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Guidance for Women in Twelfth-Century Convents

Jocelyn Wogan-Browne translator Vera Morton translator

Format:Paperback

Publisher:Boydell & Brewer Ltd

Published:15th Mar '12

Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back

Guidance for Women in Twelfth-Century Convents cover

Collection of letters and texts offering guidance for nuns, and including selections from Abelard's letters to Heloise. These translated letters and texts composed for younger and older women in twelfth-century convents illuminate the powerful medieval ideals of virginity and chastity. Abelard's history of women's roles in the church and his letteron women's education, both written for Heloise in her work as abbess, are seen here alongside previously untranslated letters and texts for abbesses and nuns in England and France. An interpretive essay explores the practical and spiritual engagement of women's convents with medieval commemorative and memorial practices, showing that the professional concern of women religious with death goes far beyond the stereotype of nuns as dead to the world, or enclosed in living death. VERA MORTON gained an MA in Medieval Studies at the University of Liverpool in 1994. JOCELYN WOGAN-BROWNE is Professor of English at Fordham University, NY.

A significant and lasting contribution to the field of medieval women's religious literature and culture. -- DIANE WATT, THE MEDIEVAL REVIEW

ISBN: 9781843842958

Dimensions: unknown

Weight: 272g

213 pages