No full-text available
To read the full-text of this research,
you can request a copy directly from the author.
Women and Medieval Drama: Selected Sisters and Worshipful Wives
ResearchGate has not been able to resolve any citations for this publication.
A significant point of contention within studies of the twelfth-century visionary saint and Doctor of the Church, Hildegard of Bingen, is the question of her role in the production of the illuminated Scivias manuscript known as the Rupertsberg Codex. While current German scholarship has tended to preclude Hildegard’s hand, pre-war German scholars, who had access to the original manuscript before it was lost, and most modern Anglophone scholars have argued more or less strongly for Hildegard’s influence on the design. This paper argues for Hildegard’s direction of the images based on their function as a theological discourse refracting the text. The images are not ancillary to or derivative of the work; they are integral to it. A key area of the manuscript design that reveals these authorial interventions is the color scheme. The use of certain colors, such as green and red, that have particular meanings in Hildegard’s symbolic vocabulary—even when at odds with the colors described in the recorded vision text—reveals the theological place of each image within Hildegard’s perception of salvation history. Furthermore, the extensive use of silver, gold, and blue in the manuscript can be understood both through Hildegard’s likely use of actual jewelry that contained enamel work and those metals, and through the theological meanings with which Hildegard imbues the metallic pigments. Such visual markers invested with theological significance thus argue for Hildegard’s design of the manuscript and aid the viewer- reader in interpreting the complex visual allegories at work in Hildegard’s often enigmatic visions. Finally, they reveal the dynamic ways in which Hildegard used the images to emphasize her theological insights into the feminine divine and its connection especially to her and her community as virgin members of a virgin Church.
Although The Chester mystery cycle has been called the most “medieval” and conservative of the great dramatic cycles, when viewed from the perspective of women and work, it seems rather an uneasy negotiation between past and present, between medieval traditions and sixteenthcentury social commentary . Two scenes, often termed instances of “comic realism” added late in the cycle’s history and considered textually problematic, are powerful representations of change and loss in women’s lives that exemplify the liminal position of the Chester cycle. In the Noah play, Noah’s wife refuses to enter the ark when Noah orders her to board the boat. Verbal and physical sparring follow; in modern productions, this is usually played for comic effect.2 She then desires to join her friends and to divorce Noah. The passage concludes with a “good gossips’” drinking song sung as the waters of the flood rise and engulf the gossips before the eyes of Mrs. Noah and the audience (stanzas 25-31).
The expression "liturgical drama" was formulated in 1834 as a metaphor and hardened into formal category only later in the nineteenth century. Prior to this invention, the medieval rites and representations that would forge the category were understood as distinct and unrelated classes: as liturgical rites no longer celebrated or as theatrical works of dubious quality. This ground-breaking work examines "liturgical drama" according to the contexts of their presentations within the manuscripts and books that preserve them. © 2017 by the Board of Trustees of Western Michigan University. All rights reserved.
Addressing questions about the musical life in English nunneries in the later Middle Ages, Yardley pieces together a mosaic of nunnery musical life, where even the smallest convents sang the monastic offices on a daily basis and many of the larger houses celebrated the late medieval liturgy in all of its complexity.
From repetitions of St. Paul’s admonition that women should keep silent in the churches to Donald Jay Grout’s statement that “Gregorian Chant consists of a single-line melody sung to Latin words by unaccompanied men’s voices,”1 women’s role in the performance of sacred music in the Middle Ages has been denied implicitly or explicitly by most scholars.2 Few people are aware that she as well as he “soong the service dyvyne”3 not occasionally but daily, following the full complexity of the liturgical year. Throughout the Middle Ages, the nunnery offered women an opportunity to sing, arrange, and compose music for the worship of God. Indeed, in most convents, the performance of liturgical music was the central communal activity.
