Medieval Women (review)

Short Notices 227 contemporary theology with another. Yet her thesis that Hildegard did give particular attention to feminine imagery in constructing her vision of the world is still an important one, distinct from those comments which suggest that there exists a distinct 'sapiential tradition' in Christian theology. Her close attention to little known spiritual and liturgical traditions has the great value of drawing attentiontothe extent to which this w o m a n found inspiration for a very original vision of the world in currents of thought which have long been glossed over. Perhaps in the process of engaging in a campaign to replace creation theology with a theology of the feminine, there is a tendency to play down the central role for Hildegard of the living light and the dynamic life of both God and creation. By looking at a range of feminine images in her writing, N e w m a n provides a way of looking at Hildegard's thought, but it may not be the only way. Constant C. Mews Department of History Monash University Power, Eileen, Medieval Women, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, Canto, 1997; paper; pp. xxviii, 104; R.R.P. AUS$15.95. This very readable book is a curiosity, in that Eileen Power never wro book on medieval w o m e n which she intended. Power died in 1940, and her husband and colleague, Michael Postan, collected the texts of lectures which she gave on relevant topics and added notes and a bibliography. This he published in 1975. A substantial eighteen page biographical essay on Power by Maxine Berg completes the package. Therefore, no reader can expect to encounter cutting-edge contemporary scholarship on w o m e n in the middle ages from this volume. There are, however, quite a number of reasons w h y it is worth reading. Norman Cantor, in his 1991 Inventing the Middle Ages, praised Power as 'the only w o m a n medievalist w h o belongs in the array of the founders and shapers of our vision of the Middle Ages during the first seventy years of this century' (p. 382). Her interests were in medieval economic and women's history, and it was not until the 1970s and 1980s that the latter became a mainstream area of study. The essays in this volume move from the general Chapter One, 'Medieval ideas about women', to case studies of particular types of women, such as ladies and nuns. As the essays were originally lectures, they are rather general, but they are lively and entertaining, and apart from the broad brushstrokes which are necessary for lectures, they are still good, accurate history in the main. 'Medieval ideas about women' stresses the influence of the clerical view of women, and the disproportionate amount of evidence from the aristocracy, 228 Short Notices 'who could afford to regard its w o m e n as an ornamental asset, while strictly subordinating them to the interests of its primary asset, the land' (p. 1). The case studies, 'The lady', 'The working w o m a n in town and country', 'The education of women' and 'Nunneries', are all quite short and demonstrate Power's feminist and economic historical concerns. A wide range of primary sources are cited and discussed, from poets such as Chaucer, Gower and Langland, letters such as those of the Paston and Stonor families, ballads and religious treatises like Hali Meidenhad, and commercial records such as Poll Tax returns, gild regulations and manorial rolls. Finally, there are forty-two well-chosen black and white illustrations which enhance the book substantially. Medieval Women is readable and informative, and while it is not essentialreadingfor the scholar, it will delight the general reader. Carole M. Cusack School of Studies in Religion University of Sydney Raguin, Virginia Chieffo, Kathryn Brush and Peter Draper, ed., Artistic Integration in Gothic Buildings, Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 199 paper; pp. 348; R.R.P. US$25.95. The sixteen essays collected here preserve and continue what must have bee a remarkably stimulating symposium on early Gothic churches held at York University, Toronto, in April 1989. It gathered together scholars working within architectural and...