Dear members, Dr Marcus Harmes (University of Southern Queensland) has shared the following news of his research with us. Marcus has recently has just published a monograph Bishops and Power in Early Modern England with Bloomsbury http://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/bishops-and-power-in-early-modern-england-9781472508355/

The book examines the recreation of the power structures of the Church of England after the Reformation and covers topics including the involvement of bishops in witchcraft trials, arguments over suitable dress, and the trial and execution of Archbishop Laud.

Congratulations Marcus!

Dear members, Alexandra Barratt (Professor Emeritus at the University of Waikato, NZ) has shared the following report on her research.

Thanks Alexandra!

In 2010 a grant of $73,000 from the ASB Community Trust to the Auckland Library Heritage Trust enabled the Auckland Libraries, Sir George Grey Special Collections, to re-catalogue 2000 books printed between 1468 and 1801. In particular, any manuscript waste (for instance wrappers, pastedowns, quire-guards, and spine liners) was noted. M. Manion, Vera F. Vines, and Christopher de Hamel, Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in New Zealand Collections (Melbourne, London and New York: Thames and Hudson, 1989), No. 45 (a)-(i), had already listed and partially identified nine binding fragments in the APL, and the new catalogue threw up an additional ten. At about the same time, Professor Alexandra Gillespie of the University of Toronto and I were working on the pre-1650 manuscript bindings in the Sir George Grey Special Collections, some of which also contained manuscript waste, so I was asked to examine and possibly identify the new finds.

This has proved a productive line of research. First, digital photography and the availability of so many Latin texts on-line helped enlarge our knowledge of the known fragments. Five were positively identified: for instance, No. 45 (a), ‘two small vellum strips’, we now know is from Book One of the ‘Ethica Nova’ or Translatio Antiquior of Aristotle’s Nichomachean Ethics, and No. 45 (i), ‘Manuscript on plants’, from pseudo-Aristotle, Secreta Secretorum, translated by Philip Tripolitanus, Pars 3, Cap. 3 and Caps 7-8. In addition, No. 45 (b) (i) was tentatively re-identified as from a Psalter rather than a Missal, and more information gleaned about the remaining three. Of the new fragments, the most exciting were quire-guards cut from an early Carolingian Bible (c. 800AD), in three of the four volumes of a glossed Latin bible printed at Strasbourg by Adolf Rusch for Anton Koberger, c.1480, and which belonged to the Benedictine monastery of Benedictbeuern (see my blog post for 26 June 2013, http://medievalbookbindings.com). These match larger fragments held at the Bayerischestaatsbibliothek, Munich, and are probably from the women’s house of Köchel. In addition, fragments in a further five volumes were positively identified and some information acquired about a sixth, a leaf bound at the back of Priscian, Libri omnes, Basel, 1554, which is clearly from a homiliary but so far eludes precise identification. Fragments in three more volumes were too fragmentary to identify. As a bonus, the search threw up some printed binders’ waste, including a paper sheet of early 16th century papal indulgences, unfortunately past their expiry date.

Dear ANZAMEMS members, Sarah Greer (recently based at the University of Auckland) has shared the following news about her research with us.

Sarah has recently received my Masters degree in History from the University of Auckland, with my thesis “Behind the Veil: The rise of female monasticism and the double house in Early Medieval Francia” receiving first class honours. The abstract of this thesis is found below.

Sarah has also been selected as a Marie Curie fellow at the University of St Andrews, where she will study for my PhD in History as an Early Career Researcher as part of the international research group “Power and Institutions in Medieval Islam and Christendom”. Her research will focus on a comparative analysis of the patronage relationships constructed by elite women with female religious institutions in Wessex, Francia and Saxony in the 8th to 10th centuries, under the supervision of Dr. Simon MacLean.

Congratulations Sarah!

Abstract

Female monasticism occupied an incredibly important position in the world of early medieval Francia. Convents, and the women living within them, were key figures in the political, social, cultural and religious history of the Frankish kingdoms. Contemporary sources, from secular histories to saints’ lives to monastic rules are filled with the names of convents and nuns, and recognize their powerful roles in the Frankish world.

Yet, in modern historiography, early medieval nuns have been marginalized. Viewed by historians as less important than male monasticism, or as an example of the misogyny of the Carolingian world, female monasticism has not received the scholarly attention it deserves. Indeed, there is a lack of information on some of the most fundamental questions on this subject. Why did monasticism become increasingly attractive in the sixth to ninth centuries? What was the experience of
women inside monasteries? How did communities of nuns interact with the world outside their walls? What can we learn from the monastic regulae about the perceptions of women and the religious life?

This thesis addresses these questions, among others, in order to reveal the complexity and variety that existed in Frankish female monasticism. The flexibility of early medieval women to adapt the monastic life to their own needs and requirements set up the foundation for female monasticism in the centuries to come. The story of monastic women in the Frankish kingdoms is not one of misogynistic repression of female religious freedom, but rather illustrates the ability of women to shape their own lives with the support of various kings, noblemen, bishops and male clergy. My research is an attempt to restore medieval monastic women to the position of importance and respect accorded to them by their contemporaries.