Women, Reading, and Piety in Late Medieval England
Women, Reading, and Piety in Late Medieval England
$65.00
USDWomen, Reading, and Piety in Late Medieval England traces networks of female book ownership and exchange which have so far been obscure, and shows how women were responsible for both owning and circulating devotional books. In seven narratives of individual women who lived between 1350 and 1550, Mary Erler illustrates the ways in which women read and the routes by which they passed books from hand to hand. These stories are prefaced by an overview of nuns' reading and their surviving books, and are followed by a survey of women who owned the first printed books in England. An appendix lists a number of books not previously attributed to religious women's ownership. Erler's narratives also provide studies of female friendship, since they situate women's reading in a network of family and social connections. The book uses bibliography to explore social and intellectual history.
- Narratives of individual women offer new evidence on female book ownership and reading practices in medieval England
- Important contribution to current debates on the history of the book
- New insight into female friendship and related cultural developments in the period
Reviews & endorsements
"This is an admirable book. It is well researched, well written, and well presented, and it represents a real advance in the ongoing reevaluation of women's reading and literacy in late England." Journal of English and Germanic Philology
"Methodically researched and carefully argued, Women, Reading, and Piety in Late Medieval England was a pleasure to read and ought to be on every medieval English scholar's bookshelf." Canadian Journal of History
"Erler's book provides evidence of connections among women and will be informative for those interested in women's history ... and the history of books. Upper-division undergraduates and above." Choice
"Erler assimilates, analyzes and continues... groundbreaking work on medieval female reading practices." The Medieval Review
"Well written, learned, respectful of its subjects and filled with interesting ideas, it will richly reward the reader who gives it the careful attention it deserves." American Historical Review
"Rich and well-documented." SHARP News
"[This book's] importance, because of the information and materials [Erler] has gathered, in the study of late medieval devotion, women's history and late medieval culture cannot be emphasized more. Again, this well-written and well-documented book is an essential tool for any student or scholar interested in women, late medieval devotion and reading." Comitatus
"Interesting and compelling. Erler has succeeded with this work, and provided her readers with a considered, highly detailed, frequently provocative and undeniably important contribution to women's literary and social history." Arthuriana
"The author should be praised for delivering such a wealth of information in such a compact...piece of research." Medium Aevum
"Women, Reading, and Piety in Late Medieval England will be of as much interest to religious historians as it is to historians of the book. It is a thoughtful and reflective contribution to the history of female reading...." The Library
Product details
May 2002Hardback
9780521812214
244 pages
237 × 160 × 20 mm
0.464kg
12 b/w illus.
Available
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Table of Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Prologue
- Introduction: Dinah's story
- 1. Ownership and transmission of books: women's religious communities
- 2. The library of a London vowess: Margery de Nerford
- 3. A Norwich widow and her devout society: Margaret Purdans
- 4. Orthodoxy: the Fettyplace sisters at Syon
- 5. Heterodoxy: anchoress Katherine Manne and abbess Elizabeth Throckmorton
- 6. Women owners or religious incunabula: the physical evidence
- Epilogue
- Appendices
- Notes
- Select bibliography
- Indexes.
