Details

Subject(s)

• Monasticism and religious orders for women—Great Britain—Middle Ages, 600-1500 [Browse]
• Women—Great Britain—History—Middle Ages, 500-1500 [Browse]
• Convents—Great Britain—History [Browse]
• Christian antiquities—Great Britain [Browse]
• Archaeology, Medieval [Browse]
• Great Britain—Antiquities [Browse]
• Great Britain—Religious life and customs [Browse]

Summary note

Among the many archaeological books on monasticism, none has considered the differences between the religious life of men and women. Nunneries have often been dismissed as poor or failed monasteries. Gender and Material Culture takes a fresh look at the lives of religious women, providing the first complete case-study in the archaeology of gender. This comparison of monasteries for men and women reveals stark contrasts in the social and economic status of religious foundations. Gender in medieval monasticism influenced landscape contexts and strategies of economic management, the form and development of buildings and their symbolic and iconographic content. Women's religious experience was often poorly documented, but their archaeology indicates a shared tradition which was closely linked with, and valued by, local communities. The distinctive patterns observed suggest that gender is essential to archaeological analysis. The multi-disciplinary approach of Gender and Material Culture will appeal to a wide general readership, as well as archaeologists, medieval art historians and those engaged in the historical studies of medieval women.

Bibliographic references

Includes bibliographical references (p. 194-211) and index.

Action note

Committed to retain in perpetuity — ReCAP Shared Collection (HUL)

Contents

• 1. Handmaid's Tale
• 1.2. archaeology of gender
• 1.3. 'The Handmaid's Tale': on history, archaeology and social theory
• 1.4. 'Engendering' medieval monasticism: a theory of gender and material culture
• 1.5. Gender identity in medieval nunneries
• 2. Mapping Women's Religious Communities
• 2.1. Breaking androcentric traditions: an historiography of nunneries
• 2.2. Religious women in the Saxon landscape
• 2.3. Medieval religious foundations for women: numbers, status and distribution
• 2.4. archaeology of patronage. 2.5. Conclusions: common interest groups in the medieval nunnery
• 3. Nunneries in the Medieval Landscape
• 3.1. Gender identities and the monastic landscape
• 3.2. In a wilderness
• 3.3. nunnery estate
• 3.4. Home farms and outer courts
• 3.5. Production, consumption and labour in medieval nunneries. 3.6. Conclusions: isolation and dependence
• 4. In the cloister. 4.1. Standard plans 4.2. Form and function of nunnery buildings 4.3. Development and change 4.4. Conclusions: characteristics of nunnery planning
• 5. The meanings of nunnery architecture 5.1. The north cloister 5.2. Women on the north: spatial opposites and body metaphors 5.3. The distribution of north cloisters: a Saxon monastic tradition? 5.4. Icongraphic architecture: the Virgin at Christ's right hand 5.5. Collective identities: the nunnery seal 5.6. Conclusions: an iconography of many meanings
• 6. Symbolism and seculsion 6.1. Gender and space 6.2. Religious imagery and the delineation of space 6.3. Formal spatial analysis of nunneries and monasteries for men 6.4. Sexual segregation and gender domains
• 7. An archaeology of alternatives 7.1. Beguinages: informal communities of urban religious women 7.2. Hospitals: a life of charity 7.3. Anchorages: the solitary religious woman 7.4. Hermitages: religious women beyond the pale? 7.5. Conclusions: the 'sinful woman'
• 8. Conclusions: Gender and Medieval Monasticism
• 8.1. Patterns in the archaeology of religious women
• 8.2. Gender and material culture: habitus, agency and identity
• 8.3. Gender as an analytical category: new perspectives for medieval archaeology?

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ISBN

0415089034

LCCN

^^^93009828^

OCLC

27725318

RCP

H - S

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