Felice Lifshitz
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- January 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780823256877
- eISBN:
- 9780823261420
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823256877.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Early Christian Studies
This book is a study of the intellectual culture of the women’s monasteries of the Main Valley during the eighth century, with a particular focus on Karlburg and Kitzingen. It is based on an analysis ...
More
This book is a study of the intellectual culture of the women’s monasteries of the Main Valley during the eighth century, with a particular focus on Karlburg and Kitzingen. It is based on an analysis of the manuscripts produced and used by the women religious, beginning in the middle decades of the century, when the arrival of the “Anglo-Saxon missionaries to Germany” (including Boniface of Mainz and his “beloved,” Leoba of Tauberbischofsheim) inaugurated book production in the region. The content of the women’s books was overwhelmingly gender-egalitarian and frequently feminist, that is, resistant to patriarchal ideas. Female intellectuals preferentially selected for reproduction and transmission texts that supported their own aspirations to dignity and authority in the ecclesiastical landscape of the Carolingian realm. Furthermore, the scribe-authors of Karlburg and Kitzingen actively intervened in the texts they transmitted to modify them (when necessary) in a more feminist direction, combined pre-existent texts in innovative ways, and composed a number of entirely new texts in order to produce powerfully feminist visions of Christian history and Christian theology. At Kitzingen, a talented theologian-artist also produced illuminations that enhanced the meaning of the texts, in one case (a crucifixion miniature illustrating the Pauline Epistles) also in a markedly feminist way. Religious Women also provides many glimpses into non-gendered aspects of monastic culture during the eighth century, such as the importance of the practice of devotional penance.Less
This book is a study of the intellectual culture of the women’s monasteries of the Main Valley during the eighth century, with a particular focus on Karlburg and Kitzingen. It is based on an analysis of the manuscripts produced and used by the women religious, beginning in the middle decades of the century, when the arrival of the “Anglo-Saxon missionaries to Germany” (including Boniface of Mainz and his “beloved,” Leoba of Tauberbischofsheim) inaugurated book production in the region. The content of the women’s books was overwhelmingly gender-egalitarian and frequently feminist, that is, resistant to patriarchal ideas. Female intellectuals preferentially selected for reproduction and transmission texts that supported their own aspirations to dignity and authority in the ecclesiastical landscape of the Carolingian realm. Furthermore, the scribe-authors of Karlburg and Kitzingen actively intervened in the texts they transmitted to modify them (when necessary) in a more feminist direction, combined pre-existent texts in innovative ways, and composed a number of entirely new texts in order to produce powerfully feminist visions of Christian history and Christian theology. At Kitzingen, a talented theologian-artist also produced illuminations that enhanced the meaning of the texts, in one case (a crucifixion miniature illustrating the Pauline Epistles) also in a markedly feminist way. Religious Women also provides many glimpses into non-gendered aspects of monastic culture during the eighth century, such as the importance of the practice of devotional penance.
Felice Lifshitz
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- January 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780823256877
- eISBN:
- 9780823261420
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823256877.003.0002
- Subject:
- Religion, Early Christian Studies
This chapter surveys the ecclesiastical and monastic landscape of the Main Valley during the eighth century. Although some men’s monastic communities did exist in the region, they were smaller, less ...
More
This chapter surveys the ecclesiastical and monastic landscape of the Main Valley during the eighth century. Although some men’s monastic communities did exist in the region, they were smaller, less wealthy, and less stable than the most important women’s houses at Karlburg and Kitzingen, both of which (at different points in the century) were proprietary houses of the ruling Carolingian family. These women’s communities are by far and away the best candidates to have produced the surviving eighth-century manuscripts from the region, manuscripts which have been associated with women since they were first studied by the paleographer Bernhard Bischoff during the 1950s. As the chapter demonstrates, claims that the manuscripts were produced in a men’s community depend upon an unreliable twelfth-century biography of bishop Burkhard of Würzburg. The chapter discusses a mythical figure from that narrative, Immina of Würzburg, alongside Kilian of Würzburg, two important regional saints whose legends paint a distorted, misleading picture of the history of the Main Valley.Less
This chapter surveys the ecclesiastical and monastic landscape of the Main Valley during the eighth century. Although some men’s monastic communities did exist in the region, they were smaller, less wealthy, and less stable than the most important women’s houses at Karlburg and Kitzingen, both of which (at different points in the century) were proprietary houses of the ruling Carolingian family. These women’s communities are by far and away the best candidates to have produced the surviving eighth-century manuscripts from the region, manuscripts which have been associated with women since they were first studied by the paleographer Bernhard Bischoff during the 1950s. As the chapter demonstrates, claims that the manuscripts were produced in a men’s community depend upon an unreliable twelfth-century biography of bishop Burkhard of Würzburg. The chapter discusses a mythical figure from that narrative, Immina of Würzburg, alongside Kilian of Würzburg, two important regional saints whose legends paint a distorted, misleading picture of the history of the Main Valley.
Felice Lifshitz
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- January 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780823256877
- eISBN:
- 9780823261420
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823256877.003.0004
- Subject:
- Religion, Early Christian Studies
This chapter discusses the famous full page crucifixion miniature in Würzburg, Universitätsbibliothek M.p.th.f. 69 in relation to the text it was intended to introduce, namely, the letters of St. ...
More
This chapter discusses the famous full page crucifixion miniature in Würzburg, Universitätsbibliothek M.p.th.f. 69 in relation to the text it was intended to introduce, namely, the letters of St. Paul. The chapter argues that the key figures in the image (the large central figure amid a group in a boat, and the figure on the large central cross) represent both Paul and Jesus. The chapter identifies the many sources of inspiration used by the Kitzingen theologian-artist, including the Dittochaeon of Prudentius, Origen’s Homilies on Numbers, and a version of the Visio Pauli (Vision of St. Paul) very likely written at Kitzingen and certainly present in its library collection. A gendered analysis of this image shows how the theologian-artist generally emphasized the universal and thus gender-egalitarian nature of the message of Pauline Christianity, but also expressed views designed to support professed women’s central and active role in the ecclesiastical life of the Main Valley.Less
This chapter discusses the famous full page crucifixion miniature in Würzburg, Universitätsbibliothek M.p.th.f. 69 in relation to the text it was intended to introduce, namely, the letters of St. Paul. The chapter argues that the key figures in the image (the large central figure amid a group in a boat, and the figure on the large central cross) represent both Paul and Jesus. The chapter identifies the many sources of inspiration used by the Kitzingen theologian-artist, including the Dittochaeon of Prudentius, Origen’s Homilies on Numbers, and a version of the Visio Pauli (Vision of St. Paul) very likely written at Kitzingen and certainly present in its library collection. A gendered analysis of this image shows how the theologian-artist generally emphasized the universal and thus gender-egalitarian nature of the message of Pauline Christianity, but also expressed views designed to support professed women’s central and active role in the ecclesiastical life of the Main Valley.
