Un beghinaggio a Lentini. Religiosità laica femminile in Sicilia tra XIII e XIV secolo

The essay aims to investigate some types of women’s spirituality in Sicily between the Thirteenth and Fourteenth centuries. From an analysis conducted on published sources and archival documents, it turns out that women’s spiritual instances included forms similar to seclution and beguinage. They were the result of a coincidence rather than of a conscious and structured movement. Some exuberant women, most of which were not Sicilian, founded or followed new devotional practices, moved by a desire for emancipation in the religious sphere.