Madeline Link
Education
MMS Master of Medieval Studies, University of Notre Dame (2025); MTS Master of Theological Studies, University of Notre Dame (2023); BA History, Theology, and Italian, University of Notre Dame (2020)
Year of Matriculation
2023
Contact
Areas of Interest
Pilgrimage, women’s travel, movement and space, identity formation, textiles, body modification, gender and religion
Profile
Madeline's research focuses on journeys undertaken by medieval women: physical journeys like pilgrimage; spiritual journeys like ecstasy; journeys of identity prompted by a change in location, vocation, religion, or appearance; and the places where these overlap, in which physical movement becomes the locus for mystical experience or other significant transformation. She hopes this research will examine the extent of women’s agency in the Middle Ages and the variety of its expression. Figures of particular interest include Joan of Arc, Egeria, and Hildegund/Joseph of Schoenau.
Recent Scholarly Activity
- Presidential fellowship, University of Notre Dame, 2023
- “The Brown Habit and the White Robe of Modesty: Dressing an Alter Christus.” Paper presented at the 60th International Congress on Medieval Studies (2025)
- Participant in the 2025-26 Newberry Library Dissertation Seminar, “Gender, Power, Culture”
- “Transformed Hearts, Transformed Bodies: Christian Pilgrimage Tattoos as Products of a Ritual Process.” Published in Doxology 35.2 (2024) (a reprint, with some additional content, of an article originally published in the Church Life Journal in October 2023) TA for “World of the Middle Ages” (Spring 2025) and “Western Civilization to 1500” (Fall 2025)