Thoth distribution@thoth.pub Google 20260408T182102

urn:uuid:918e76d5-a51f-4698-a3b4-87672329413d 03 15 9781805112693 00 EB E101 10 01 01 The Life of Nuns Love, Politics, and Religion in Medieval German Convents 1 A01 Henrike Lähnemann Henrike Lähnemann is the first woman to be appointed to a chair in the Faculty of Medieval and Modern Languages at the University of Oxford, where she teaches German literature of the Middle Ages and works on textual and visual evidence from the women’s convents of northern Germany. 2 A01 Eva Schlotheuber Eva Schlotheuber is professor of Medieval History at Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, where she researches and teaches on the education and lifeworld of religious women. She was the first woman to chair the Association of Historians of Germany from 2016 to 2021. 3 B06 Anne Simon Anne Simon is Associate Fellow at the Institute of Languages, Cultures and Societies, University of London and retired Senior Lecturer in Mediaeval German at the University of Bristol. Her publications include The Cult of Saint Katherine of Alexandria in Late-Medieval Nuremberg: Saint and the City (Farnham 2012); Pepper for Prayer: The Correspondence of the Birgittine Nun Katerina Lemmel, ed. by Volker Schier, Corine Schleif & Anne Simon (Stockholm 2019); ‘Da ward Carolus lachen. Kaiser Karl IV., die Nürnberger Geschichtsschreibung und der Hauptmarkt Nürnbergs’, in Geschichte erzählen. Strategien der Narrativierung von Vergangenheit im Mittelalter. XXV Anglo-German Colloquium Manchester 2017, ed. by Sarah Bowden, Manfred Eikelmann, Stephen Mossman & Michael Stolz (Tübingen 2020); and ‘Aue Maria und Rosenkranz als Gebetunterweisung im spӓtmittelalterlichen Nürnberg’, in Lehren, Lernen und Bilden in der deutschen Literatur des Mittelalters. XXIII. Anglo-German Colloquium (Nottingham 2013), ed. by Henrike Lähnemann, Nicola McLelland & Nine Miedema (Tübingen 2017). 01 eng 00 210 03 04 BX4220.G3 23 Germany 12 HBLC1 10 HIS037010 23 History 23 Archaeology and Religion 12 JFSJ1 23 Nuns 10 REL033000 23 European Studies 12 JFSR 23 Medieval society 10 REL084000 23 European Studies: German Studies 12 HRAM2 23 Reformation 23 Convent life 23 Women and Gender Studies 23 Archival research 01 06 03 00 In the Middle Ages half of those who chose the religious life were women, yet historians have overlooked entire generations of educated, feisty, capable and enterprising nuns, condemning them to the dusty silence of the archives. What, though, were their motives for entering a convent and what was their daily routine behind its walls like? How did they think, live and worship, both as individuals and as a community? How did they maintain contact with the families and communities they had left behind?Henrike Lähnemann and Eva Schlotheuber offer readers a vivid insight into the largely unknown lives and work of religious women in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Using previously inaccessible personal diaries and letters, as well as tapestries, painting, architecture and music, the authors show that the nuns were, in fact, an active, even influential part of medieval society. They functioned as role models and engaged in spirited dialogue with other convents, with the citizens of their home towns and with the local nobility. Full of self-confidence, they organised their demanding daily lives; ran their complex convent economies as successful businesses; offered girls a comprehensive theological, musical and practical education; produced magnificent manuscripts; ministered to the convent sick and dying with homemade medicines and to family and friends with advice. Initially—and fiercely—they resisted the Reformation, only for some of the convents to survive as Protestant women’s foundations to this day.Now, for the first time in centuries, this account by Henrike Lähnemann and Eva Schlotheuber allows the voices of these remarkable women to be heard outside the cloister and to invite us into their world. 04 00 Prologue: Voices from the Past I. Enclosure 1. The Nuns’ Flight 2. The Convent Living Space 3. The Ebstorf World Map II. Education 1. The Convent as School 2. The Convent as Cultural and Educational Space 3. The Heiningen Philosophy Tapestry III. Nuns, Family, and Community 1. Life History and Family Influence 2. The Family and the Convent Community 3. Representation and Status IV. Love and Friendship 1. Friendship Beyond Convent Walls 2. The Idea of Friendship 3. Christ Embracing John the Evangelist as Spiritual Bridehood V. Music and Reform 1. Secular Songs while Breaking Flax 2. Convent Reform 3. Music Instruction in Kloster Ebstorf VI. Reformation 1. The Papal Legate Arrives in Town 2. Convents during the Reformation 3. A Vision of the Reformation VII. Illness and Dying 1. Death in the Community 2. Medicinal Knowledge and the Rituals of Dying 3. This World and the Next in the Wienhausen Nuns’ Choir VIII. Appendix 1. Convent Histories 2. Schematic Representations of Convent Life 3. Glossary of Terms 4. List of Illustrations 5. Sources and Secondary Literature Index Open Book Publishers 01 Open Book Publishers 04 01 20240621 02 WORLD 06 15 9781805112662 06 15 9781805112679 06 15 9781805112686 06 15 9781805112716 06 15 9781805112693 06 15 9781805114246 WORLD 09 Open Book Publishers 20 02 5.99 GBP WORLD