by Kate Innes © Kate Innes I take the flax, I take the wool and from the distaff, thread I pull. I take the yarn, I weave a cloth made of many lover’s knots. Around the spindle, I am bound. My heart, around your heart, is curled. Like the shuttle, up and down, […]
Read more
Miniature of Hildegard of Bingen from the Rupertsberger Codex of the Liber Scivias [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons by Jessica Harborne, Farnborough Sixth Form College In this blog post a student at the start of her academic career writes about encountering and researching medieval women’s writing. As a student of Medieval History, English Literature and […]
Read more
by Sue Niebrzydowski, University of Bangor In 2018 celebrations are being held throughout the United Kingdom to mark the centenary of women who owned property and were over thirty getting the vote. Feminist medievalists will be delighted, and very possibly surprised, to learn that the first female dramatist, Hrotsvit, canoness of Gandersheim Abbey (c.935 – […]
Read more
Anchorite’s Cell, St Nicholas, Compton. (c) Heike Bauer. Reproduced with permission. by Diane Watt, University of Surrey Anchorites were individuals, sometime laypeople rather than members of formal monastic orders, who lived a life of religious contemplation focused on prayer and devotion to the Eucharist. Theirs was a life of extreme enclosure, as they were quite […]
Read more
Figure 1. Above, Narcissus at the fountain; Amant with Oiseuse at the gate. Below, the Dreamer in bed. Printed by kind permission of the British Library (London, British Library, MS Egerton 1069, fol. 1r) By Teresa Pilgrim, Birkbeck, University of London As an undergraduate, I was first drawn to Roman de la Rose (1225-1278) […]
Read more
