This study brings images of holy motherhood and childbearing into the centre of an art-historical enquiry, showing how images worked not only to script and maintain gender and social roles within patriarchal society, but also to offer viewers ways of managing those roles. Some of the manuscripts discussed are relatively unknown and their images and texts are made available to readers for the first time. Through an adaptation of Baxandall's 'period eye', the study considers the many 'cognitive habits' acquired by aristocratic lay women - and men - through familiarity with prayers for childbirth, the lying-in ceremony and the rite of churching. It then uses this methodology to interpret the images and prayers in six bespoke manuscripts, including the Fitzwilliam Hours and the Hours of Marguerite of Foix. The book will appeal to advanced students, academics and researchers of Art History, Illuminated Manuscripts, Medieval History and Gender Studies.
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This book brings images of holy motherhood and childbearing into the centre of an art-historical enquiry. By focusing on miniatures of the birth of the Virgin and the mothers of the Holy Kinship in Books of Hours, it reassesses the role of the female viewer as an active agent in the interpretation of pictures.
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List of illustrations List of figures Preface and acknowledgements Family trees of the houses of France, Anjou, Brittany and Burgundy Introduction Part I Gender, agency and the interpretation of material culture The situational eye: viewing, gender and response in the later middle ages De conceptione ad partum: saints, treatises and prayers for successful childbirth The lying-in month and the rite of churching: post-partum rituals and the material culture of childbearing Part II Manuscript case studies from the houses of Anjou, Brittany and France Holy mothers, sainted monarchs and beata stirps: the Fitzwilliam Hours and Books of Hours for the house of Anjou Steriles fecundas fecisti: viewing and reading holy motherhood in the manuscripts of four duchesses of Brittany Conclusion Appendix I: prayer and translation from the Hours of Marguerite of Foix Appendix II: prayer and translation from the Prayer Book of Anne of Brittany Bibliography Index
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Produktdetaljer

ISBN
9780719075438
Publisert
2008-03-01
Utgiver
Vendor
Manchester University Press
Høyde
216 mm
Bredde
138 mm
Aldersnivå
05, UU
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Innbundet
Antall sider
304

Biographical note

Elizabeth L'Estrange is an FNRS Post-Doctoral Fellow in History of Art at the University of Liege in Belgium