by the Ministry of Science and Innovation.