The Flesh and the Feminine: Gender and Theology in the Writings of Caspar Schwenckfeld

During the sixteenth-century reformations, Caspar Schwenckfeld was one of the mavericks and creative thinkers who made up the amorphous grouping of radicals. At the time, and since, much has been made of the number of women who were attracted to his theology. Various reasons for this have been suggested, ranging from the attractions of a well spoken nobleman through to the pull of a more domestic religion. This study argues that the attraction lay in the theology that Schwenckfeld explored and offered, and the ways in which it destabilized the accepted social and biological definitions of gender identity.