Medieval Women Book Owners: Arbiters of Lay Piety and Ambassadors of Culture

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by  Bell S.G.

Medieval Women Book Owners: Arbiters of Lay Piety and Ambassadors of Culture
Author(s): Susan Groag Bell
Source: Signs, Vol. 7, No. 4 (Summer, 1982), pp. 742-768
Published by: The University of Chicago Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3173638 .
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Medieval Women Book Owners:
Arbiters of and Ambassadors
Lay Piety
of Culture
Susan Bell
Groag
This boke is myne, Eleanor Worcester
An I yt lose, and yow yt fynd
I pray yow hartely to be so kynd
That yow wel take a letil payne
To se my boke is brothe home agayne.
[Inscription in a Book of Hours
belonging to the Duchess of Worcester,
ca. 1440]1
Cultural changes of the later Middle Ages were characterized by a shift-
ing relationship between the laity and traditional religious institutions
leading eventually to the Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth cen-
tury. The development of lay piety and the rise of vernacular literature
were interrelated and were two of the more significant of these cultural
changes. Expressions of lay piety have been attributed to a confluence of
unsettling political, religious, demographic, and even climatological
factors during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The breakdown of
1. MS Harley, 1251, British Library, London.
EDITORS'N OTE: Because medieval women were essentially excluded
from knowledge of the classical languages, a prerequisite to membership
in "the company of scholars," their interest in books and learning has
seemed peripheral to the grand transmission of culture. Yet in fact,
women's patronage of vernacular literature, particularly religious works,
distinguished them as agents of a cultural change that was at once
gradual and revolutionary.
[Signs:J ournal of Womeni n Culture and Society 1982, vol. 7, no. 4]
? 1982 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved. 0097-9740/82/0704-0001$01.00
742
Signs Summer1 982 743
institutional Christian unity, epitomized by the schism in the papacy, led
concerned individuals to question the authority of the church. Repeated
natural disasters (plagues and famines) created hysteria and an emo-
tional need for religious support. This resulted in the widespread quest
for spiritual certainties and a dramatic increase in recognized heresies in
which women played a prominent part. The new spirit of inquiry was
also evident in an upsurge of literacy and book ownership. Women's
participation in this aspect of the new piety, however, has been over-
looked.
I believe that the influence of laywomen in promoting cultural
change can be assessed by looking at their special relationship to books,
and I offer this article as a pioneer attempt to chart this area. Pre-
liminary research suggests that book-owning women substantially in-
fluenced the development of lay piety and vernacular literature in the
later Middle Ages. Women frequently bought and inherited religious as
well as secular books, and spent considerable time reading them. In
particular, as readers of vernacular literature, as mothers in charge of
childhood education, as literary patrons who commissioned books and
translations, and as wives who married across cultural and geographical
boundaries, women had a specific and unique influence.
This essay is divided into three parts. The first deals with the facts of
medieval laywomen's book ownership, including the acquisition of books
through inheritance, commission, and patronage. The second part fo-
cuses on women's special relationship to books: (1) because of their in-
ferior status in medieval Christian thought and their exclusion from
scholarship and clerical life, women had an even greater need for the
mental and spiritual nourishment offered by books than men did; (2) as
The earliest version of this essay was presented to the Associates of the Stanford
University Libraries on February 13, 1977. I would like to express my gratitude to them
and particularly to Byra Wreden, their most energetic founding member, for giving me
the opportunity to think extensively about this topic and to present it to the public. The
paper has also been read at the Medieval Conference at Western Michigan University,
Kalamazoo, in 1978 and at the Berkshire Conference on Women's History at Vassar
College in 1981. I must thank a large number of friends and colleagues for their encour-
agement, critical reading, help, and advice (not always followed). These include Charmarie
Jenkins Blaisdell, Robert Brentano, George H. Brown, Kathleen Cohen, Stephen Fer-
ruolo, Janet Gardiner, Michael Hackenberg, Maryanne Horowitz, Carolyn Lougee, JoAnn
McNamara, Mavis Mate, Susan Noakes, Karen Offen, Mary O'Neil, Jean Preston, Nancy
Roelker, Richard Rouse, Susan Stuard, Thomas Turley, and Margaret Williams. My
greatest debt is to Natalie Davis, Joan Kelly, and Suzanne Wemple who, from the begin-
ning and throughout much negative response, insisted that I continue to pursue this
subject. I am grateful to Ronald L. Bell who has taught me how to photograph in the most
difficult conditions and has a great share in my acquisition of hundreds of pictures repre-
senting medieval women as readers. Finally, I wish to thank the Djerassi Foundation under
its Pamela Djerassi Visiting Artist program and friends in the Stanford community for the
generous financial support that enabled us to pay the high price necessary to reproduce
even a few of these illustrations in color. Acknowledgments to owners of the originals of
these illustrations can be found at the end of the article.
