IMC 2013: Sessions

Session 1516: The Princess, the Friar, and the Book: Medieval Scenes of Private Pleasure and Religious Practice

Organiser:	René Hernández Vera, Institute for Medieval Studies, University of Leeds
Moderator/Chair:	Melanie Brunner, Institute for Medieval Studies, University of Leeds
Paper 1516-a	Away from the Pleasures of Royalty?: The Example of Agnes of Bohemia as a Royal Franciscan Nun (Language: English) Kirsty Day, Institute for Medieval Studies / School of History, University of Leeds Index terms: Mentalities, Religious Life, Social History, Women's Studies
Paper 1516-b	The Pleasant Guilt of Having Books (Language: English) René Hernández Vera, Institute for Medieval Studies, University of Leeds Index terms: Manuscripts and Palaeography, Mentalities, Religious Life
Paper 1516-c	The Pleasure of Prayer: The Aesthetic Dimension of Prayer Books (Language: English) Katherine Krick, Department of History, Durham University Index terms: Manuscripts and Palaeography, Mentalities, Religious Life
Abstract	This session explores three medieval examples of contradiction between personal pleasure and religious practice. First, a Franciscan nun who balanced her devotional life with her role as a princess. Second, the Franciscan Friars's guilty pleasure of owning books in spite of the prescriptions of their rule, and third, the Books of Prayer, splendid pieces of craftsmanship and beauty that exhorted their owners to simplicity, devotion and humility. The session will show that perhaps personal pleasure and religious practice in the Middle Ages were not as contradictory as we may believe.