The late medieval English milling industry epitomizes one of the most important technical achievements of early societies: the exploitation of wind, water and muscle power for augmenting human endeavours. Through a computerized analysis of the number and variety of mills in England from 1300 to 1540, as well as the technology, practices and personnel sustaining them, Langdon reveals the structural evolution of the milling industry, highlighting both its accomplishments and its limitations. Although it focuses on England during the later middle ages, the book's innovative methodologies and original findings will furnish useful comparative material for all scholars investigating pre-industrial societies. It also offers a challenging new perspective on the later middle ages as a time of change, in addition to providing enthusiasts of old technologies generally with a wealth of detail about one of the most recognizable and enduring features of medieval society.
A spate of recent articles attests to a growing interest in Eve in criticism of Old English literature. However, these same articles demonstrate the narrowness of this interest, as they all focus on Eve in one poem — Genesis B — which is not even an entire poem, but rather a small (albeit significant) interpolation into another poem. Other Old English writings have been little studied: in particular, several prominent occurrences of Eve during the Harrowing of Hell survive in the Old English Martyrology ; Blickling Homily 7; a homily De descensu Christi ad inferos in Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Junius 121; and the poem Christ and Satan , but have received little comment. In each of these texts Eve supplicates Christ when he descends into hell to free the souls of the biblical patriarchs and prophets after his crucifixion; furthermore, six Old English homilies record Eve's appearance during the Harrowing, although not her active involvement. The Evangelium Nicodemi most fully describes the Harrowing of Hell; Eve's appearance within these texts, however, does not derive from this apocryphon. Moreover, while these episodes incorporate ideas drawn from patristic exegesis, they do not derive directly from patristic writings either; nevertheless, Eve's role in these texts may be an Anglo-Saxon modification of the patristic contrast between Eve and Mary, whereby Eve is portrayed as a type of Mary instead of as her antithesis.
During the fourteenth century, Barking Abbey continued to be one of the most important and renowned female religious houses in England. Some time during Katherine of Sutton's tenure as abbess, from 1358 to 1376, the abbey began using plays as part of its Easter liturgy. The only extant copies of these Easter plays are found in Barking's 1404 Ordinale and Customary, a manuscript that codifies the abbey's customs and practices. As Anne Bagnall Yardley has demonstrated, both this manuscript and a fifteenth-century hymnal attributed to the abbey indicate that Barking's nuns regularly crafted their liturgy to meet the community's specific devotional needs and desires. It appears that the culture at Barking actively supported the kind of adaptation and revision involved in re-shaping the Easter liturgy through drama. A rubric that appears immediately before Barking's ‘Harrowing of Hell’, Elevatio and Visitatio plays reads: Nota quod secunduum antiquam consuetudinem ecclesiasticam, resurexio dominica celebrata fuerit ante matutinas et ante aliquam campane pulsacionem in die pasche, et quam populorum concursis temporibus illis uidebatur deuocione frigessere et torpor humanus maxime accrescens. uenerabilis domina Domina Katerina de Suttone, tunc pastoralis cure gerens uicem desiderans dictum torporem penitus exstirpare et fidelium deuocionem ad tam celibem celebracionem magis excitare: unanimi consororum instituit ut statim post tercium responsorium matutinarum die pasche fieret dominice resurexionis celebracio, et hoc modo statuetur processio.
Kingship and Masculinity in Late Medieval England explores the dynamic between kingship and masculinity in fifteenth century England, with a particular focus on Henry V and Henry VI. The role of gender in the rhetoric and practice of medieval kingship is still largely unexplored by medieval historians. Discourses of masculinity informed much of the contemporary comment on fifteenth century kings, for a variety of purposes: to praise and eulogise but also to explain shortcomings and provide justification for deposition.
This book addresses women's relationship to culture between the 1st century BC and the 18th century by identifying women who wrote poetry in Latin. It also considers women's prose writing in Latin and their performance as Latin orators. The earlier chapters move forward through time up to the Renaissance, which is then treated on a country-by-country basis, followed by a second suite of chapters on the early modern era. It surveys the phenomenon of women who achieved a position in public life at a time when this was not open to women in general, and how the societies in which this occurred permitted this to happen. It is completed by a checklist of more than 300 women Latin poets, identifying where possible their names, place, milieu, and providing details of their work and a comprehensive finding guide listing manuscripts, editions, and translations.
