Medieval History
The letter to Eadburga expressed thanks for the previous goods sent from Minster-in-Thanet and asked for yet another favor ? a special copy of the Epistles of St. Peter.
Along with Bishop Boniface?s ?thank you? was a quantity of gold, to be pounded flat or powdered by the clever fingers of the monastic scribes, for gilding the hand-written book?s Latin letters. When trying to convert the ?carnally minded? Germans in the early 700s A.D., it paid to be a little flashy.
This Anglo-Saxon bishop/missionary to the pagan tribes was not writing to a house of Kentish monks, however. Eadburga was an abbess, one of hundreds, if not thousands, of nuns involved in copying books throughout the Middle Ages. In our collective cultural misconception, fed by clever advertising (remember the ?It?s a miracle? Xerox ad?), cartoons and movies (?The Name of the Rose?), this job is largely thought of as a monk?s ? read, ?man?s.?
Yet cloistered women also underpinned European civilization, noted medievalist Virginia Blanton, ?another part of the past which, when I was in school, did not appear in our history books.?
Click here to read this article from The Kansas City Star
Click here to visit the Nuns? Literacies in Medieval Europe II website
- No Sexy Outfits Nuns Told In 1,300-year-old 'rule' Book
They were held up as paragons of virtue, but one congregation of Essex nuns appear to have needed some pointers on how to conduct themselves. In a book of advice for the cloistered women written more than 1,300 years ago, they were reminded of the benefits...
- Medieval Nuns Knew Their Fashion, Historian Finds
Recent research on medieval nuns shows that many of them were dressing in the latest fashions instead of simple religious habits. And while their were efforts by the church to make nuns dress more humbly, by the 14th and 15th centuries these rules were...
- Comic Medievalism
Remember those ads from the late '70s for Xerox, the chubby monk who instead of copying out the decorative page takes them to the Xerox copier and of course they come out beautiful etc? Well, blessed be YouTube! For you may view it here. There were...
- Cfp: Women In/and/on Books
CFP: Women In/And/On Books Special session sponsored by the Society for Medieval Feminist Scholarship International Medieval Congress Western Michigan University 13-16 May 2010 We invite papers considering the relationship of women to books during any...
- Szarmach Festschrift
The festschrift in honor of Paul Szarmach is now available: Intertexts: Studies in Anglo-Saxon Culture Presented to Paul E. Szarmach / edited by Virginia Blanton and Helene Scheck. Tempe: MRTS, 2008. ISBN: 978-0-86698-382-2 / MR 334 / $57, ?50. Details...
Medieval History
UMKC conference to celebrate Medieval nuns? literary contributions
Along with Bishop Boniface?s ?thank you? was a quantity of gold, to be pounded flat or powdered by the clever fingers of the monastic scribes, for gilding the hand-written book?s Latin letters. When trying to convert the ?carnally minded? Germans in the early 700s A.D., it paid to be a little flashy.
This Anglo-Saxon bishop/missionary to the pagan tribes was not writing to a house of Kentish monks, however. Eadburga was an abbess, one of hundreds, if not thousands, of nuns involved in copying books throughout the Middle Ages. In our collective cultural misconception, fed by clever advertising (remember the ?It?s a miracle? Xerox ad?), cartoons and movies (?The Name of the Rose?), this job is largely thought of as a monk?s ? read, ?man?s.?
Yet cloistered women also underpinned European civilization, noted medievalist Virginia Blanton, ?another part of the past which, when I was in school, did not appear in our history books.?
Click here to read this article from The Kansas City Star
Click here to visit the Nuns? Literacies in Medieval Europe II website
- No Sexy Outfits Nuns Told In 1,300-year-old 'rule' Book
They were held up as paragons of virtue, but one congregation of Essex nuns appear to have needed some pointers on how to conduct themselves. In a book of advice for the cloistered women written more than 1,300 years ago, they were reminded of the benefits...
- Medieval Nuns Knew Their Fashion, Historian Finds
Recent research on medieval nuns shows that many of them were dressing in the latest fashions instead of simple religious habits. And while their were efforts by the church to make nuns dress more humbly, by the 14th and 15th centuries these rules were...
- Comic Medievalism
Remember those ads from the late '70s for Xerox, the chubby monk who instead of copying out the decorative page takes them to the Xerox copier and of course they come out beautiful etc? Well, blessed be YouTube! For you may view it here. There were...
- Cfp: Women In/and/on Books
CFP: Women In/And/On Books Special session sponsored by the Society for Medieval Feminist Scholarship International Medieval Congress Western Michigan University 13-16 May 2010 We invite papers considering the relationship of women to books during any...
- Szarmach Festschrift
The festschrift in honor of Paul Szarmach is now available: Intertexts: Studies in Anglo-Saxon Culture Presented to Paul E. Szarmach / edited by Virginia Blanton and Helene Scheck. Tempe: MRTS, 2008. ISBN: 978-0-86698-382-2 / MR 334 / $57, ?50. Details...