Canon Law and Cloistered Women: Periculoso and its Commentators, 1298-1545.(Review)

Elizabeth Makowski's Canon Law and Cloistered Women: Periculoso and its Commentators, 1298-1545 (Washington, DC: Catholic U. of America P., 1999; pp. 149. Pb. 11.95 [pounds sterling]) is a slim but dense volume based on her dissertation on this topic. She examines in detail the 1298 decree of Boniface VIII about the endosure of nuns, referred to from its opening word as `periculoso', and the views of later medieval commentators on the text. In it, Boniface, reacting to specific problems, insisted on the perpetual enclosure of all nuns in a new way. It became a permanent part of canon law by its inclusion in the Liber Sextus. What had been seen for centuries as a means to an end …