This project will address the question of the relationship of the popular participation of women in late medieval lay religious movements to societal and familial influence. It will attempt to discover why women in both southern France and northern Italy flocked to both orthodox and heretical movements when coming from disparate urban settings and family structures. I am seeking to discover why the religious life appealed to women in two very different areas in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. This project will address major areas of concern in urban studies, religious history, and the history of women and the family. It will also, unlike other recent studies, address the concerns and realities of non-elite women, who have been understudied because of a lack of available sources.