Books > History
|
Buy Now
The White Nuns - Cistercian Abbeys for Women in Medieval France (Hardcover)
Loot Price: R2,261
Discovery Miles 22 610
|
|
The White Nuns - Cistercian Abbeys for Women in Medieval France (Hardcover)
Series: The Middle Ages Series
Expected to ship within 12 - 17 working days
|
Modern studies of the religious reform movement of the central
Middle Ages have often relied on contemporary accounts penned by
Cistercian monks, who routinely exaggerated the importance of their
own institutions while paying scant attention to the remarkable
expansion of abbeys of Cistercian women. Yet by the end of the
thirteenth century, Constance Hoffman Berman contends, there were
more houses of Cistercian nuns across Europe than of monks. In The
White Nuns, she charts the stages in the nuns' gradual acceptance
by the abbots of the Cistercian Order's General Chapter and
describes the expansion of the nuns' communities and their
adaptation to a variety of economic circumstances in France and
throughout Europe. While some sought contemplative lives of prayer,
the ambition of many of these religious women was to serve the
poor, the sick, and the elderly. Focusing in particular on
Cistercian nuns' abbeys founded between 1190 and 1250 in the
northern French archdiocese of Sens, Berman reveals the frequency
with which communities of Cistercian nuns were founded by rich and
powerful women, including Queen Blanche of Castile, heiresses
Countess Matilda of Courtenay and Countess Isabelle of Chartres,
and esteemed ladies such as Agnes of Cressonessart. She shows how
these founders and early patrons assisted early abbesses, nuns, and
lay sisters by using written documents to secure rights and create
endowments, and it is on the records of their considerable economic
achievements that she centers her analysis. The White Nuns
considers Cistercian women and the women who were their patrons in
a clear-eyed reading of narrative texts in their contexts. It
challenges conventional scholarship that accepts the words of
medieval monastic writers as literal truth, as if they were written
without rhetorical skill, bias, or self-interest. In its
identification of long-accepted misogynies, its search for their
origins, and its struggle to reject such misreadings, The White
Nuns provides a robust model for historians writing against
received traditions.
General
Imprint: |
University of PennsylvaniaPress
|
Country of origin: |
United States |
Series: |
The Middle Ages Series |
Release date: |
April 2018 |
First published: |
2018 |
Authors: |
Constance Hoffman Berman
|
Dimensions: |
229 x 152 x 31mm (L x W x T) |
Format: |
Hardcover
|
Pages: |
368 |
ISBN-13: |
978-0-8122-5010-7 |
Categories: |
Books >
Humanities >
History >
General
Books >
History >
General
|
LSN: |
0-8122-5010-9 |
Barcode: |
9780812250107 |
Is the information for this product incomplete, wrong or inappropriate?
Let us know about it.
Does this product have an incorrect or missing image?
Send us a new image.
Is this product missing categories?
Add more categories.
Review This Product
No reviews yet - be the first to create one!
|
|
Email address subscribed successfully.
A activation email has been sent to you.
Please click the link in that email to activate your subscription.