Medieval Mystical Women In The West

Author : John Arblaster
Publisher : Taylor & Francis
ISBN 13 : 1040087574
Total Pages : 321 pages
Book Rating : 4.72/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book Medieval Mystical Women in the West written by John Arblaster and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2024-07-18 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores the rich and varied mystical writings by and about medieval – and a few early modern – women across Western Europe. Women had a profound and lasting impact on the development of medieval and early modern spiritual and mystical literature, both through their own writing and as a result of the hagiographical texts that they inspired. Bringing together contributions by both established and emerging scholars, the volume provides a valuable overview of medieval mystical women with a special focus on the Low Countries and Italy, regions that produced a disproportionately high number of female mystics. The figures discussed range from Hildegard of Bingen, Hadewijch, Mechthild of Magdeburg, Marguerite Porete, Angela of Foligno, Julian of Norwich, and Beatrice of Nazareth to lesser-known women such as Agnes Blannbekin, Christina of Hane, and Maria Maddalena de’ Pazzi. The chapters address topics such as the body, pain, desire, ecstasy, stigmata, annihilation, virtue, visions, the tension between exterior and interior experience, and the nature of mystical union itself.

Author : Elizabeth Ruth Obbard
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9781565481572
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.77/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book Medieval Women Mystics written by Elizabeth Ruth Obbard and published by . This book was released on 2002 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Selected spiritual wiritings from 4 medieval women who have strongly impacted Christian spirituality and theology.

Author : Frances Beer
Publisher : Boydell Press
ISBN 13 : 0851153437
Total Pages : 183 pages
Book Rating : 4.38/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book Women and Mystical Experience in the Middle Ages written by Frances Beer and published by Boydell Press. This book was released on 1992 with total page 183 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Original and thought-provoking study of three medieval women mystics based on writings and biographical material.

Author : Georges Duby
Publisher : Harvard University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780674403680
Total Pages : 596 pages
Book Rating : 4.81/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book A History of Women in the West written by Georges Duby and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 1992 with total page 596 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Discusses the legal, social, and religious position of women in the Greco-Roman world, Middle Ages, Renaissance, Industrial Revolution, and modern era.

Author : Andrea Janelle Dickens
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN 13 : 0857712616
Total Pages : 257 pages
Book Rating : 4.15/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book The Female Mystic written by Andrea Janelle Dickens and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2009-05-30 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Middle Ages saw a flourishing of mysticism that was astonishing for its richness and distinctiveness. The medieval period was unlike any other period of Christianity in producing people who frequently claimed visions of Christ and Mary, uttered prophecies, gave voice to ecstatic experiences, recited poems and songs said to emanate directly from God and changed their ways of life as a result of these special revelations. Many recipients of these alleged divine gifts were women. Yet the female contribution to western Europe's intellectual and religious development is still not well understood. Popular or lay religion has been overshadowed by academic theology, which was predominantly the theology of men. This timely book rectifies the neglect by examining a number of women whose lives exemplify traditions which were central to medieval theology but whose contributions have tended to be dismissed as 'merely spiritual' by today's scholars. In their different ways, visionaries like Richeldis de Faverches (founder of the Holy House at Walsingham, or 'England's Nazareth'), the learned Hildegard of Bingen, Hadewijch of Brabant (exemplary voice of the Beguine tradition of love mysticism), charismatic traveller and pilgrim Margery Kempe and anchoress Julian of Norwich all challenged traditional male scholastic theology. Designed for the use of undergraduate student and general reader alike, this attractive survey provides an introduction to thirteen remarkable women and sets their ideas in context.

Author : Monica Furlong
Publisher : Shambhala Publications
ISBN 13 : 1570623147
Total Pages : 257 pages
Book Rating : 4.41/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book Visions and Longings written by Monica Furlong and published by Shambhala Publications. This book was released on 1997-04-15 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The women mystics of medieval Europe represent the very first feminine voices heard in a world where women were nearly silent. As such, they are striking and unusual, strange, powerful and urgent. Monica Furlong uses key selections from among these women's own writings and writings about them by their contemporaries, along with her own assessment of them, to open up their contributions to a wide popular audience. The eleven women represented in this anthology were housewives, visionaries, abbesses, beguines, recluses, and nuns who wrote between the eleventh and fourteenth centuries. They include: • Héloise, the scholar and abbess, whose letters to Abelard are treasure of medieval literature • Hildegard of Bingen, the visionary Rhineland nun • Clare of Assisi, the close friend of Saint Francis and founder of the Poor Clares • Catherine of Siena, an influential spiritual counselor whose book, Dialogue, consists of a debate between herself and God • Julian of Norwich, the English hermitess who spent the greater part of her life meditating on and coming to understand the striking visions she received as a young woman • and many others

