Abstract
Radical pietistic and renewal movements gave rise to a diverse number of communities throughout northern Europe starting in the late seventeenth century. Many groups practiced a conventicle-style piety, in which they held religious services in private settings such as houses. A distinctive feature of these semi-sequestered communities was the extent to which women took on active roles, sometimes to the point of leading and directing their fellow believers. Focusing on the Netherlandish mystic Antoinette Bourignon and the English Philadelphian Jane Lead, this article examines how these women adapted their religious, social, and domestic activity to meet the functions and demands of community leadership. It argues that Bourignon and Lead redefined and troubled the boundaries between their religious and domestic lives as they sought to practice an individual piety while also transforming private houses into sites of active communal religious life.