Virginia Chieffo Raguin

This is a really fascinating collection of essays, which examines the relationship of gender and space in medieval religious settings: cathedrals, monasteries and parishes. The authors use a wide variety of sources—artistic, archaeological, literary and documentary—to illustrate that space is no more innocent than language. Spatial restrictions were enforced in religious spaces against both lay and vowed women in the Middle Ages, but there is also evidence of women either defying such restrictions or working around them. As it's an interdisciplinary collection, I felt a little at sea with some of the essays that were focused more heavily on literary sources—I don't have quite the academic vocabulary that a scholar of literature does—but I found all thought-provoking and potentially useful for future research.… (mais)