This essay argues that in the York cycle, Procula functions as a feminine foil against which her husband, Pilate, can model supposedly masculine traits. Positing that traditional exegetical revisions of Procula’s dream were always a means of dis- crediting feminine spirituality, this essay contends that the York cycle’s further revisions of its source material construct a triangulation in which an ambivalently gendered Pilate must choose between the feminine influence of his wife and the masculine influence of his beadle. It asserts that the masculine identity Pilate ultimately embraces consists of spiritual scepticism and legal obedience. Noting iconographic similarities between Procula and the Whore of Babylon, whom the religious art of York likewise depicts as an embodiment of sinful civic conduct, the essay concludes that the play presents Procula as a feminine identity to be rejected not only by Pilate but also by the civic body of York itself.
Hildegard of Bingen's Ordo Virtutum has come to occupy a major role among Western European dramatic musical works, with scenes widely anthologized, multiple studies in print, and several recordings. I argue that the “setting” of Hildegard's Ordo Virtutum is the allegorical architecture created in her first major treatise, Scivias, written in the 1140s and early 1150s. In this period, while Hildegard was composing the play and writing her first major theological work, she was also designing a complex of new monastic buildings, which helps explain her concentration on architectural themes and images. Hildegard has situated the main “acts” of the play within allegorical towers, and the musical dimensions of the play are driven by its unfolding within this architectural understanding, including the “climbing” through the modes and the development of longer processional chants that link the action in one tower or pillar to that of another. We can see that the particular characters chosen for the play from a broad array of possibilities, underscore themes that relate to the lives and governance of Benedictine nuns. Hildegard's work provided parallels for her community between the allegorical architecture of Scivias, the play and its music, and the new church whose building was overseen by Hildegard.
The dynamism of the late medieval English parish found some of its expression in new roles and opportunities for women. Churchwardens' accounts show a late fifteenth-century increase in the number and variety of parish activities carried out by women in all-women groups. Parish guilds for married women and single women became a part of communal religious practice, and a means of expressing religious concerns particular to women. Within these groups women organized, raised funds, socialized, and worshiped. These new roles gave women visibility and leadership opportunities, but also paradoxically affirmed and reinforced what were deemed to be appropriate female behavior and interests.
Early medieval drama (in Latin) surprisingly focused very much on the theme of sexuality, as best illustrated by Hrotsvit of Gandersheim (10th century). She was most eager to compete with the Roman dramatist Terence and to create new Christian plays that were, on the one hand, basically determined by the theatrical strategies of Terence, and yet followed, on the other, early medieval Christian values as developed by the Church Fathers and desert hermits. Although Hrotsvit pursued strongly religious values throughout her works, she also revealed a keen interest in theatricality per se, irrespective of the religious paradigm characteristic of the Middle Ages. At the same time this tenth-century convent author demonstrated an incredible skill in exploring and utilizing a wide range of sexual themes in her plays and religious narratives. She consistently demonstrated a unique ability in creating theatrical works that aimed both for the basic entertainment of a convent audience and also for a fundamental clerical education that did not ignore the world of sexuality as a dangerous yet unavoidable aspect of human existence. 1
"Ne desperetis vos qui peccare soletis, exemploque meo vos reparate Deos."
