“Women religious have tended to get pigeonholed in certain way, that either they were only praying the monastic hours or maybe just caring for their own, pastorally speaking, but they were doing much more than that,” said Katie Bugyis, a Ph.D. candidate in medieval studies through the University of Notre Dame’s Medieval Institute.
Bugyis’ research examines the liturgical ministries of women religious from 900 to 1200 in England. “My dissertation seeks to recover all their ministries in all of their richness,” said Bugyis, “ministries that many people assume that women religious didn’t do—like hear confessions or even perform baptisms [and] administer the Eucharist.”
In 2009, Bugyis received the Richard and Peggy Notebaert Premier Fellowship, which provides students with up to six years of funding as well as priority access to professional development funds. She noted that the fellowship has enabled her to “travel to the U.K. and to Europe more broadly for various conferences and also to do primary manuscript research which is absolutely important for the kind of work that I do.”
You can also watch this video on YouTube.
Originally published by Todd Boruff at al.nd.edu on April 06, 2015.