This isn't Arthurian or German, but there is a 15th c. ms. from an English
convent (Syon, I think, but I've lost the refernece)containing Aelred's
Speculum Caratatis with a note that if the nuns want to read more about
friendship they should go to the story of Troilus, Creseyde and Diomede.
Jill
On Fri, 14 May 1999 18:28:20 +1000,
[log in to unmask] wrote...
>Hello,
>
>I've cross-posted this to the medieval religion, medieval text and
medieval
>art lists, so I apologise to anyone who gets the message more than once.
>
>Jeffrey Hamburger in _The Visual and the Visionary_ writes:
>
>'Nuns maintained their ties to the world and its images in spite of thier
>segregation from its surroundings. Cloistered women who entered enclosure
>as widows would have been well versed from childhood in the conventions of
>romance literature. But even those who entered as oblates might have
known
>secular stories from objects such as the Malterer embroidery from the
>convent of Adelhausen in Freiburg that combines secular and sacred
>representations of the power of women. Of the decorated textiles
conserved
>in the convents of Lower Saxony, some are stitched with tales of love and
>adventure, such as the story of Tristan. Secular imagery was no more
>out-of-place in a convent than a volume of Ovid in a twelfth-century
>monastic library.'
>
>I am working on the Tristan textiles which Hamburger mentions, as well as
>numerous other Tristan textiles, some of which have associations with
>convents. However, in his book, which focuses on religious imagery in
>convents, Hamburger does not mention specifically secular images other
than
>those mentioned above. Aside from these Tristan textiles, the closely
>related Gawain embroidery at Braunschweig, and the Maltererteppich, I know
>of no other clearly secular textiles which were housed in or made in
>medieval convents. This brings me to my question: how widespread were
>secular images or texts in convent, as opposed to male monastic settings?
>
>I am particularly interested in the Tristan story and related Arthurian
>material, and in the German convents of the fourteenth century, but I'd
>like to get a wider picture of the attitudes in convents to this sort of
>material in general.
>
>Thanks in advance for any help you might be able to give.
>
>Sarah
>
>**************************************************************************
*
>***
>Sarah Randles email:
>[log in to unmask]
>School of English phone: 02 6268 8842
>University College ADFA fax: 02 6268 8899
>Canberra ACT 2601
>AUSTRALIA
>Web Page: http://www.adfa.oz.au/English/SOESarah.htm
>
>
>
>
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