Medieval women : voices & visions / edited by Eleanor Jackson & Julian Harrison ; foreword by Kate Mosse.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Jackson, Eleanor (Curator of illuminated manuscripts), editor.

Harrison, Julian, 1970- editor.

Mosse, Kate, 1961- writer of foreword.

British Library, host institution.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Women--Europe--History--To 1500--Exhibitions.

Women.

Women--Europe--Social conditions--Exhibitions.

Women--Europe--Social life and customs--Exhibitions.

Women--Europe--Intellectual life--Exhibitions.

Women--Europe--Religious aspects--Exhibitions.

Women--Health aspects--Europe--Exhibitions.

Social status--Europe--Exhibitions.

Social status.

Middle Ages--Social life and customs--Exhibitions.

Middle Ages.

British Library--Exhibitions.

British Library.

Women--Europe--Religious aspects--To 1500--Exhibitions.

Social status--Europe--To 1500--Exhibitions.

Middle Ages--Social life and customs.

Women--Europe--Social conditions--To 1500--Exhibitions.

Women--Europe--Social life and customs--To 1500--Exhibitions.

Women--Europe--Intellectual life--To 1500--Exhibitions.

Women--Health aspects--Europe--To 1500--Exhibitions.

Genre:

exhibition catalogs.

Exhibition catalogs.

Physical Description:

256 pages : color illustrations, facsimiles, maps, portraits ; 27 cm

Other Title:

Voices & visions

Voices and visions

Place of Publication:

London : British Library, 2024.

Summary:

"This sumptuous book, like the exhibition it accompanies, upends conventional assumptions, and offers a deeper appreciation of medieval women across all levels of society. Meticulous research into contemporary documents and artefacts reveals extraordinary glimpses of a world that is so often veiled from view in traditional histories.Here we encounter women of medicine and finance, political and military leaders, and cultural patrons, as well as scribes and illuminators, poets and printers, silkwomen and embroiderers, protesters, visionaries and heretics. We learn how women navigated the dangers of pregnancy and childbirth through treatises such as the Trotula and sacred talismans such as the birth girdle. We discover stories of love in the earliest known Valentine's letter, and the realities of running a household in intimate correspondence from a wife to her husband. Women who chose a religious calling are found to have enjoyed remarkable agency. Within abbey walls, creativity flourished with women producing religious art, music and literature.The British Library's collections of precious manuscripts, combined with a selection of important and beautiful objects from other institutions, provide intriguing insights into the lives of medieval women. Through wardrobe accounts and land grants, testimonies and petitions, Books of Hours and Graduals, a chorus of women's voices rises from the pages and illuminates the valuable contributions women made to medieval society"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Foreword / Kate Mosse

Introduction / Eleanor Jackson

Private lives. Essays: Body and health / Elma Brenner

Family and household / Mary Wellesley

Spotlights: The trotula : a guide to women's health / Elma Brenner

'Disease woman' / Elma Brenner

Lidwina of Schiedam, saint and sufferer / Rowan Wilson

Birth girdle / Kerri Price

Household healthcare / Elma Brenner

Marriage laws / Rowan Wilson

Margaret Paston, woman of letters / Mary Wellesley

Margery Brews, be my Valentine / Calum Cockburn

Ippolita Sforza, a Renaissance education / Calum Cockburn

Public lives. Essays: Power and politics / Louise J. Wilkinson

Movement and mobility / Natasha Hodgson

Europe and the Islamic world / Shazia Jagot

Spotlights: Empress Matilda : sealing her legacy / Jitske Jasperse

Eleanor of Castile's final journey / Paula Del Val Vales

Margaret of Norway, child bride / Julian Harrison

Isabella of France, rebel queen / Laura Slater

Black Agnes and the Seige of Dunbar / Rory MacLellan

Margaret Starre and the Peasants' Revolt / Eleanor Jackson

The Eleanor Cobham affair / Mary Wellesley

Margaret of Anjou's marriage / Paula Del Val Vales

Nicolosa Sanuti's defence of women / Calum Cockburn

Melisende, Queen of Jerusalem / Natasha Hodgson

Shajar al-Durr, Sultan of Egypt / Shazia Jagot

Working lives. Essays: Patronage and creativity / Elizabeth L'Estrange

Work and professions / Corselia Beattie

Spotlights: Marie de France, poet and storyteller / Elena Lichmanova

Christine de Pizan, professional author / Elena Lichmanova

Arabic poets : the case of al-Andalus / Shazia Jagot

Gwerful Mechain, poet of desire and devotion / Elena Lichmanova

Estellina Conat, early Hebrew printer / Hanna Gentili

Jeanne de Montbaston, book illuminator / Elena Lichmanova

Alice Claver, silkwoman / Eleanor Jackson

Licoricia of Winchester, financier / Rory MacLellan

A toast to the Alewives / Bee Rowlatt

Eleanor Rykener, sex worker / Rowan Wilson

Maria and Marta : stories of enslavement / Calum Cockburn

Bringing in the harvest / Eleanor Jackson

Spiritual lives. Essays: Mystics, visionaries, heretics / Anthony Bale

Religious communities / Laura Saetveit Miles

Spotlights: Margery Kempe and her book / Anthony Bale

Anchoresses / Mary Wellesley

Julian of Norwich, visionary and anchoress / Mary Wellesley

Joan of Arc, hero and heretic / Rowan Wilson

Birgitta of Sweden, visionary and founder / Laura Saetveit Miles

The nuns of Syon Abbey / Laura Saetveit Miles

Hildegard of Bingen, polymath and abbess / Rowan Wilson

Herrad of Landsberg and her garden of delights / Eleanor Jackson

Sibilla von Bondorf, artist of the Poor Clares / Eleanor Jackson

Annes and the apes / Rory MacLellan

The mortuary roll of Lucy of Hedingham / Calumn Cockburn.

Notes:

Exhibition catalog for the Medieval Women: In Their Own Words exhibition at the British Library from October 2024-March 2, 2025.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

0712355901

9780712355902

OCLC:

1463507671