Author : Elizabeth Petroff
Publisher : Oxford University Press on Demand
ISBN 13 : 9780195084559
Total Pages : 235 pages
Book Rating : 4.51/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book Body and Soul written by Elizabeth Petroff and published by Oxford University Press on Demand. This book was released on 1994 with total page 235 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Opening a window onto a long-neglected world of women's experience, this text features eleven essays that examine the writings of medieval women mystics from England, France, Germany, Italy, and the Low Countries, providing close readings of a number of important texts from the viewpoint ofdifferent literary theories. Surveying various styles of hagiographical writing, the author offers ground-breaking scholarship on a broad range of topics such as how medieval holy women may have appeared to their contemporaries, medieval antifeminism, comparisons between earlier and later Christianmystical writing, the relationship between male confessors and female penitents in the Middle Ages, and the process by which these extraordinary women produced their work. For courses in religious, medieval, or women's studies, this unique text fills a conspicuous gap in an important and fascinatingfield of literature.

Author : Caroline Walker Bynum
Publisher : Univ of California Press
ISBN 13 : 0520908783
Total Pages : 496 pages
Book Rating : 4.89/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book Holy Feast and Holy Fast written by Caroline Walker Bynum and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 1988-01-07 with total page 496 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the period between 1200 and 1500 in western Europe, a number of religious women gained widespread veneration and even canonization as saints for their extraordinary devotion to the Christian eucharist, supernatural multiplications of food and drink, and miracles of bodily manipulation, including stigmata and inedia (living without eating). The occurrence of such phenomena sheds much light on the nature of medieval society and medieval religion. It also forms a chapter in the history of women. Previous scholars have occasionally noted the various phenomena in isolation from each other and have sometimes applied modern medical or psychological theories to them. Using materials based on saints' lives and the religious and mystical writings of medieval women and men, Caroline Walker Bynum uncovers the pattern lying behind these aspects of women's religiosity and behind the fascination men and women felt for such miracles and devotional practices. She argues that food lies at the heart of much of women's piety. Women renounced ordinary food through fasting in order to prepare for receiving extraordinary food in the eucharist. They also offered themselves as food in miracles of feeding and bodily manipulation. Providing both functionalist and phenomenological explanations, Bynum explores the ways in which food practices enabled women to exert control within the family and to define their religious vocations. She also describes what women meant by seeing their own bodies and God's body as food and what men meant when they too associated women with food and flesh. The author's interpretation of women's piety offers a new view of the nature of medieval asceticism and, drawing upon both anthropology and feminist theory, she illuminates the distinctive features of women's use of symbols. Rejecting presentist interpretations of women as exploited or masochistic, she shows the power and creativity of women's writing and women's lives.

Author : Emilie Zum Brunn
Publisher : Paragon House Publishers
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 276 pages
Book Rating : 4.5A/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book Women Mystics in Medieval Europe written by Emilie Zum Brunn and published by Paragon House Publishers. This book was released on 1989 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "WOMEN MYSTICS IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE revives the exquisite mystical literature of five powerful mystics of the Middle Ages: a Benedictine Abbess, a Cisterian Prioress, and three Beguines. The lost story of feminine Christianity is here enriched for the first time by the historical context of each woman's life and her fresh literary expression of spiritual reality. Hildegard of Bingen, Hadewijch of Antwerp, Beatrice of Nazareth, Mechthild of Magdeburg, and Marguerite Porete were acknowledged handmaidens of God's prophetic spirit. Their teaching, solidly based in theological and metaphysical culture, was even thought superior to that of the scholastic doctors of the time. ...an important work of reference for Christians and spiritual seekers as well as an inspirational resource for those who aspire to 'see without intermediary what God is.'" -- page 4 of cover.

Author : Rosemary Radford Ruether
Publisher : Fortress Press
ISBN 13 : 150648851X
Total Pages : 90 pages
Book Rating : 4.16/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book Visionary Women written by Rosemary Radford Ruether and published by Fortress Press. This book was released on 2023-05-30 with total page 90 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Visionary Women, influential feminist theologian Rosemary Radford Ruether glimpses into the souls of three medieval mystics. Hildegard of Bingen, a self-taught theologian who developed a mystical secret language used in her community of mystics, became a traveling preacher and author. At the age of forty, Mechthild of Magdeburg was commanded by God to write down her visions, which resulted in seven books. Julian of Norwich prayed as a young child that she would see Christ's passion, that she would get deathly ill, and that she would long for God--all in her desire to focus her life solely on God--and He answered all three. Ruether describes the women as prophets with a God-given message for the church and society of their time. Her sympathetic overview evokes the new religious horizons they envisioned for Christianity. She discusses the three women's beliefs about God, theology, and their identity. Though they faced adversity, they challenged these notions as bold women in the faith, secure in their strong relationship with God. Visionary Women is an adaption from Ruether's award-winning book, Women and Redemption: A Theological History. Readers will join in the long tradition of keeping the mystics' messages alive and relevant.