Lecture Series: Between Invisibility and Autonomy

Between Invisibility and Autonomy: Negotiating Gender Roles in Manuscript Cultures

Lecture 5/9

Women and Their Multiple Roles in Manuscript Production in the Late Medieval and Early Modern Low Countries

Dr Patricia Stoop (Institute for the Study of Literature in the Netherlands (ISLN) / Ruusbroecgenootschap, Universiteit Antwerpen)

Many more women than we assume today participated in the intellectual and literary culture of the late medieval and early modern Low Countries, as owners and readers of books, but also as copyists, translators, and even authors. Some of these women, such as the mystic Hadewijch, the court poet Christine de Pizan, or the Antwerp poet Anna Bijns, have earned a place in the literary canon. But especially women in monastic communities were engaged in the production, reception, and circulation of literature. Sometimes they produced manuscripts for themselves or the community in which they lived; others wrote manuscripts for third parties, either for payment or not. In this lecture, we will consider the leeway that these religious women had to participate in manuscript production, to take up their pen, and even to shape a creative authorship.