| Abstract | Paper -a:
St Margaret, Queen of Scotland (d. 1093), has long been recognized as a devout woman whose queenship was linked intrinsically to her religious expression. This paper examines the patterns of Margaret's patronage and the ways in which she, as a stranger in a new land and refugee of the Norman Conquest, used her religious expression in deliberate ways, promoting her new position as Queen of Scots. By examining her religious patronage alongside her early experiences, we are able to gain a richer understanding of her motivations. This study re-contextualizes Margaret's patronage, demonstrating that while Margaret's pious expression may have provided for the future security of her dynasty, it also served to provide for Margaret's own security, as she tied herself to her new home and carefully cultivated her image as Queen of Scots.
Paper -b:
Recent studies on the medieval nuns' literacy have shown that, contrary to the traditional view, these communities invested a great deal on text production and library building. Nevertheless, in some regions - such as the Iberian Peninsula, and particularly Portugal - this subject remains in need of a deeper study. Thus, through the surviving of accounts bearing references to the Portuguese Dominican nuns writing and reading activities, and the colophons of the books they have produced, in this paper I will delve into these nuns' level of literacy, their role in text production and the dynamics of learning inside their communities.
Paper -c:
Mahaut d'Artois and Clémence de Hongrie were female members of the late medieval French court whose household inventories are still extant. By considering entries detailing ivory objects in their inventories, I argue that the inclusion of ivories speaks to the cultural, social, and financial import of Gothic ivories, while also rendering the medieval inventory a valued record in itself. Medieval inventories serve as a record of the production, ownership, and monetary value of luxury objects, and a record of their possessors' material lives. The inventories of Mahaut d'Artois and Clémence de Hongrie demonstrate how French noblewomen utilized ivory objects as a material means of expressing their social, religious, and financial roles in 14th-century French courtly culture.
Paper -d:
A late medieval tradition held that the Virgin Mary spent the years between her son's Ascension and her Assumption traveling as a pilgrim, gathering souvenirs which she later used to meditate on her journeys. This paper looks at how Mary was depicted as a collector in Jerusalem pilgrimage narratives, first, to examine arguments about the acceptability of travel for women, and second, to reveal anxieties about the potentially problematic desire to possess physical relics of the holy sites. In general, this paper examines the ways in which materiality and gender intersected in the figure of Mary as model pilgrim.
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