Women and Aristocratic Culture in the Carolingian World
David Ganz
This well-produced volume offers a fine general account of the activities Carolingian aristocratic women, with an excellent final chapter on role women in production textiles and other relating to household management. Valerie Garver seeks discuss ‘all female members elite’ (p. 5) terms their beauty, family, prudence, wealth, four reasons, according Jonas Orléans, why men desire women. The text promises examination nascent forms courtesy sources 17), but this discussion is never explicit. beauty spends too long debates about icons, it does attempt explore ‘Carolingian gaze’. family chiefly memory entry into religious life. ambitious — ‘Our understanding early medieval social relations should better for women's roles’ 16) often accumulated detail makes difficult discover structured argument her chapters. Nor clear how which she draws were identified. Surely Saint Opportuna (Bibliotheca hagiographica latina, 6339–40) translation miracles Regina deserved place, not Altmann Hautvilliers's life Helena relevant culture women? Translation Bertha (BHL, 1267) that Pusinna Herford 6995) show response relics worth mention. has looked at cemetery remains, tomb inscriptions high-status included Cécile Treffort's Mémoires carolingiennes: l'épitaphe entre genre littéraire, célébration mémorielle et manifeste politique (Presses universitaires de Rennes, 2007). Norbert Fickermann's edition marriage poem Odo Paris his queen Theotrada (Beiträge zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache und Literatur, 83 (1962), 36–62 (pp. 49–62)), epitaphs Countess Adda Poitiers Louis German's daughters (Monumenta Germaniae historica, Poetae, iv, 217–18) would have added dossier assembled here. Bertha, wife count Girard Vienne, embroidered altar cloth (MGH, 335–36). She was dedicatee Saints Eusebius Pontianus 863 received epitaph, absent. Regino Prüm's De ecclesiasticis disciplinisii.CLXXI discusses who, though they taken veil, live luxury curiose verbose, who enter nunneries out religion or chastity liberty power lasciviously. These are presumably sorts whom studying. ii.CLXXIV condemnation attend placita public meetings do more confuse than resolve affairs kingdom interests state. According even barbarian peoples disapprove discussing men's business, here usurping senatorial authority. Neither passage cited: provide context wealth examples assembled.
French Studies