1st Edition
Gender, Piety, and Production in Fourteenth-Century English Apocalypse Manuscripts
Table of Contents
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction
A Fourteenth-Century Group of English Apocalypse Illuminators
Workshop Practice and the Question of Authorship
Compilation and Readership
Chapter 1. Seeing with Spiritual Eyes: The Pepys Apocalypse
A Workshop Model
Seeing with ‘Spiritual Eyes’
Eucharistic Devotion and Bridal Mysticism
‘Le bon prelat’
The Pepys Apocalypse and the Cura Monialium
Conclusion
Chapter 2. A Book Designed for a Lady: The Selden Apocalypse
The Owner of the Book
A Book for Teaching
The Illuminator as Compiler
A Literal Apocalypse
Tying Évangile to Apocalypse: Alpha and Omega
Conclusion
Chapter 3. Knowledge and Ascent: The Brussels Apocalypse
The Lumere as lais
Knowledge and Ascent
‘Seint Pol le apostre’ and the Moral Emphasis
Close Relations
The Brussels Apocalypse as an Exemplar and Mental Substitute for a Lost Image
More Images in the Margins
Conclusion
Chapter 4. Concluding Remarks: The Care of Souls and the Artist as Author
Diverse Readers and the Care of Souls
Customized Practices and Questions of Authorship
Bibliography
Index
Biography
Renana Bartal is Senior Lecturer in the Art History department at Tel Aviv University, Israel.
"By interrogating difference rather than seeking similarities, this study offers a valuable new perspective on the later English Apocalypse tradition. It challenges perceptions of illuminators as rude craftsmen, highlights the cultural patronage and intellectual interests of a diverse range of fourteenth-century audiences, and explores the multiple textual, social, devotional and pastoral contexts in which fourteenth-century Apocalypse manuscripts can be sited with great insight and expertise."
--Peregrinations: Journal of Medieval Art and Architecture
"Bartal’s contribution has immense value in that it turns a close, even microscopic lens on a group of little-studied manuscripts that, despite their restricted geographic scope, their shared pool of illuminators, and their less-than-luxurious production values, illustrate the sheer variability of devotional book production and consumption in one small region of Europe in the fourteenth century."
--Studies in Iconography
"The result is an impressively scholarly and original work which offers invaluable insights into the dissemination and reception of pastoral material in the vernacular in the fourteenth century, especially amongst female readers, and significantly advances our understanding of the uses and importance of Apocalypse material in the period."
--Medium Aevum
