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IMC 2020: Sessions

Session 1719: Women between Worlds?: Vowesses, Beguines, and Anchoresses at Home and in the Community

Thursday 9 July 2020, 14.15-15.45

Organiser:Rachel Delman, University College, University of Oxford
Moderator/Chair:Patricia Cullum, Department of History, University of Huddersfield
Paper 1719-a'Amongst the Nuns': Vowesses in Convent Space in Late Medieval England
(Language: English)
Laura Wood, Royal Holloway, University of London
Index terms: Architecture - Religious, Daily Life, Gender Studies, Lay Piety
Paper 1719-bThe Vowesses, the Anchoresses, and the Aldermen's Wives: Margaret Beaufort and the Guild of St Katherine in Late Medieval Stamford
(Language: English)
Rachel Delman, University College, University of Oxford
Index terms: Architecture - General, Gender Studies, Lay Piety, Women's Studies
Paper 1719-cOpen Space, Thresholds, and the Vocal Gaze: Negotiation of the In-Between in the Lives of 13th-Century Beguines
(Language: English)
Hannah Shepherd, School of History, Classics & Archaeology, University of Edinburgh
Index terms: Daily Life, Gender Studies, Lay Piety, Religious Life
Abstract

Vowesses, beguines, and anchoresses are often said to have occupied a liminal space in late medieval society, treading the line between the laywoman and the female religious. This session will explore the lives and experiences of these women through a focus on the buildings and spaces they inhabited, either on a temporary or permanent basis. In considering a wide range of settings - from nunneries, beguinages, and anchorholds to urban and great households - the papers will collectively consider how the women's material and spiritual practices defined, and were defined by, the spaces and the people they encountered.