Women, Reading, and Piety in Late Medieval England [Paperback]

Narratives of medieval women offer new insights into networks of female book ownership and exchange.In Women, Reading, and Piety in Late Medieval England Mary Erler traces networks of female book ownership and exchange which have so far been obscure, and shows how women were responsible for both owning and circulating devotional books. Seven narratives of individual women who lived between 1350 and 1550 are enclosed by an overview of nuns' reading and their surviving books, and a survey of women who owned the first printed books in England. An appendix lists a number of books not previously attributed to fe male ownership.In Women, Reading, and Piety in Late Medieval England Mary Erler traces networks of female book ownership and exchange which have so far been obscure, and shows how women were responsible for both owning and circulating devotional books. Seven narratives of individual women who lived between 1350 and 1550 are enclosed by an overview of nuns' reading and their surviving books, and a survey of women who owned the first printed books in England. An appendix lists a number of books not previously attributed to fe male ownership.Mary Erler traces networks of female book ownership and exchange which have so far been obscure, and shows how women were responsible for owning as well as circulating devotional books. Seven narratives of individual women who lived between 1350 and 1550 are enclosed by an overview of nuns' reading and their surviving books, and a survey of women who owned the first printed books in England. An appendix lists a number of books not previously attributed to female ownership.Acknowledgments; Prologue; Introduction: Dinah's story; 1. Ownership and transmission of books: women's religious communities; 2. The library of a London vowess: Margery de Nerford; 3. A Norwich widow and her devout society: Margaret Purdans; 4. Orthodoxy: the Fettyplace sisters at Syon; 5. Heterodoxy: anchoress Katherine Manne and abbess Elizabeth Throckmortonló.