Lady Church Returns: Symposium Revisits Forgotten Figure

She has been a mother, a bride, a teacher, a scold and, in the hands of the English poet and cleric John Donne, something considerably more scandalous. 

For more than a millennium, writers imagined the Christian church as a woman. Then, gradually, Lady Church all but disappeared from cultural memory. 

A U of A symposium on Monday, Oct. 5, will bring her back into the conversation. 

The symposium celebrates Lora Walsh's new book, Lady Church in the Christian Imagination: From Early Christianity to Early Modernity (Cambridge University Press, 2026) and will be held from 5:15-6:45 p.m. in GEAR 130.  

"I've been working on this book for longer than I'd like to admit," Walsh said. "My research was full of surprises. I'm excited to finally share how prominent and pervasive Lady Church was in premodern Christian culture." 

Hosted by the Honors College, Medieval and Renaissance Studies and the U of A Humanities Center, the event will bring scholars together to explore the surprising history of Lady Church and what she reveals about literature, theology, gender and religious culture. 

Joining Walsh for the conversation will be Freddy Domínguez, professor of history; Bill Quinn, Distinguished Professor of English; and Lauren Van Nest, teaching assistant professor of art history. Mary Beth Long, associate professor of English and director of the Medieval and Renaissance Studies program, will moderate the discussion. 

Walsh, an assistant professor of English, traces Lady Church from early Christianity through medieval and early modern England, following her through the works of William Langland, John Wyclif, John Foxe, John Donne and others. 

Her central argument is striking: Lady Church was far more than a rhetorical convention. For more than a millennium, writers used and reimagined the feminine figure to think through the nature and authority of the church itself. 

"The span of Professor Walsh's study is dizzying, chronicling the transformation of this fascinating ecclesiastical figure from late antiquity to the edge of modernity," said Lynda Coon, dean of the Honors College. "Join us for this humanities-centered research symposium featuring a panel of renowned medievalists and early modernists."  

The symposium will be followed by a reception.