Not long ago, I overhead a female ministry leader noting with some enthusiasm that we are seeing the first generation in Christendom in which women have received theological higher education. But her statement, while well intentioned, was completely untrue. Some of our lack of knowledge about women’s history, particularly in the Protestant tradition, stems from post-Reformation amnesia about women in monastic spaces. About all we know—maybe—is that about 500 years ago a German nun, Katerina, married a former monk, Martin Luther, and religious living spaces were emptied of their occupants, partly in response to the Protestant Reformation. Here’s what we need to know, though: A similar phenomenon happened about that…