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

Edited by Jeffrey F. Hamburger and Susan Marti

May, 2008
Cloth, 344 pages, 73 illus.
ISBN: 978-0-231-13980-9
$40.00

"This book is as rare and finely crafted as the lives of the women it celebrates. Crown and Veil is the product of an outstanding international collaboration of scholars, and it offers an introduction to a world hitherto only glimpsed in its complexity and richness. Every aspect of the nuns' social, institutional, artistic, liturgical, economic, and spiritual life is brought into play. The book is as beautiful as it is comprehensive." — Rachel Fulton, The University of Chicago

"This welcome volume, which assembles the most up-to-date international scholarship in a highly accessible form, illuminates the many facets of female monastic life in the Middle Ages. The convent emerges as a complex and appealing place that offered women unparalleled opportunities, not only to forge intimate relationships with the divine and each other but also to assert themselves politically, to develop strong literary voices, and to cultivate visual arts of extraordinary inventiveness and beauty." — Jacqueline E. Jung, Yale University

"Crown and Veil challenges the typical image of the female monastery as a place of quiet and seclusion. At the same time, it reminds us that, although medieval culture and education are most often discussed with respect to male monastic houses, women's communities were no less active as cultural custodians. Most important, the book stands as an entirely unique achievement in the history of women's engagement in the religious life during the medieval period. While particular aspects of women's religious lives, visual culture, and engagement with the written word have been explored in individual studies, there is no other work that draws together the disparate theoretical, historical, and visual threads that together composed women's religious lives during the period." — Fiona Griffiths, New York University

Related Subjects

• Medieval History
• Medieval Religion
• Women's Studies

About the Author

Jeffrey F. Hamburger is the Kuno Franke Professor of German Art and Culture in the Department of the History of Art and Architecture at Harvard University. A scholar of medieval monasticism, mysticism, and manuscript illumination, he is a fellow of the Medieval Academy, and his books have received numerous awards, including the Jacques Barzun Prize in Cultural History, the Morey Prize of the College of Art Association, and the Roland Bainton Prize in Art and Music. Susan Marti is a scholar of the art of female monasticism and manuscript illumination and a curator for exhibitions on the Middle Ages. She has published research on medieval art in German-speaking countries and has collaborated on several important exhibitions in Germany, Switzerland, and France.

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