Nuns’ Literacies in Medieval Europe
The Hull Dialogue
Edited by Virginia Blanton Edited by Veronica O'Mara Edited by Patricia Stoop
This is the first concentrated study to examine the literacy of nuns in a comparative fashion and at the same time pays close attention to the individual textual and cultural complexities.
This collection of essays, focused on the literacies of nuns in medieval Europe, brings together specialists working on diverse geographical areas to create a dialogue about the Latin and vernacular texts nuns read, wrote, and exchanged, primarily in northern Europe from the eighth to the mid-sixteenth centuries. To date, there has been some significant research in this field but little in the way of cross-cultural study. Drawing especially on the rich body of scholarship that currently exists about nuns and books in England, Germany, the Low Countries, and Sweden, these essays investigate the meaning of nuns’ literacies in terms of reading and writing, Latin and the vernaculars. Contributors to this volume investigate the topic of literacy primarily from palaeographical and textual evidence and by discussing information about book ownership and book production in convents. In this first concentrated study that examines the literacy of nuns in a comparative fashion the essays pay close attention to the individual textual and cultural complexities of nuns’ literacies in the European Middle Ages.
Introduction Literacy and Nuns: Finding and Interpreting the Evidence Reading Women at the Margins of Quedlinburg Codex - Helene Scheck Making History at Fontevraud: Abbess Petronilla de Chemille and Practical Literacy - Bruce L. Venarde 'Mathild de Niphin' and the Female Scribes of Twelfth-Century Zwiefalten - Alison I. Beach Rendering Accounts: The Pragmatic Literacy of Nuns in Late Medieval England - Marilyn Oliva The Late Medieval English Nun and her Scribal Activity: A Complicated Quest - Veronica O'Mara Language and Literacy: Latin and the Vernacular Nuns and Latin, with Special Reference to the Birgittines of Vadstena - Monica Hedlund Vernacular and Latinate Literacy in Viennese Women's Convents - Cynthia J. Cyrus Praying in the Vernacular: Middle Dutch Imitative Forms of the Divine Office from the 1370s to 1520s - Thom Mertens Literate Nuns: Reading and Writing in the Convent Conceiving the Word(s): Habits of Literacy among Earlier Anglo?Saxon Monastic Women - Lisa M. C. Weston The Literary Culture of the Anglo?Saxon Royal Nunneries: Romsey and London, British Library, MS Lansdowne 436 - Stephanie Hollis The Devotional Reading of Nuns: Three Legendaries of Native Saints in Late Medieval England - Virginia Blanton Between Court and Cloister: Royal Patronage and Nuns' Literacy in Medieval East-Central Europe - Alfred Thomas Books in Texts--Texts in Books: The St. Georgener Predigten as an Example of Nuns' Literacy in Late Medieval Germany - Regina Dorothea Schiewer The Birgittine Sisters at Vadstena Abbey: Their Learning and Literacy, with Particular Reference to Table Reading - Jonas Carlquist Vadstena Abbey and Female Literacy in Late Medieval Sweden - Ingela Hedstrom Authorship and Nuns: Writing by the Nun for the Nun Writing, Editing, and Rearranging: Griet Essinchghes and her Version of the Sister-Book of Diepenveen - Wybren Scheepsma Nuns' Literacy in Sixteenth?Century Convent Sermons from the Cistercian Abbey of Ter Kameren - Patricia Stoop Bibliography Index of Manuscripts, Archival Documents, and Incunabula Index of Texts Index of Convents Index of People
- Edited by Virginia Blanton
- Edited by Veronica O’Mara
- Edited by Patricia Stoop
Other Titles in this Series
Saints Edith and Aethelthryth: Princesses, Miracle Workers, and their Late Medieval Audience
The Wilton Chronicle and the Wilton Life of St Aethelthryth
Volume 25
The Manere of Good Lyvyng
A Middle English Translation of Pseudo-Bernard's 'Liber de modo bene vivendi ad sororem'
Volume 30
Medieval Women and their Spiritual Texts: Helfta Writings, Margery Kempe, and Beyond
Essays in Honour of Naoë Kukita Yoshikawa
Volume 34
Sacred Communities, Shared Devotions
Gender, Material Culture, and Monasticism in Late Medieval Germany
Volume 29
Saints’ Lives for Medieval English Nuns, II
An Edition of the 'Lyves and Dethes' in Cambridge University Library, MS Additional 2604
Volume 32
Living Saints of the Thirteenth Century
The Lives of Yvette, Anchoress of Huy; Juliana of Cornillon, Author of the Corpus Christi Feast; and Margaret the Lame, Anchoress of Magdeburg
Volume 20
Saints’ Lives for Medieval English Nuns, I
A Study of the 'Lyves and Dethes' in Cambridge University Library, MS Additional 2604
Volume 18
The Sisterbook of Master Geert’s House, Deventer
The Lives and Spirituality of the Sisters, c. 1390-c. 1460
Volume 33
Thomas of Cantimpre
The Collected Saints' Lives: Abbot John of Cantimpre, Christina the Astonishing, Margaret of Ypres, and Lutgard of Aywieres
Volume 19
Medieval Women – Texts and Contexts in Late Medieval Britain
Essays in Honour of Felicity Riddy
Volume 3
Mystics, Goddesses, Lovers, and Teachers
Medieval Visions and Their Legacies / Studies in Honour of Barbara Newman
Volume 31
Virgins and Scholars
A Fifteenth-Century Compilation of the Lives of John the Baptist, John the Evangelist, Jerome, and Katherine of Alexandria
Volume 10
The Knowing of Woman’s Kind in Childing
A Middle English Version of Material Derived from the Trotula and other Sources
Volume 4
Three Women of Liege
A Critical Edition of and Commentary on the Middle English Lives of Elizabeth of Spalbeek, Christina Mirabilis, and Marie d'Oignies
Volume 23
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