This work offers an examination of religious texts written by twelve women over three centuries in two languages and three genres, showing the variety and complexity of gendered images available to medieval women. Moving beyond the categories of virgin, wife and widow, these religious texts created a spectrum of exemplary feminine life-paths based not on marital status, age, social rank, or profession, but instead founded on biblical figures, monastic divisions of labor, expected saintly behaviors, and even individual personality characteristics. This study contributes to discussions of genre and its influences on gender representation, as well as to scholarship on the complexities of gender relationships within literary works and historical contexts. This work will also serve to introduce a wider audience to a cycle of texts and an interrelated group of women authors previously available only to specialists in German and manuscript studies.
Author(s): Rebecca L. R. Garber
Series: Studies in Medieval History and Culture, 10
Publisher: Routledge
Year: 2003
Language: English
Pages: 314
City: New York
Series Editor Foreword
Dedication
Table of Contents
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
INTRODUCTION. Veiled Individuals
CHAPTER 1. Women's Genres, Women's Authority
CHAPTER 2. Where Is the Body? Imitability in Hildegard's Images of Eve and Mary
CHAPTER 3. Invented Communities, Idealizing the Past: Redefining Monastic Ideals in the Dominican Sister-Books
INTERLUDE. Personal Revelations: Re-Living the Model, In-Scribing the Self
CHAPTER 4. Margaretha Ebner: Illness in the Service of God
CHAPTER 5. Adelheid Langmann: Bride of God, Beloved of Christ
POSTLUDE. Personal Revelations: Generic Imitation and Expansion
CONCLUSION. Varied Ideals
NOTES
BIBLIOGRAPHY
INDEX OF TITLES AND PROPER NAMES
SUBJECT INDEX
