Handmaids of the Lord: Contemporary Descriptions of Feminine Asceticism in the First Six Christian Centuries

Throughout the christian world, women have chosen to lead disciplined lives of prayer and asceticism. Descriptions of early role-models 'Macrina, the two Palas and Melanias, Radagunde 'and others by contemporaries, usually men, provide details of their austerities, their aspirations, and their relationship with the Church and the world, not least with male authority figures.