Participant Info

First Name
Laura
Last Name
Moncion
Country
Canada
State
Affiliation
University of Toronto, University of Notre Dame, Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen
Website URL
www.lauramoncion.com
Keywords
medieval and early modern, history of women, gender history, religious history, Christianity, Europe, Germany, France, Belgium, New France, Atlantic world, early Canada, recluses, anchorites, Mary Magdalene
Availability
Media Contact
Additional Contact Information
For inquiries, please email me at laura.moncion@gmail.com
PhD
PhD

Personal Info

Photo
About Me

Laura Moncion, PhD, is a historian of medieval and early modern women, gender, and Christianity. Her work addresses religious women both inside and outside of traditional monastic contexts, covering topics such as mystical writing and theology, relationships between religious men and women, and recovering premodern lives through archival sources.

Moncion’s work to date has focused mainly on recluses (also known as anchorites), people who lived devout lives voluntarily confined to their dwellings (think Julian of Norwich, or the menacing recluse in Victor Hugo’s “Notre-Dame de Paris”). Her award-winning dissertation and monograph in progress examine the lives of women recluses in late medieval Alsace (Strasbourg, Obernai, and Haguenau) through previously neglected archival documents and unpublished sermons, exempla, and stories.

Moncion has also published academic and public-facing work on Jeanne LeBer, the recluse of Ville-Marie (today’s Montréal, Canada). Her work extends the study of recluses and anchorites beyond medieval Europe and re-examines it in the context of the Atlantic world and early colonial Canada.

A further research project focuses on the late medieval sisters of St Mary Magdalene. The Order of St Mary Magdalene was a penitential monastic order for women that was initially created to “reform” female sex workers and became popular with daughters of elite families in Alsace and southern Germany. Moncion’s project asks how this transition took place in Strasbourg, if indeed it did — and what we can know about these women from the sources they left behind.

Recent Publications
Media Coverage
My research featured at University of Notre Dame: https://ethics.nd.edu/fellowships-and-grants/fellows/laura-moncion-2024-2025/
Country Focus
Germany, France, Canada
Expertise by Geography
France, Germany, North America, United Kingdom, Western Europe
Expertise by Chronology
Medieval, Early Modern
Expertise by Topic
Gender, Libraries & Archives, Religion, Sexuality, Women