medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
the full citation
to Margaret Aston is: Margaret
Aston, “Segregation in Church,” Women in the Church, ed. W. J. Sheils
and Diana
Wood, Studies in Church History, vol. 27 (Oxford: Basil Blackwell,
1990),
237-81; for those interested in gendered space, you might also look at Roberta
Gilchrist, Gender and Material Culture:
the Archaeology of Religious Women (London: Routledge, 1994); and a
new collection of articles Women's Pace: Patronage, Plae, and
Gender in the Medieval Chruch, eds. Virginai Chieffo Ragun and
Sarah Stanbury (Albany: SUNY Press, 2005).
Women are usually on the north side of the church facing the
altar--also the side where Mary was on the rood. But folklore also says
the north side is the devil's side, but I am not sure how long that
later tradition is.
Kit French
Laura Jacobus wrote:
medieval-religion:
Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Margaret Aston amassed a lot of evidence about segregated seating in
English churches , in an anthology entitled 'Women in the Church'
edited by Brenda Bolton (I think, don't have full ref here).. I think
the usual mode was the take left and right looking away from the altar,
although it could vary (don't quite know where I got this idea from but
it may have been from Joanna Cannon's book on Margharita of Cortona,
where she considers the problem). Sorry to be so vague!
Laura
----- Original Message ----- From: "John Briggs"
<[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: 28 September 2005 13:01
Subject: Re: north doors (gendered use of)
medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and
culture
Perhaps someone ought to track it down - does 'Frauen rechts, Männer
links'
mean looking towards the altar or away from it? If the former, then
Jim
Bugslag appears to be suggesting the opposite! I am not aware of any
suggestion that the sexes were separated in this way in England.
John Briggs
Laura Jacobus wrote:
Here's a another reference which I haven't been able to track down,
but might be useful for this thread;
Müller, Iso 'Frauen rechts, Männer links: historische
Platzverteilung in der Kirche' Schweizerisches Archiv für Volkskunde,
57 (1961), 65-81
Whereas Jim Bugslag wrote:
At least in Scandinavian churches, there
were up till about 1250 in
almost every church a north
door and a south door, the north door for women, the south door for
men. Inside the church, men
and women were not supposed to be together, but stay in the
southern and northern parts
respectively.
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