Kristien Suenens provides a comparative examination of four nineteenth-century Belgian female religious founders: Anna de Meeûs (1823–1904), Fanny Kestre (1824–82), Anntoinette Cornet (1820–86) and Wilhelmina Telghuys (1824–1907). The book is constructed in three thematic parts and examines female religious action, agency and leadership. The narrative also follows a chronological development of the lives of the four women from their initial convent school days, culminating in an epilogue charting the latter years of their lives and legacy. Although the study is shaped by themes familiar to historians of women religious, the analysis is derived from the ‘double-voiced’ approach which Suenens describes as a paradox that characterised female religious life during the nineteenth century: ‘controlled by patriarchal dominance and bounded by religious vows on one hand, empowered by their status, spiritual inspiration and apostolic importance to act autonomously on the other’ (p. 9). This distinctive approach provides a compelling insight into the motivations, strategies, actions and reactions of these four Belgian women during the nineteenth century.

In part i, Suenens explores the initial philanthropic activities of her subjects who sought to carve out an independent space in a society and a Church that was highly critical of female action. Although Cornet was the only one to originally enter religious life (p. 69), her vocation did provide her with opportunities for personal advancement: she trained as a teacher and shortly after her profession became headmistress of a school (p. 69). De Meeûs used her status and the revolutionary upheavals of the 1840s to her advantage when she established Œuvre des églises pauvres to aid struggling churches (p. 81). Telghuys's rag business was founded to provide work for destitute females, but this initiative operated outside the ‘limits of bourgeois norms of respectability and earned her nothing but incomprehension in well-to-do circles’ (p. 95). In the 1840s Kestre became involved in teaching catechism to ‘people from the working-class’ (p. 81). While her activities were recognised by church authorities as meeting social and ecclesiastical needs of the time, Kestre's ‘passionate character and militant desire to take up a personal role on the clerical scene’ damaged her reputation among the clergy (p. 87). All four women clearly demonstrated autonomy in their endeavours, but this agency had its limits as Suenens acknowledged: ‘religious action by women could only survive by conforming to diocesan policies and by accepting male support’ (p. 79).

Building and maintaining relationships with clergy and conforming to diocesan policies was central to the future work of de Meeûs, Kestre, Cornet and Telghuys. All four came to understand that ‘where lay initiatives ran up against bourgeois, material and gender boundaries, religious life provided women with prestige, stability and possibilities for personal development’ (p. 137). This recognition of the limitations accorded to lay women in society pushed the four founders to seek and accept support for their initiatives. De Meeûs cooperated with the Jesuits to secure ‘protection of her projects and their prestige’ (p. 141). The Jesuits in turn consented to becoming permanent confessors to her community if only ‘to keep some control over the strong expansion of her association’ (p. 141). When Cornet faced opposition from a village priest regarding her intention to develop an élite boarding school she too turned to the Jesuits for support (p. 143). In exchange for their assistance, Cornet offered ‘her submission and obedience’ (p. 144). In Telghuys's case, spiritual direction from the Jesuits was extended rather than sought but she too consented to their support in order to consolidate and legitimise her ‘female initiative’ (p. 145). While the relationships which developed between the founders and their respective male allies were built on female submission, this obedience should not be misconstrued for a parallel loss of female autonomy. These women ‘chose their own male allies’, a decision in itself which highlights agency (p. 126). Moreover, when placing their fledgeling institutions on a formal footing, all four women were involved in developing constitutions and internal governing structures (p. 171). Far from constricting the initiatives of the four founders, accepting male support provided, at least initially, the opportunity for the security of their ventures, development of their institutes and fulfilment of their philanthropic aspirations.

Despite this support, subsequent expansion and consolidation of their individual congregations was slow. According to Suenens, ‘founding a religious congregation not only required (wo)manpower, but financial power as well’ (p. 219). The reality of fiscal insecurity pushed all four founders to accept, sometimes reluctantly, support from wealthy benefactors. For de Meeûs, this alliance secured her ‘ambition to expand, but at the same time pushed her into a relationship of subordination’ (p. 221). In Kestre's case, the generosity of her benefactors freed her ‘from many of her material worries, but saddled her independent spirit with an uneasy sense of being patronised and controlled’ (p. 226). In order to realise her plans for a new boarding school, Cornet was compelled to ‘accept new convent foundations’ from her patrons (pp. 227–8). Although Telghuys had ‘other apostolate priorities’, she too was obliged to succumb to the request of her benefactors and establish a school on their estate (p. 229). In all four cases, the ‘compulsion to accept’ forced the superiors into positions of submission and obedience but at the same time enabled them to realise their ‘entrepreneurial ambitions’ and provided the means for expansion of their institutes (p. 230).

Although the charity of lay patrons stifled the autonomy of these four religious, ultramontane-inspired directives within the Church provided new and increased opportunities for independence. In particular, all four women found solace in Dechamps's Instructions aux communautés religieuses des femmes, published in 1874. The Instructions stressed the importance of segregation and supervision within convents and despite not being an official diocesan policy, became instrumental in securing lasting female autonomy within these four institutes (p. 287). Cornet used the stricter rules outlined in Instructions to quell internal difficulties within her congregation and ‘secured her freedom . . . [by turning] a policy of conventualisation into one of independence’ (p. 290). Telghuys similarly used the Instructions to inform a revision of her constitutions which reinforced her position and ‘emphasised total obedience and submission to the superior general’ (p. 292). De Meeûs was especially creative in utilising church law to sever all ties with the Jesuits (p. 297). The directives outlined in the Instructions provided all four founders with an opportunity to limit interference from both their benefactors and meddling male clerics. Paradoxically, perhaps, enclosure enabled these women to preserve their agency within their communities while also promoting female leadership within a male-dominated Church.

In Humble women, powerful nuns Suenens challenges the traditional hagiographical depiction of female religious founders and provides an illuminating insight into the complex, paradoxical position occupied by women religious during the nineteenth century. The methodological approach, which is impressively woven throughout the narrative, has the potential to inform new research in the field, across multiple territories and numerous time periods. Empowered by agency and curtailed by submission, Humble women, powerful nuns is essential reading for historians of women religious as it captures the many nuances which characterised the lived experience of nuns and sisters.