Holy motherhood : gender, dynasty and visual culture in the later Middle Ages / Elizabeth L'Estrange.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

L'Estrange, Elizabeth.

Contributor:

Class of 1932 Fund.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Christian art and symbolism--France--Medieval, 500-1500.

Christian art and symbolism.

France.

Childbirth in art.

Mothers in art.

Illumination of books and manuscripts, French.

Christian art and symbolism--Medieval, 500-1500.

Christian art and symbolism--Medieval.

Illumination of books and manuscripts--History.

Illumination of books and manuscripts.

History.

Physical Description:

xvii, 282 pages, 16 pages of plates : illustrations (some color) ; 22 cm

Place of Publication:

Manchester ; New York : Manchester University Press ; New York : Distributed exclusively in the USA by Palgrave, 2008.

Summary:

This Book Brings Images of holy motherhood and childbearing into the centre of an art-historical enquiry. By focusing on images of St Anne and the Holy Kinship in Books of Hours made for aristocratic women in relation to the dynastic importance of heirs, it reassesses the role of the female viewer as an active agent in the interpretation of pictures and popular devotional rites.

Holy motherhood combines an innovative methodology that draws on art-historical and contemporary gender studies with empirical evidence from fifteenth-century manuscripts, to show how images worked, not only to script and maintain gender and social roles within patriarchal society, but also to offer viewers ways of managing those roles. Some of the manuscripts discussed are relatively unknown, and their images and texts are made available to readers for the first time.

The study begins by problematising the notion that intimate, post-partum images of holy childbirth found in Books of Hours provide a window onto the medieval past and women's viewing habits. Through an adaptation of Baxadall's 'period eye', the first part of the book explores how aristocratic lay women - and men - viewed and interpreted images of childbirth by considering their familiarity with prayers for childbirth, the lying-in ceremony and the rite of churching. The second part uses this methodology to interpret the images and prayers in six bespoke manuscripts, including the Fitzwilliam Hours, owned by several Angevin and Breton duchesses, and the Hours of Marguerite of Foix.

The book will appeal to advanced students, academics and researchers of Art History, Illuminated Manuscripts, Medieval History and Gender Studies.

Contents:

Family trees of the houses of France, Anjou, Brittany and Burgundy xviii

Part I Gender, agency and the interpretation of material culture 23

1 The situational eye: viewing, gender and response in the later middle ages 25

2 De conceptione ad partum: saints, treatises and prayers for successful childbirth 44

3 The lying-in month and the rite of churching: post-partum rituals and the material culture of childbearing 76

Part II Manuscript case studies from the houses of Anjou, Brittany and France 111

4 Holy mothers, sainted monarchs and beata stirps: the Fitzwilliam Hours and Books of Hours for the house of Anjou 113

5 Steriles fecundas fecisti: viewing and reading holy motherhood in the manuscripts of four duchesses of Brittany 199

Appendix I Prayer and translation from the Hours of Marguerite of Foix 257

Appendix II Prayer and translation from the Prayer Book of Anne of Brittany 260.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 263-277) and index.

Local Notes:

Acquired for the Penn Libraries with assistance from the Class of 1932 Fund.

ISBN:

9780719075438

0719075432

OCLC:

183147134