This pro-seminar is aimed at students interested in questions of gender in the medieval period, as well as being intended for those who want to gain skills in paleography and codicology (manuscript study, transcription, editorial and archival practices).
In this seminar, we will closely study the Ancrene Wisse Group, a group of texts written in the Welsh marshes in the late-twelfth/early thirteenth century, and addressed either to female anchorites (recluses who lived walled-in in cells, often at the side of a church) or female religious in general.
These include Ancrene Wisse (guide for female recluses), The Life of Saint Margaret (a saint's life), Hali Meithhad (a treatise advocating virginity), and The Wooing of our Lord (a sensual, affective prayer).
Through these texts, we will gain a deeper understanding of how femininity was conceived in the early medieval period, as well as what it meant to be a woman and a female religious at the time. It is often surprising how medieval presuppositions about women's virginity, about the way women should dress, behave, or interact with others, have survived to this day.
A good part of the seminar will also be devoted to considering the manuscript context of these works, and students will learn basics of reading medieval manuscripts, script identification, codicology, transcription, and editorial practices. We will focus on the language of these texts, which Tolkien defined as "AB language," a language in transition between Old and Middle English, with Welsh and Scandinavian influences.
At the end of the seminar, students will be able to choose between writing a traditional essay, or producing a short transcription, edition or translation of a given text.
A handout with the course texts will be available for purchase from UNIPRINT at the beginning of the semester.
- Enseignant·e: Juliette Vuille