Daughters of Eve : women, gender roles, and the impact of the Council of Trent in Catholic Malta

Abstract

It is generally recognized that in the early modern period, Europe experienced a variety of major changes in terms of demography, ideology, economy, religion and political systems.

Nonetheless during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries Europe underwent changes and a restructuring of society which created many uncertainties, ambiguities, tensions, and conflicts - not least with regards to male-female relations. The age of the Catholic Reformation, which encompassed the late sixteenth and most of the seventeenth centuries, was a time of monumental change in institutional religion. When Martin Luther protested against the Church of Rome in 1517

he managed to create a movement of reform that led to succeeding waves of religious upheaval. In the latter half of the

century, the Catholic response to these challenges was well under way and resulted in the establishment of new religious orders and, theologically, in a reaffirmation of the Church's basic tenets of the faith. Such changes brought about enormous social, economic and political changes throughout Europe, not least in Malta. Yet without exception it was men who helped to transform the European climate.