Feminae: Medieval Women and Gender Index

This Gothic-style nun’s choir (nonnenchor) is in Wienhausen Abbey (Kloster Wienhausen), located in northern Germany (in the diocese of Hildesheim). In the medieval period the monastery was a Cistercian house for women. The nun’s choir is one of three surviving medieval portions of the abbey. Although Cistercian abbeys varied widely architecturally, oblong, aisleless churches and choirs like the one at Wienhausen were fairly common. At the east end is the chancel; the altar there was particularly emphasized at Wienhausen because on it was a relic of Christ’s blood. Wienhausen’s choir reflects the thirteenth-century shift away from older Cistercian austerity and injunctions against elaborate building ornamentation. The walls and vaulted ceilings contain lavish art decorations, painted around 1330 and restored multiple times (including by three Wienhausen nuns in 1488). The current images match descriptions of the originals.