Crown and Veil: Female Monasticism from the Fifth to the Fifteenth Centuries (review)

In 2005, a groundbreaking and encyclopedic exhibition of the visual culture of medieval nuns spanning a millennium, “Krone und Schleier. Kunst aus mittelalterlichen Frauenklöstern,” was held in Germany. The exhibition, which displayed some 600 objects, occupied two museums: the Ruhrland-museum in Essen presented “Die frühen Klöster und Stifte 500–1200” and the Ausstellungshalle der Bundesrepublik Deutschland Bonn the subsequent Gothic era, “Die Zeit der Orden 1200–1500.” The early-medieval section seen in Essen exhibited works from Germany, northern Italy, France, and Anglo-Saxon England, while the high-medieval section presented in Bonn focused on the extraordinary richness of the surviving German material.

The 580-page exhibition catalog (Munich, 2005) contains introductory essays and others that preface its various thematic sections. Crown and Veil translates these essays into English, which will be useful in undergraduate teaching. They are accompanied by a lengthy and very useful bibliography. The 72 llustrations are adequate, but the workmanlike images are in grainy black and white.

The volume begins with an introduction by Jeffrey Hamburger on questions of method and historiography followed by two essays synthesizing the thematic subdivisions of the exhibition catalog: Jan Gerchow, Katrinette Bodarwé, Susan Marti, and Hedwig Röckelein, “Early Monasteries and Foundations (500–1200),”and Jeffrey Hamburger, Petra Marx, and Susan Marti, “The Time of the Orders, 1200–1500.” The former addresses such issues as the origins of female monasticism in its two forms (Benedictine nuns and secular canonesses), the roles of abbesses and other officers, education, Latinity, writing, textile production, patrons, and property. The latter takes a tour of the monastery, examining the artworks to be found in the outer church, the sacristy, the cloister, individual cells, the workhouse, and the nuns’ choir.

Subsequent essays address varied aspects of women’s monastic life: art (Jeffrey Hamburger and Robert Suckale, “Between This World and the Next: The Art of Religious Women in the Middle Ages”), architecture (Carola Jäggi and Uwe Lobbedey, “Church and Cloister: The Architecture of Female Monasticism in the Middle Ages”), gender history (Jan Gerchow and Susan Marti, “‘Nuns’ Work,’ ‘Caretaker Institutions,’ and ‘Women’s Movements’: Some Thoughts about a Modern Historiography of Medieval Monasticism”), women’s visionary literature (Barbara Newman, “The Visionary Texts and Visual Worlds of Religious Women”), female piety (Caroline Walker Bynum, “Patterns of Female Piety in the Later Middle Ages”), liturgy (Gisela Muschiol, “Time and Space. Liturgy and Rite in Female Monasteries of the Middle Ages”), patrons (Hedwig Röckelein, “Founders, Donors, and Saints. Patrons of Nuns’ Convents”), pastoral care (Klaus Schreiner, “Pastoral Care in Female Monasteries, Sacramental Services, Spiritual Edification, Ethical Discipline”), economic organization (Werner Rösener, “Household and Prayer. Medieval Convents as Economic Entities”), and social relations with the outside world (Gabriela Signori, “Wanderers between Worlds. Visitors, Letters, Wills and Gifts as Means of Communication”).

The complex task of translation, illustration selection, and cross-reference to the 2005 catalog was formidable, and glitches lead to some frustrations for the reader. While some cross-references are to be found in footnotes, others are missing: the Isenhagen hanging is no. 439 (p. 65); the Ebstorf hanging is no. 444; the Malterer hanging is no. 445 (pp. 65–67). The text sometimes discusses works of art not illustrated in this book or the exhibition catalog, such as the Klarenbuch (p. 62) and the statue discussed on page 53. Figure 2.3 on page 53 should be figure 2.2. Erhard at Mass in the Uta Codex, the cover of Theophanu’s Gospels (p. 84), and Peter’s mother-in-law in the Hitda Codex (p. 85) are not to be seen in either book. Christ pierced by a lance in the Rothschild Canticles (p. 100) is not illustrated in figure 3.13. On page 69, figure 5.2 does not have a connection to the Song of Songs, and the...