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| | 14ch2 |
 | | The paradox in medieval hagiographic texts, according to Elizabeth Alvida Petroff, reflects a situation in which the decisions typical in a religious life lay far outside the domains of choice to which medieval women were limited. |
 | | Umiliana was neither completely abandoned as the hagiographer suggests, nor did she truly forge an independent life, for she continued to live on her father's property, with a family servant, sustained (at least minimally) by her family's financial resources. |
 | | While this is similar to much of hagiographic rhetoric, this rhetoric reveals itself, as in the case of Umiliana, in a different way with women saints than with men, as a result of their different roles and categorization. |
| www.luc.edu /publications/medieval/vol14/14ch2.html (4457 words) |
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