St Anselm and the Handmaidens of God
A Study of Anselm's Correspondence with Women
By (author) Sally N Vaughn
As abbot of Bec and archbishop of Canterbury, the renowned theologian St. Anselm spent most of his career working ‘in the world’, primarily with laypersons, not in the cloister. His correspondence contains surprisingly many letters to laywomen, only a few perfunctory letters to nuns and abbesses. Anselm wrote to all estates of noble laywomen: young girls, mothers, mature wives or widows, countesses and queens. Vaughn argues that Anselm collected and edited his own letters, which addressed real women and situations, but also represented particular ideals of women, marriage, parents and children, students and teachers; that the correspondence, an artful construct, was almost an autobiography, teaching by word, deed, and his own example; and a lens through which to discern Anselm’s views of men and women in Anselm’s ideal society. Anselm accords women surprising equality and power, seeing queens as equal to both kings and archbishops, all three primarily as nurturers and teachers, and ideal married couples writ large – social views modelled on past ideals (primarily St. Gregory), but ironically leaping toward new Twelfth Century attitudes of introspection, self-analysis, individualism, and logic and reason in theology, social issues, politics and law. Mothers and teachers emerge as the ultimate Handmaidens of God.
- By (author) Sally N Vaughn
Other Titles in this Series
Strategies of Writing
Studies on Text and Trust in the Middle Ages: Papers from Trust in Writing in the Middle Ages (Utrecht, 28-29 November 2002)
Volume 13
Looking Back from the Invention of Printing
Mothers and the Teaching of Reading in the Middle Ages
Volume 40
Medieval Women in Letters
Letters by Women, to Women, and about Women in Medieval Literatures
Volume 66
Homo Legens
Styles et pratiques de lecture: Analyses comparees des traditions orales et ecrites au Moyen Age / Styles and Practices of Reading: Comparative Analyses of Oral and Written Traditions in the Middle Ages
Volume 26
Writing Names in Medieval Sacred Spaces
Inscriptions in the West, from Late Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages
Volume 56
Manuscript Communication
Visual and Textual Mechanics of Communication in Hagiographical Texts from the Southern Low Countries, 900-1200
Volume 32
Literacy in Medieval and Early Modern Vilnius
Forms of Writing and Rhetorical Spaces in the City
Volume 55
Documenting the Everyday in Medieval Europe
The Social Dimensions of a Writing Revolution, 1250-1350
Volume 42
Orality and Literacy in the Middle Ages
Essays on a Conjunction and its Consequences in Honour of D. H. Green
Volume 12
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