Crown and veil : female monasticism from the fifth to the fifteenth centuries /

Edited by well-known scholars Hamburger (Harvard) and Marti, Crown and Veil provides the first broad survey of the history of female monasticism and its effect on medieval culture. The collection presents 12 diverse essays that offer insight into the lives of religious women from late antiquity to the Reformation, focusing on the monastic communities of the German Empire, Frankish Gaul, Langobard Italy, and Anglo-Saxon England. Contributors approach the hitherto neglected impact of the innovations and imagination of nuns and canonesses on the structure of medieval piety and visual culture from a variety of perspectives within the contexts of art and architecture patronage and production, economics, literature, women's studies, liturgy, and faith. The single drawback of the volume is its limited number of images, mostly of poor quality and none in color, which is especially disheartening in a book that focuses on visual culture. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-level undergraduates and above. K. E. Staab Pennsylvania State University