Feminae: Medieval Women and Gender Index


  • Record Number: 4258
  • Author(s)/Creator(s): Pinder , Janice M.
  • Contributor(s):
  • Title: The Cloister and the Garden: Gendered Images of Religious Life from the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries
  • Source: Listen, Daughter: The "Speculum virginum" and the Formation of Religious Women in the Middle Ages.  Edited by Constant J. Mews.  The New Middle Ages Series. Palgrave, 2001.  Pages 159 - 179.
  • Description:
  • Article Type: Essay
  • Subject (See Also): Bride of Christ, Image of Gender Handbooks Hugh of Fouilloy, Prior of Saint-Laurent-aux-Bois and Author- De Claustro Animae Latin Literature Liber de Modo Bene Vivendi ad Sororem, Latin Handbook for Nuns Monastic Enclosure Monasticism Monks Speculum Virgi
  • Award Note:
  • Geographic Area: France;Germany
  • Century: 12-13
  • Primary Evidence:
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  • Table:
  • Abstract: This chapter compares the "Speculum virginium" to the "De claustro animae" ["Cloister of the Soul"] of Hugh of Fouilloy, a treatise addressed to male religious, and the anonymous "De modo bene vivendi" ["On the Manner of Living Well"], addressed to a religious woman but also extant in a version adapted to religious men. It observes that the "Speculum" offers an essentially solitary model of the religious life, unlike "De claustro animae," which employs much more public imagery. The contrast between these two treatises illustrates the gendered quality of theorizing about the religious life. By contrast, the "De modo bene vivendi," a treatise influenced in part by the "Speculum," has much less emphasis on virginity and on bridal imagery. This suggests that the "Speculum virginum" did not provide the only way in which monks could think about the religious life. [Reproduced by Permission of Palgrave].
  • Related Resources:
  • Author's Affiliation: Monash University, Australia [honorary research associate]
  • Conference Info: - , -
  • Year of Publication: 2001.
  • Language: English
  • ISSN/ISBN: 0312240082