Reassessing the Links between “The Women’s Religious Movement” and “The Origins of a Religious Literature in the Vernacular” in France

The concluding chapter of Herbert Grundmann’s 1935 Religious Movements in the Middle Ages begins with the bold assertion that “Together with the religious movement of the thirteenth century, there arose a religious literature in the vernacular.” Rejecting meaningless formulations such as “a newly awakened religious feeling sought expression in the mother tongue,” Grundmann sought instead a precise explanation for “the particular circumstances which generated a religious literature in the vernacular.” He was not looking for evidence of vernacular preaching by Latinate churchmen, since translation on the fly had always been necessary when addressing the laity. Nor was he interested in