WOMEN AS SCRIBES

Book Production and Monastic Reform in Twelfth-Century Bavaria

Professor Beach’s book on female scribes in twelfth-century Bavaria – the first full-length study of the role of women copyists in the Middle Ages – is underpinned by the notion that the scriptorium was central to the intellectual revival of the Middle Ages and that women played a role in this renaissance. The author examines the exceptional quantity of evidence of female scribal activity in three different religious communities, pointing out the various ways in which the women worked – alone, with other women, and even alongside men – to produce books for monastic libraries, and discussing why their work should have been made visible, whereas that of other female scribes remains invisible. Beach’s focus on manuscript production, and the religious, intellectual, social, and economic factors which shaped that production, enables her to draw wide-ranging conclusions of interest not only to paleographers but also to those interested in reading, literacy, religious and gender history.

ALISON I. BEACH is Assistant Professor of Religion, College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, Virginia.

Cambridge Studies in Palaeography and Codicology

FOUNDING EDITORS
Albinia de la Mare
Rosamond McKitterick Newnham College, University of Cambridge

GENERAL EDITORS
David Ganz King’s College, London
Teresa Webber Trinity College, University of Cambridge

This series has been established to further the study of manuscripts from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance. It includes books devoted to particular types of manuscripts, their production and circulation, to individual codices of outstanding importance, and to regions, periods, and scripts of especial interest to scholars. The series will be of interest not only to scholars and students of medieval literature and history, but also to theologians, art historians, and others working with manuscript sources.

ALREADY PUBLISHED
Bernhard Bischoff, translated by Michael Gorman    Manuscripts and Libraries in the Age of Charlemagne
Richard Gameson    The Early Medieval Bible: Its Production, Decoration and Use
Nancy Netzer    Cultural Interplay in the Eighth Century: The Trier Gospels and the Making of a Scriptorium at Echternach
William Noel    The Harley Psalter
Charles F. Briggs    Giles of Rome’s De regimine principum: Reading and Writing Politics at Court and University, c. 1275–c. 1525
Leslie Brubaker    Vision and Meaning in Ninth-Century Byzantium: Image as Exegesis in the Homilies of Gregory of Nazianzus
Francis Newton    The Scriptorium and Library at Monte Cassino, 1058–1105
Lisa Fagin Davis    The Gottschalk Antiphonary: Music and Liturgy in Twelfth-Century Lambach
Albert Derolez    The Palaeography of Gothic Manuscript Books: From the Twelfth to the Early Sixteenth Century

WOMEN AS SCRIBES

Book Production and Monastic Reform in Twelfth-Century Bavaria

ALISON I. BEACH

PUBLISHED BY THE PRESS SYNDICATE OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE
The Pitt Building, Trumpington Street, Cambridge, United Kingdom

CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS
The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge, CB2 2RU, UK
40 West 20th Street, New York, NY 10011–4211, USA
477 Williamstown Road, Port Melbourne, VIC 3207, Australia
Ruiz de Alarcón 13, 28014 Madrid, Spain
Dock House, The Waterfront, Cape Town 8001, South Africa

http://www.cambridge.org

© Alison I. Beach 2004

This book is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception
and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements,
no reproduction of any part may take place without
the written permission of Cambridge University Press.

First published 2004

Printed in the United Kingdom at the University Press, Cambridge

Typeface Adobe Garamond 11.5/13.5 pt.    System LATEX 2_e    [TB]

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication data
Beach, Alison I.
Women as scribes: book production and monastic reform in twelfth-century Bavaria / Alison I. Beach.
p.    cm. – (Cambridge studies in palaeography and codicology; 10)
Originally presented as author’s thesis (doctoral) – Columbia University
Includes bibliographical references (p. 173) and index.
ISBN 0 521 79243 6
1. Scriptoria – Germany – Bavaria – History – To 1500.   2. Scribes – Germany – Bavaria – History – To 1500.   3. Women in Christianity – History – Middle Ages, 600–1500.   4. Books – Germany – History – 400–1400.   5. Manuscripts, Medieval – Germany – Bavaria – History.   6. Monasticism and religious orders – Germany – Bavaria – History – To 1500.   7. Wessobrunn (Monastery) – History – To 1500.   8. Stift Admont – History – To 1500.   9. Schèftlarn (Monastery: Schèftlarn, Germany) – History – To 1500.   10. Civilization, Medieval – 12th century.   I. Title.   II. Series.
Z801.B3B43    2003
745.6′1 – dc21    2003048559