744 Bell Medieval WomenB ook Owners
mothers they were the primary teachers of the next generation and
acquired books as teaching texts; and (3) untutored in Latin, they played
an important role in the development of vernacular translations. The
last section deals with the importance of women's relationship to books
in the development of cultural change, including their influence on
iconography as well as book content, and their role in the international
movement of art and ideas through their ownership of books.
Patterns of Book Ownership
Many still regard the medieval book as a possession of the cloister or
of the male of the family. Traditional textbooks and historiography em-
phasize medieval culture as a phenomenon associated with either
monasticism or feudalism. Monks (rarely nuns) are depicted as scribes or
as readers of religious books. Troubadours' tales of lovelorn knights
sighing over unattainable ladies did not address these ladies' intellectual
or spiritual pursuits, beyond a nod at Eleanor of Aquitaine as a patron of
poets. Classic medieval historiography focuses on one of two male
institutions-the church or chivalric feudalism. Even the authors of the
most widely used recent Western civilization textbook, who are aware of
the literacy of medieval laywomen, see those women as literary subject
matter rather than as creators or users of books.2 Scholarly articles con-
cerned with book ownership also largely ignore women book owners. In
her 1972 article on fifteenth-century books and their owners, Susan
Connel observed, "Exceptional not for the contents, but for being found
at all, are records of books owned by women."3 Yet from the ninth to the
fifteenth century, particularly in the latter portion of this period, there is
solid evidence of individual European laywomen of the upper classes
who read and owned books. Table 1 shows the numbers of laywomen
identified by name to whom the ownership of at least one book can be
traced. These women were identified in: (1) rare book library catalogs;
(2) medieval wills; (3) medieval inventories of household goods or of
libraries; and (4) dedications to patrons. The 242 women identified who
lived between A.D. 800 and 1500 in no way constitute a representative
sample, and their origins are geographically diverse-from Scotland in
the north to Sicily in the south, and from the Atlantic in the west to
Serbia and Poland in the east. The evidence, however, suggests that the
number of laywomen book owners increased substantially by the four-
teenth century and multiplied dramatically by the fifteenth century. This
2. Edward McNall Burns, Robert Lerner, and Standish Meacham, Western Civiliza-
tions, Their History and Their Culture (New York: W. W. Norton Co., 1980).
3. Susan Connel, "Books and Their Owners in Venice: 1345-1480," Journal of the
Warburga nd CourtauldI nstitute 35 (1972): 163-86, esp. 163.
Table1
Identified European Laywomen Owning Books, A.D. 800-1500
Number of Women, by Century
Ninth Tenth Eleventh Twelfth Thirteenth Fourteenth Fifteenth All
Number of Books Century Century Century Century Century Century Century Centuries
One book 3 3 6 9 12 41 76 150
2-10 books 1 ... 5 6 3 6 29 50
11-50 books ... ... ... ... ... 7 13 20
51-200 books ... ... ...... ... 1 13* 14
Unspecified number of
books** 6 1 ... 1 ... ... ... 8
Total 10 4 11 16 15 55 131 242
*One of these women, Gabrielle de la Tour, owned 200 manuscripts in 1474. Nine others, indirect evidence indicates, may
have owned between 51 and 100 manuscripts and printed books, although this cannot be positively documented.
**Each of these women was referred to as "owning books" or being "busy with her books," although no specific books could be
traced to them.
746 Bell Medieval WomenB ook Owners
preliminary exploration also strongly suggests that there may be rich,
untapped evidence of women book owners between the ninth and
fifteenth centuries. I wish to stress the tentativeness of all but the most
general conclusions based on the figures shown in the table, and my
awareness of the many avenues that are open for further work on this
subject. That these women and their books originated in diverse Euro-
pean locations, while they often journeyed across the Continent and the
English Channel on marriage, suggests important trends in the diffusion
of medieval culture.
