Meaning simply “religious women,” the general term mulieres religiosae is also a specific category in the history of women’s religious life and literary culture. Both medieval authors and modern scholars use this term to describe women who dedicated themselves to a religious life in the world rather than in the cloister. However, the boundaries between lay and monastic life were flexible; both could take multiple forms. Mulieres religiosae were also the authors and subjects of literary texts. These writings are concentrated primarily in the thirteenth-century region around Liège.