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In this study of the manner in which medieval nuns lived, Penelope Johnson challenges facile stereotypes of nuns living passively under monastic rule, finding instead that collectively they were empowered by their communal privileges and status to think and act without many of the subordinate attitudes of secular women. In the words of one abbess comparing nuns with monks, they were "different as to their sex but equal in their monastic profession." Johnson researched more than two dozen nunneries in northern France from the eleventh century through the thirteenth century, balancing a qualitative reading of medieval monastic documents with a quantitative analysis of a lengthy thirteenth-century visitation record which allows an important comparison of nuns and monks. A fascinating look at the world of medieval spirituality, this work enriches our understanding of women's role in premodern Europe and in church history.
"An extremely interesting and important book... makes an important contribution to the history of medieval monastic spirituality in a formative period, whilst also fitting into wider debates on the origins, development and impact of ideas on crusading and holy war." Dr William Purkis, University of Birmingham Monastic culture has generally been seen as set apart from the medieval battlefield, as "those who prayed" were set apart from "those who fought". However, in this first study of the place of war within medieval monastic culture, the author shows the limitations of this division. Through a wide reading of Latin sermons, letters, and hagiography, she identifies a monastic language of war...
The early Christian and medieval practice of spiritual marriage, in which husband and wife mutually and voluntarily relinquish sexual activity for reasons of piety, plays an important role in the development of the institution of marriage and in the understanding of female religiosity. Drawing on hagiography, chronicles, theology, canon law, and pastoral sources, Dyan Elliott traces the history of spiritual marriage in the West from apostolic times to the beginning of the sixteenth century.
These volumes propose a renewed way of framing the debate around the history of medieval art and architecture to highlight the multiple roles played by women. Today’s standard division of artist from patron is not seen in medieval inscriptions—on paintings, metalwork, embroideries, or buildings—where the most common verb is 'made' (fecit). At times this denotes the individual whose hands produced the work, but it can equally refer to the person whose donation made the undertaking possible. Here twenty-four scholars examine secular and religious art from across medieval Europe to demonstrate that a range of studies is of interest not just for a particular time and place but because, fro...
The twenty-four studies in this volume propose a new approach to framing the debate around the history of medieval art and architecture to highlight the multiple roles played by women, moving beyond today's standard division of artist from patron.
Ecumenical in character, this comprehensive and authoritative dictionary is the achievement of scholars of international standing--Anglicans, Roman Catholics, Baptists, Presbyterians, Quakers, Methodists, Lutherans, and others....The articles are nondogmatic and scholarly....The main emphasis is thematic--the entries represent types, schools, and subjects. Articles that refer to non-Christian religions...are included insofar as they have influenced Christianity. The unifying theme of the dictionary is that it seeks to illumine ways in which women and men have responded to God in prayer and living...
Silvia Evangelisti presents the story of the women who have lived in religious communities, from the dawn of the modern age onwards - their ideals and achievements, frustrations and failures, and their attempts to reach out to the society aroundthem.
Throughout her adult life, the twelfth-century Benedictine nun Elisabeth of Schönau claimed to receive divine revelation through a series of ecstatic visionary experiences. Her reflections on these experiences were recorded and provide both a rich source of understanding of the religious life of a medieval woman and an important perspective on the religious and political ferment of mid-twelfth-century Germany. Anne L. Clark has written the first comprehensive study of Elisabeth of Schönau. In it, she points out that Elisabeth did not transcribe her own revelations, but rather dictated them to the other nuns of the convent and to her brother Ekbert. Clark takes on the problem of Elisabeth's...
The papers brought together in this volume reflect three of Professor Colish's interests as a historian of medieval scholastic thought. The first group presents investigations into Peter Lombard (d. 1161) and his contemporaries; the second looks at how Peter's theology became mainstream Paris theology in the period between the Lombard's death and the early 13th century. The last two papers offer broader reflections on the story lines of high medieval intellectual history.