In The Garden of Delights, Fiona J. Griffiths offers the first
major study of the Hortus deliciarum, a magnificently illuminated
manuscript of theology, biblical history, and canon law written
both by and explicitly for women at the end of the twelfth century.
In so doing she provides a brilliantly persuasive new reading of
female monastic culture. Through careful analysis of the contents,
structure, and organization of the Hortus, Griffiths argues for
women's profound engagement with the spiritual and intellectual
vitality of the period on a level previously thought unimaginable,
overturning the assumption that women were largely excluded from
the "renaissance" and "reform" of this period. As a work of
scholarship that drew from a wide range of sources, both monastic
and scholastic, the Hortus provides a witness to the richness of
women's reading practices within the cloister, demonstrating that
it was possible, even late into the twelfth century, for
communities of religious women to pursue an educational program
that rivaled that available to men. At the same time, the
manuscript's reformist agenda reveals how women engaged the
pressing spiritual questions of the day, even going so far as to
criticize priests and other churchmen who fell short of their
reformist ideals. Through her wide-ranging examination of the texts
and images of the Hortus, their sources, composition, and function,
Griffiths offers an integrated understanding of the whole
manuscript, one which highlights women's Latin learning and
orthodox spirituality. The Garden of Delights contributes to some
of the most urgent questions concerning medieval religious women,
the interplay of gender, spirituality, and intellectual engagement,
to discussions concerning women scribes and writers, women readers,
female authorship and authority, and the visual culture of female
communities. It will be of interest to art historians, scholars of
women's and gender studies, historians of medieval religion,
education, and theology, and literary scholars studying questions
of female authorship and models of women's reading.
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