[Don't despair, you who habitually sin, since through my example God will restore you.]1
The Digby play, performed in a period when women were excluded from preaching, celebrates Mary Magdalene as a most successful preacher.2 It is not a marginal work: this is a large play which takes over three hours to perform, has a cast of over 60, and thus would need at least 100 people to produce.3 The play is highly entertaining, with stage mechanics, song, and dangerous-sounding pyrotechnics. With impressive spectacle the play shows the Magdalene as the apostola apostolorum: a woman who out-apostles the apostles.4 There is a challenging irony in the situation of a woman preaching before a medieval audience, as Theresa Coletti shows and investigates. Coletti, noting that "discourses of female vice and virtue are deeply implicated in visions of social order, hierarchy, and control,"5 examines the historical East Anglian context of the Digby Mary Magdalen more fully in her book, Mary Magdalene and the Drama of Saints. I want to add to Coletti's anatomization of the play further evidence of its feminine perspective. Agreeing that "Medieval dramatic performance can no longer be construed as unreflective vehicles of instruction in a timeless Christian faith,"6 I examine the way that the Digby play heightens Magdalene's transgression of gender roles. In line with non-biblical material it amalgamates several episodes now considered not to belong to the Magdalene but to other women.7 Consistently, dramatic strategies endorse the Magdalene's social transgressions: her open sexuality and her preaching. There are male foils to female action (her lust is graceful against crude male parodies; her preaching has its male foils), themes and echoes that move between characters (good and bad patriarchs bully), and reassurance that the Magdalene's breach of social codes is still contained within the gender role hierarchy (she is awarded semi-divine status, yet defers to Saint Peter). The flow of action between characters, which I am calling shadowing after Edmund Spenser's use of the term,8 endorses female escape from social stricture. Slippage of moral action between characters contrasts and compares them to the purpose of endorsing the feminist potential of the female saint.
The Magdalene motif is one whose boundaries are hard to define: there are many different Maries as represented in the different New Testament gospels, in the Gnostic gospels, and in subsequent art and literature. The play's inclusive representation is the traditional Western understanding of the Magdalene. David A. Mycoff explains that "Although the Eastern Church from an early date had maintained that the two Marys and the nameless penitent were separate, the West . . . identified them as one."9 Present day scholarship leans toward accepting that historically these women are likely to be separate in accordance with the Eastern view. However, the amalgamated "unica Magdalene" of Western tradition has taken a distinctive and compelling shape as an idea, noumenal rather than phenomenal, to use the term as developed in book 2 of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. The idea of the Magdalene seems more accessible and more interesting than the shadows of historical women. Holly H. Hearon cites as her attraction to the topic: "Magdalene stories . . . represent an intersection of gender, power and status, and conflict"10 ; I agree but want to emphasize that it is the status as stories that allows for such an interesting nexus.
It is a commonplace to see textually-constructed women as divisible into one of two categories: they are either in the type of Eve, the temptress, or of the blessed virgin Mary.11 The unica Magdalene offers a middle ground: a sexualized, touching, intuitive woman who is also well educated and successful as an apostle.12 This is a complex version of femininity, because the Magdalene's publicly observed sensuality, an impropriety, is what gives her success in her preacherly breach of socially prescribed gender roles. Not only does she escape censure for her failure to fit into the mold of ideal woman—she is not silent, chaste, and obedient—but her rule breaking is what makes her...
Thesis--University of Michigan. Abstracted in Dissertation abstracts, v. 20 (1959) no. 4, p. 1479. Bibliography: leaves 239-245. Photocopy.
The Castle of Perseverance
- David N Klausner
Staging the Chester Cycle. Leeds Texts and Monographs 9
- David Mills
The Plays of Roswitha
- St
- Christopher John
- Marie
The Ordinale and Customary of the Benedictine Nuns of Barking Abbey, Volume I Calendar and Temporale
- J B L Tolhurst
The Coventry Leet Book or Mayor’s Register, Old Series, vols
- Mary Harris
- Dormer
Later Medieval Chester 1230-1550: City Government and Politics
- C P Lewis
- A T Thacker
The Digby Mary Magdalene Play
- Theresa Coletti
The Craft Guilds, the Corpus Christi Play and Civic Government
- Jeremy Goldberg
Doomsday as Hypertext: Contexts of Doomsday in Fifteenth-Century Northern Manuscripts I: “The Bolton Hours”
- Meg Twycross