ISBN 0 521 79243 6 hardback

For David

Contents

Illustrations

PALAEOGRAPHICAL FIGURES

These will be found between pp. 149 and 170.

  1   Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek Clm 22009 f. 4v

  2   Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek Clm 22002 f. 24r

  3   Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek Clm 22005 f. 29r

  4   Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek Clm 22002 f. 106v

  5   Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek Clm 22003 f. 54r

  6   Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek Clm 22002 f. 110v

  7   Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek Clm 22040 f. 3r

  8   Vorau, Stiftsbibliothek MS 193 f. 186r

  9   Admont, Stiftsbibliothek MS 650 f. 1v

  10   Admont, Stiftsbibliothek MS 650 f. 2r

11   Admont, Stiftsbibliothek MS 17 p. 270

12   Admont, Stiftsbibliothek MS 16 p. 227

13   Vorau, Stiftsbibliothek MS 193 f. 157v

14   Admont, Stiftsbibliothek MS 650 f. 26r

15   Admont, Stiftsbibliothek MS 16 p. 103

16   Admont, Stiftsbibliothek MS 17 p. 72

17   Vorau, Stiftsbibliothek MS 193 f. 167v

18   Admont, Stiftsbibliothek MS 682 f. 39r

19   Vorau, Stiftsbibliothek MS 193 f. 208r

20   Admont, Stiftsbibliothek MS 682 f. 1v

21   Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek Clm 17052 f. 214v

22   Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek Clm 17053 f. 108v

23   Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek Clm 17087 f. 10v

24   Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek Clm 17116 f. 3r

Tables

Acknowledgments

This book began as a question – a question posed to me in 1992 by Maria Grandinette (then head of the Conservation Unit at the University of Michigan Libraries, now head of Conservation Treatment at Stanford University), a fellow participant in one of the early online discussion groups at the University of Michigan. Her question was a simple one: “Did women copy books in the Middle Ages?” What follows here is the beginning of an answer to her question.

   I could not have undertaken and completed this project without the encouragement and support of many people. My greatest thanks are due to Robert Somerville, my doctoral advisor at Columbia University, who encouraged me to pursue this project and has remained supportive throughout. Special thanks are also due to Caroline W. Bynum, Consuelo Dutschke, Joan Ferrante, Elisabeth Klemm, Raymund Kottje, Milton McC. Gatch, and Johann Tomaschek, who provided useful comments and criticism when the book was still a dissertation, and to Giles Constable, Barbara Rosenwein, and Rodney Thomson, who generously read the typescript and provided a wealth of helpful suggestions. Many other friends and colleagues also provided support and advice along the way, especially Michael Blum, Katrinette Bodarwé, Stephan Borgehammar, Adam Cohen, Rachel Fulton, and Stefanie Seeberg. I would also like to thank Rosamond McKitterick and Teresa Webber, my series editors at Cambridge University Press, through whose patience and criticism this has become a much better book.

   I would also like to acknowledge the support and hospitality of a number of institutions: the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, the Department of Religion at Columbia University, Hill Monastic Manuscript Library, the Institute for Advanced Study, Stift Admont, Stift Vorau, and the Universitätsbibliothek Würzburg.

   Finally, I would like to thank my family: my parents, who have accepted my calling beyond our family business with grace, love, and even heartfelt enthusiasm; my children, Andrew and Eliza, who always remind me of what is most important in life; and my husband David, whose love and support are beyond measure.

Abbreviations