Ladies, Whores, and Holy Women. A Sourcebook in Courtly, Religious, and Urban Cultures of Late Medieval Germany (review)

Accessible translations of late medieval German texts, in particular ones that are appropriate and appealing for classroom use, remain desiderata. Thus, those of us who teach medieval German literature in translation to undergraduates will welcome this new volume and the opportunity to introduce a wider variety of medieval literature to our classes. Given the broad subject matter of the volume—women in courtly, religious, and urban cultures—the volume should find its way into courses exploring women and gender in other time periods than the medieval.

The volume contains seven texts, three fictional and the others nonfictional, ranging in date from the first half of the fourteenth to the second half of the fifteenth century. The texts come from a variety of linguistic zones—Alemannic, Franconian, Swabian, and Austro-Bavarian—and, as expected in this series, the English translations are provided on the facing page. In cases where the texts are prose, line numbers are inserted, which should aid the beginning translator.

In the introduction to the volume, the editors touch on some of the fundamental aspects of working with medieval literature and its transmission; though these aspects are familiar to fellow medievalists, their inclusion here makes the volume more accessible to those using these selections in a course not centered on the Middle Ages. For example, the editors briefly discuss the fluidity and constant metamorphosis of texts so characteristic of medieval manuscript culture, a topic that gains concrete attention through the editors' inclusion of two versions of the text Stepmother and Daughter (see below). In addition to the general introduction, Rasmussen and Westphal-Wihl provide succinct and informative introductions for the individual texts, in each case concluding with bibliographic information on the sources used and particularly pertinent secondary works. In the following, I give a brief overview of the seven texts, highlighting some of the connections among them when the reader follows the editors' goal of bringing the texts into "dialogue with one another" (p. 1).

Chapter 1 presents Die Beichte einer Frau (A Woman's Confession), a verse text of approximately 500 lines that reports through the medium of an eavesdropper a discussion between a priest and a woman. The latter attempts to convince the former that her love affair (puolschafft) is not a sin, and in the process reveals both erudition and linguistic sophistication. For example, the priest attempts to convince the lady of the sinfulness of her love affair by citing various commandments; in response, the clever woman counters with other commandments and her—somewhat unconventional but nonetheless literal—interpretations (e.g., ll. 75-105). She further instructs the priest on the benefits of the chivalric love between her and her lover, which include an increase in her prayers, as she will ask God to spare and protect her lover (ll. 245-54), and his willingness to fight heathen power (ll. 278-81). An amusing text that will surely appeal to students, it also provides an excellent starting point for a discussion with undergraduates about chivalric love: How does it treat women? Is it virtuous? To what extent is it physical? What about adultery? Apart from the topic of love, the text also explores language and the potential for deceit, something the young woman seems far more aware of than the priest, whose naïve acceptance of the truth of words invites discussion of his status and authority—given his role as confessor, shouldn't he be more attuned to language and its potential manipulation? Shouldn't he also be familiar with human behavior? The lady, for example, is careful to shield herself from a permanent bond with an unfaithful lover, thus revealing a more sophisticated knowledge of human behavior than the priest seems to have, who comes to fully embrace the lady...