Some error occured while loading the Quick View. Please close the Quick View and try reloading the page.
Examines the various ways in which anchoritic, monastic and enclosed culture ("reclusive culture") experienced and interacted with the material.
While devotion across the medieval west often emphasized the ineffable, religious enclosure and reclusion were deeply material. These vocations were a synthesis of faith, body, and spirit represented by and within the physical boundaries of the local environment. Such a co-mingling of the material with the spiritual is exemplified in texts, like Ancrene Wisse with its "Inner Rule" and "Outer Rule," as well as in the actual enclosures (monasteries, hermitages, churches, beguinages, and anchorholds) themselves, expressed through the cognitive, spiritual, and physical experiences of their inhabitants. Employing several theoretical and methodological approaches, including New Materialism, critical race theory, gender inquiry, and cultural criticism, this collection provides new readings that expand upon this convergence of the spiritual with the material via the writings of spiritual notables, such as Hildegard of Bingen, Birgitta of Sweden, and Julian of Norwich, alongside other lesser-studied but significant religious figures. Contributors examine how enclosure was understood conceptually and manifested physically in a range of historical witnesses, from testamentary bequests and material artifacts to guidance literature, visionary writings, and Books of Hours.
While devotion across the medieval west often emphasized the ineffable, religious enclosure and reclusion were deeply material. These vocations were a synthesis of faith, body, and spirit represented by and within the physical boundaries of the local environment. Such a co-mingling of the material with the spiritual is exemplified in texts, like Ancrene Wisse with its "Inner Rule" and "Outer Rule," as well as in the actual enclosures (monasteries, hermitages, churches, beguinages, and anchorholds) themselves, expressed through the cognitive, spiritual, and physical experiences of their inhabitants. Employing several theoretical and methodological approaches, including New Materialism, critical race theory, gender inquiry, and cultural criticism, this collection provides new readings that expand upon this convergence of the spiritual with the material via the writings of spiritual notables, such as Hildegard of Bingen, Birgitta of Sweden, and Julian of Norwich, alongside other lesser-studied but significant religious figures. Contributors examine how enclosure was understood conceptually and manifested physically in a range of historical witnesses, from testamentary bequests and material artifacts to guidance literature, visionary writings, and Books of Hours.
Price: $130.00
Pages: 304
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer Inc.
Imprint: D.S.Brewer
Publication Date:
27 October 2026
Trim Size: 9.21 X 6.14 in
ISBN: 9781843848288
Format: Hardcover
BISACs:
LITERARY CRITICISM / Medieval, Literary studies: ancient, classical and medieval, RELIGION / Christianity / History, European history: medieval period, middle ages, History of religion
INTRODUCTION
The Performance of Enclosure and Materiality: An Introduction
Michelle M. Sauer with Samuel M. Amendolar and Joshua S. Easterling
PART I: THE CELL AND COMMUNITY
1. A Solitary in the City: The Material and Spiritual World of Richard Ferneys, Hermit of Norwich
Carole Rawcliffe
2. Aspects of the Materiality of Recluses' Cells in Medieval Germany
Jörg Voigt
3. Materialities of Authority, Memory, and Salvation: Women Religious in Early Medieval Catalonia (Ninth to Eleventh Centuries)
Araceli Rosillo-Luque
PART II: STONES, ELEMENTS, AND BUILT ENVIRONMENTS
4. The Eloquence of Stone, The Intimacy of Earth
Joshua S. Easterling
5. Generation, Purity, and the Lithic Agency of Crystals in the Revelations of St Birgitta of Sweden
Michelle M. Sauer
6. Living Earth: Transcorporeality and Hildegard of Bingen's Scivias
Natalie Grinnell
7. The Matter of Devotion in Mechthild of Hackeborn's The Book of Gostley Grace
Laura Kalas
PART III: VISION, THE VISUAL, AND THE MATERIALITY OF IMAGES
8. "I sawe in myn undyrstandynge": Sight as Cognition: Seeing and the Image in Julian of Norwich's Interpretative Process
Katherine E. Dixon
9. Facing Jesus: Julian of Norwich, the Veronica in Rome, and the Colors of Jesus' Skin
Mary Dzon
10. "that thyne eyen sholde se ony delectable thynge": The Use of Woodcuts in The Fruyt of Redempcyon
Clare M. Dowding
11. Racialized Antisemitism, the Material Turn, and the Salvin Hours
Dorothy Kim
PART IV: MANUSCRIPTS, TEXTS, AND CONTEXTS
12. Handling the Anchoritic Handbook: The Latin Ancrene Wisse, Gendered Readership, and the Medieval Sermon
Nicholas Hoffman
13. Lexical and Rhetorical Links Connecting Two Texts in the Amherst Manuscript (British Library Add. MS 37790): Revelations of Divine Love and The Mirror of Simple Souls
Fumiko Yoshikawa
Select Bibliography
General Index
The Performance of Enclosure and Materiality: An Introduction
Michelle M. Sauer with Samuel M. Amendolar and Joshua S. Easterling
PART I: THE CELL AND COMMUNITY
1. A Solitary in the City: The Material and Spiritual World of Richard Ferneys, Hermit of Norwich
Carole Rawcliffe
2. Aspects of the Materiality of Recluses' Cells in Medieval Germany
Jörg Voigt
3. Materialities of Authority, Memory, and Salvation: Women Religious in Early Medieval Catalonia (Ninth to Eleventh Centuries)
Araceli Rosillo-Luque
PART II: STONES, ELEMENTS, AND BUILT ENVIRONMENTS
4. The Eloquence of Stone, The Intimacy of Earth
Joshua S. Easterling
5. Generation, Purity, and the Lithic Agency of Crystals in the Revelations of St Birgitta of Sweden
Michelle M. Sauer
6. Living Earth: Transcorporeality and Hildegard of Bingen's Scivias
Natalie Grinnell
7. The Matter of Devotion in Mechthild of Hackeborn's The Book of Gostley Grace
Laura Kalas
PART III: VISION, THE VISUAL, AND THE MATERIALITY OF IMAGES
8. "I sawe in myn undyrstandynge": Sight as Cognition: Seeing and the Image in Julian of Norwich's Interpretative Process
Katherine E. Dixon
9. Facing Jesus: Julian of Norwich, the Veronica in Rome, and the Colors of Jesus' Skin
Mary Dzon
10. "that thyne eyen sholde se ony delectable thynge": The Use of Woodcuts in The Fruyt of Redempcyon
Clare M. Dowding
11. Racialized Antisemitism, the Material Turn, and the Salvin Hours
Dorothy Kim
PART IV: MANUSCRIPTS, TEXTS, AND CONTEXTS
12. Handling the Anchoritic Handbook: The Latin Ancrene Wisse, Gendered Readership, and the Medieval Sermon
Nicholas Hoffman
13. Lexical and Rhetorical Links Connecting Two Texts in the Amherst Manuscript (British Library Add. MS 37790): Revelations of Divine Love and The Mirror of Simple Souls
Fumiko Yoshikawa
Select Bibliography
General Index