Although this novel takes place in the Middle Ages—long before feminism existed as a movement—Marie is in many ways a feminist heroine. She comes from a family of “viragoes,” or fierce, opinionated women who take up the same amount of space that men do and relish traditionally male activities, such as going into battle (28). At the same time, she is softer and gentler than it is acceptable for a woman of her time and station to be. As a prioress and then an abbess, she treats the nuns around her with thoughtfulness and as individuals, rather than as an anonymous herd. Both her fierce side and her gentle side put her at odds with the male-dominated church and with the world outside the church.

The values of this church have to do not only with men’s superiority to women but also with the church’s superiority to earthly life. It offers an ascetic, self-sacrificing vision of spirituality that privileges “the Word” over the physical world (243). Those who enter the church, especially if they are women, are expected to renounce their individuality and to lead a deliberately spartan and uncomfortable existence. They are supposed to perform tasks that are difficult for them to increase their humility.