Various medieval developments facilitated the individual search for
spiritual guidance through books. For example, M. T. Clanchy sees the
shift "from memory to written record" that occurred over the eleventh
and twelfth centuries as preparation for the growth of a literate
mentality-for people ready to spend time and effort with books.4
Technology also played an important part. The chimney flue and fire-
place, developed in the early fourteenth century, provided safety and
warmth indoors by allowing smoke to escape. The fireplace, substituting
for the central open fire in large communal areas, also facilitated the
development of smaller rooms which, together with the appearance of
window glass, provided privacy for peaceful and comfortable indoor
reading (pl. 2).5 Further, by the thirteenth century eyeglasses became
available: lenses to correct presbyopia, allowing the middle-aged to con-
tinue close work, had been introduced in the late thirteenth century, and
concave lenses for myopia made reading a possibility for the nearsighted
by the mid-fifteenth century.6 Finally, cheaper production of manu-
scripts in the course of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries and im-
provements in printing of small books by the end of the fifteenth century
undoubtedly spurred the growth of individual book ownership and lit-
eracy.
Until the advent of incunabula (that is, the earliest printed books,
published between 1453 and 1500), medieval books consisted of hand-
written rolls or bound pages known as manuscripts. Most of these books
owned by the laity that have survived were religious in content, covering
sermons, selections of psalms (the Psalter), parts of the Old or the New
4. M. T. Clanchy, From Memoryt o WrittenR ecord (London: Edward Arnold, 1979).
5. LeRoy Joseph Dresbeck, "The Chimney and Fireplace: A Study in Technological
Development Primarily in England during the Middle Ages" (Ph.D. diss., University of
California, Los Angeles, 1971). The concept of reading by the fireplace in comfort is well
illustrated by Robert Campin's Annunciation scene in the Merode Altarpiece (pl. 2); Cam-
pin's Santa Barbara Reading, at the Prado Museum, Madrid; or the Woman Reading by the
Fireplace While Stirring a Pot, in Comestor, "Historia Scholastica," MS Reg. 15 D.I., British
Library, London.
6. Vincent Illardy, "Eyeglasses and Concave Lenses in Fifteenth Century Florence
and Milan: New Documents," Renaissance Quarterly 29 (Autumn 1976): 341-60. Also, E.
Rosen, "The Invention of Eyeglasses,"Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences 11
(January-April 1956): 13-46, and 183-218.
Signs Summer1 982 747
Testament, or a combination of all of these items in a "Book of Hours,"
which will be considered in detail later in this article.
While the actual cost of medieval books cannot be measured in
modern terms, medieval women's accounts show not only that they
bought books but that the books they bought were relatively expensive.
We know, for example, that in the eleventh century the Countess of
Anjou paid two hundred sheep; one bushel each of rye, wheat, and
millet; and a quantity of marten pelts for one volume of the sermons of
Haimo of Halberstadt.7 But we do not know the circumstances of this
exchange. The countess may well have accepted the book in part pay-
ment for the goods, or she may have made a donation to the monastery
to which the scribe belonged and then received the book as an expres-
sion of thanks. Fourteenth-century accounts present less ambiguous
figures. Thus, for example, the accounts of Mahaut, Countess of Artois,
show that in 1308 she paid seven livres and ten sous for copies of the
Histoire de Troyesa nd Perceval; in 1313 she paid eight livres for a copy of
the Consolationso fBoethius.8 At about the same time, in 1324, the Count-
ess of Clare paid a scribe eight shillings and his board and lodging for
the four months it took him to copy the Lives of the Church Fathers for
her.9 It appears that the work of the scribe was a minor part of the total
cost. Parchment and illuminations (especially those using gold leaf)
largely accounted for the high cost of books. Mahaut, Countess of Artois,
paid a female scribe, Maroie, twenty-five sous for writing a Book of
Hours in 131210 and ordered an even less expensive Book of Hours
costing six sous for her niece in 1320.11 By the end of the fourteenth
century, it was possible to acquire tracts, broadsides, and small de-
votional texts for less than one shilling in England.12
However, whether a book cost eight livres or six sous in the four-
teenth century, it was still out of reach for anyone except the nobility or
upper bourgeoisie. It would have taken a female agricultural laborer in
southern France in the early fourteenth century about fourteen days to
earn enough to buy the cheapest book purchased by the Countess of
Artois between 1306 and 1330, and more than a year's daily labor to buy
one of the more luxurious books. A male agricultural laborer could have
purchased the cheaper book after seven days of labor, since he earned
7. See James Westfall Thompson, The Medieval Library (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1939), p. 640.
