{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,1,17]],"date-time":"2026-01-17T17:17:32Z","timestamp":1768670252972,"version":"3.49.0"},"reference-count":36,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"1","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2026,1,15]],"date-time":"2026-01-15T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1768435200000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"name":"Foundation for Science and Technology","award":["UID\/00057\/2025"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["UID\/00057\/2025"]}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Religions"],"abstract":"<jats:p>This article focuses on the choice of the religious life for women during the early modern period, following a Rule that ensured harmony within the cloister. We trace the emergence of codes of life for female communities across time, with particular attention to the Rule of St. Benedict and its adoption by Cistercian communities, where silence assumed a particular significance. Silence, sounds, and monastic daily life as governed by the Rule, by the Tridentine decrees and, in the case of Portuguese Cistercian communities, obedience to the Autonomous Congregation of Alcoba\u00e7a and to its supervisory mechanism of Visitations, were elements that shaped both the discourse presented here and its interpretive framework. While the Council of Trent emphasized the importance of vocation and simultaneously imposed upon women the so-called \u201cfourth vow\u201d (enclosure), documentary evidence allows us to observe to what extent the conventual milieu, composed of women from diverse social origins, remained engaged with the wider world outside cloister; nunneries became both a mode of existence and a space of affirmation for women, one that fostered creativity (in music, writing, painting) and upheld authority and power, embodied in the figure of the abbess and in the acts, rituals, and ceremonies associated with her.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/rel17010098","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2026,1,15]],"date-time":"2026-01-15T12:31:41Z","timestamp":1768480301000},"page":"98","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"title":["Living in Religious Life in the Early Modern Period: Rules, Daily Life, and Reforms in Portuguese Nunneries\u2014The Case of the Cistercian Order"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"17","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-9700-3915","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Ant\u00f3nia Fialho","family":"Conde","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of History, University of \u00c9vora, 7004-516 \u00c9vora, Portugal"},{"name":"CIDEHUS Research Centre (Interdisciplinary Centre for History, Cultures, and Societies), 7000-654 \u00c9vora, Portugal"},{"name":"CEHR (Centre for the Study of Religious History), Catholic University of Portugal, 1649-023 Lisboa, Portugal"},{"name":"LEM-CERCOR (Laboratory for the Study of Monotheisms\u2014European Centre for Research on Communities, Congregations, and Religious Orders), Universit\u00e9 Jean Monnet, 42023 Saint-Etienne, France"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2026,1,15]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","unstructured":"Afonso, Cardeal D. 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