
- 288 pages
- English
- ePUB (mobile friendly)
- Available on iOS & Android
About this book
This volume offers a comprehensive introduction to and investigation of the multivocality of women's experience in the Middle Ages. In medieval Europe women saw their role in the Christian Church and society progressively confined to conflicting models of femininity epitomised by the dichotomy of Eve/Mary. Classical views of gender, predicated on misogynistic dichotomies which confined women to matter and the corruption of the flesh, were consolidated in powerful male-dominated clerical institutions and widely disseminated. Towards the end of the Middle Ages, however, women's corporeality and somatic spirituality contributed to and influenced burgeoning modes of piety centred around the cult of the Virgin Mary and the veneration of the suffering body of Christ on the Cross. This shift in devotional practices afforded women as bodily beings the space for an increased level of self-expression, self-realisation, and authority. Ranging from philosophical and theological enquiry to education and art, as well as medical sciences and popular beliefs, the essays in this collection account for the complexities and richness of the conceptualisations and lived experiences of medieval Christian women. The book will be especially relevant to students and scholars of religion and history with an interest in medieval studies and gender. Whilst expounding the key strands of thinking in the field, it engages with and contributes to some of the latest scholarly research.
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Information
Table of contents
- Cover
- Endorsement Page
- Half-Title Page
- Series Page
- Title Page
- Copyright Page
- Dedication
- Table of Contents
- List of Figures
- List of Contributors
- Foreword
- Acknowledgements
- List of Abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 Theological Approaches to Women 1000–1500
- 2 Mary in the Middle Ages: A Woman for All Women
- 3 Saints’ Lives: Bodies, Texts, and Readers in Medieval Lives of Female Saints
- 4 Embodying Medieval Holy Women: Science, Technology, and Medicine
- 5 Women as Educators in Medieval Europe: Learners, Teachers, Mentors
- 6 Philosophical Views of Women
- 7 Women and Popular Beliefs
- 8 Representations: The Image and Experience of Women and Medieval Christian Art
- Index