Marie Dentière
vers 1495-1561 16th century
Not keeping to oneself what one has received, on the grounds that one has no right to speak of it.
Who was Marie Dentière?
Born in Tournai, abbess of an Augustinian convent which she left at the Reformation, she married, was widowed, married again, and settled in Geneva. In 1539 she published a letter addressed to Marguerite of Navarre claiming for women the right to read Scripture, to write, and to exhort one another. The Geneva council had the edition seized, and her name vanished from the books of the Reformation for four centuries.
In their own words
What God has given you, and revealed to us women no less than to men, we must not hide and bury in the earth.
And though we are not permitted to preach in assemblies and public churches, it is nevertheless not forbidden to write and to admonish one another, in all charity.