This book explores how modesty became a creative and performative mode of being for late Roman Christian ascetic women.

Kate Wilkinson is an Assistant Professor of Women's and Gender Studies at Towson State University, Maryland and director of the graduate program in Women's and Gender Studies. Her research combines interests in early Christian asceticism, social history, and theology with feminist theory and feminist ethnography.

1. Spectacular modesty; 2. Apparel, identity, and agency: Demetrias dresses herself; 3. Publicity and domesticity; 4. The modest mouth; 5. Performance anxiety: hypocrisy and sincerity in the performance of modesty; 6. Modest agencies; Conclusion.