Reviewed by: Female Monasticism in Early Modern Europe: An Interdisciplinary View Susan E. Dinan Female Monasticism in Early Modern Europe: An Interdisciplinary View. By Cordula van Wyhe. [Catholic Christendom, 1300–1700.] (Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing. 2008. Pp. xviii, 281. $114.95. ISBN 978-0-754-65337-0.) In summer 2003, Cordula van Wyhe organized an international conference on women religious in early-modern Europe at the University of Cambridge, where she was Speelman-Newton Fellow in Netherlandish Art. The conference was an intimate and cordial gathering of scholars interested in the lives of nuns, especially those living in Italy and Spain. Van Wyhe’s Female Monasticism in Early Modern Europe: An Interdisciplinary View is a collection of essays from papers delivered at the conference as well as from those solicited afterward. Like the conference, it contains the perspective of scholars from diverse academic fields and work from a number of different countries. Moreover, the book’s tone is like that of the conference: collaborative and conversational. Many essays in the book are in dialogue with one another, and thus this essay collection is greater than the sum of its parts. This well-edited book is organized in four sections: Femininity and Sanctity, Convent Theater and Music Making, Spiritual Directorship, and Community and Conflict, which are elegantly woven together. The collection is richly illustrated, so those referring to art and artifacts can underscore their arguments with plentiful pictorial evidence, and all readers can enjoy its beauty. Van Wyhe, now at the University of York, is interested in making the world of post-Tridentine nuns more intelligible to scholars by bringing works from a number of disciplines (history, art history, theater studies, musicology, and literature) together. Her interdisciplinary approach allows scholars who are not always aware of one another’s work to benefit from one another’s findings. This volume is especially important for students of St. Teresa of Ávila; it contains four essays on the subject. Included is a piece by Margit Thøfner, who examines the early iconography of Teresa. Van Wyhe expands upon this theme with an essay examining 101 engravings within the Vitae Teresianæ to show how understandings of Teresa’s mysticism were reinterpreted in the [End Page 543] seventeenth century. Alison Weber investigates the place of children, including members of Teresa’s family, in discalced Carmelite convents. Jodi Bilinkoff rounds out the topic by providing a broader study on spiritual friendships between nuns and confessors, including Teresa. Scholars of music and theater history will be pleased to find three thoughtful essays on convent culture, all of which are written with nonspecialists in mind. Colleen Baade’s essay on attitudes toward convent music examines more than 1000 houses in Spain to illustrate the contentious feelings around singing nuns. Robert Kendrick studies Claudia Rusca’s motet book. Harmonizing with Baade’s work, Kendrick demonstrates how cultural productions in this Milanese convent could be seen to undermine monastic ideals. Elissa Weaver’s lively essay on Tuscan convents shows how plays were meant to educate as well as entertain audiences and could be adapted to the needs of different houses. In a related essay Helen Hills offers insights into the importance of presenting the relics in processions and ceremonies in the city of Naples. Van Whye’s collection strives for broad geographical coverage. Claire Walker contributed a thoughtful essay on an English convent in Brussels. Barbara Diefendorf wrote an excellent piece on Barbe Acarie’s work in Paris. The collection also features two essays examining nuns in the Holy Roman Empire. Ulrike Strasser’s story of a Bavarian nun who falls from the choir loft and dies a martyr within the walls of her convent is a probing examination of the meaning of clausura and sanctity on early-modern women. Charlotte Woodford examines the fates of two convents caught up in the Thirty Years’ War—one in Augsburg and one in Bamberg—which met very different ends at the hands of the Swedish army. This is an excellent collection, and the reader wishes only that there were more essays from conference participants, including Kelley Harness, Mary Laven, Amy Leonard, and Elizabeth Rapley. Susan E. Dinan William Paterson University Copyright © 2010 The...
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Mar 11, 2019
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