8. Jules Marie Richard, "Les Livres de Mahaut, Comtesse d'Artois et de Bourgogne,
1302-1329," Revue des questionsh istoriques4 0 (1886): 135-41.
9. Thompson, p. 645.
10. Richard, p. 237.
11. Ibid., p. 238. This may have been one of the mass-produced Books of Hours
described by Dr. Pieter Obbema in a paper read at the University of California, Berkeley,
in 1977 (Library, State University of Leiden, the Netherlands).
12. Malcolm B. Parkes, "The Literacy of the Laity," in The Medieval World, ed. D.
Daiches (London: Aldus Books, 1973), p. 564.
748 Bell Medieval WomenB ook Owners
twice as much as his female companions for the same type of work.13 By
the fifteenth century, however, it appears that such a book came within
the reach of the lower bourgeoisie, some of whom were documented
book owners.
Perhaps the clearest documentary evidence for the acquisition of
books by medieval laywomen comes from bequests by fathers or hus-
bands. It seems likely that the legator would be disposed to bequeath
those items for which the legatee had expressed a preference in his
lifetime. Such a bequest, then, may indicate a woman's preference for a
book rather than some other object that might have been willed to her.
Examples of the passage of books from fathers to daughters include the
ninth-century Gisela, daughter of Louis the Pious, who inherited her
husband's library. Her three daughters were also mentioned individually
in the will as legatees of their father's books.14 Three daughters of the
Earl of Devon each inherited one book at his death in 1377.15 Many of
the most exquisite volumes of the Duc de Berry's collection were inher-
ited or purchased by women from his estate in 1416. His famous Tres
Riches Heures was inherited by his daughter Bonne, the Countess of
Savoy. Around 1504 Margaret of Austria carried it off to the Nether-
lands as part of the library she salvaged from her short marriage to the
Savoyard Philibert le Bel.16 Jean de Berry's younger daughter Marie,
Duchess of Bourbonnais, specifically requested and received forty of the
most prized books from his estate in 1417. These included nine religious
books (four Bibles in French, one in Latin, a small Psalter, two copies of
the City of God in French, two treatises on the Trinity, and at least one
Book of Hours).17 The duke's magnificent Belles Heures, now in the
Cloisters Collection in New York, was purchased by his nephew's widow,
Yolande of Aragon, Countess of Anjou and Queen of Sicily, for the vast
sum of three hundred livres.'8 Anne of Brittany inherited the enormous
library of her former royal husbands, Charles VIII and Louis XII, who
had acquired large collections from Italian libraries through plunder
and purchase during their Italian campaigns. But Anne had also col-
lected and commissioned books of her own.19 By the fifteenth century,
13. A male agricultural laborer in southern France during the same period earned
between ten and fifteen deniers (or pence), double the daily earnings of a woman (Georges
Duby, L'Economier urale et la vie de campagne dans l'occidentm edieval, 2 vols. [Paris: Aubier,
1962], 2:562).
14. Thompson, p. 265.
15. Margaret Deanesly, "Vernacular Books in England in the Fourteenth and Fif-
teenth Centuries," Modern Language Review 15, no. 4 (1920): 349-58, esp. 351.
16. Jean Longnon, The Trks Riches Heures of Jean Duke of Berry (New York: George
Braziller, 1969), p. 25.
17. Leopold Delisle, Recherchess ur la Libraried e Charles V, Roi de France, 1337-1380, 2
vols. (Amsterdam: G. Th. van Heusden, 1967), vol. 2.
18. Ibid., 2:239; and see also Millar Meiss, The Belles Heures ofJean Duke of Berry (New
York: George Braziller, 1974), p. 267.
19. Erest Quentin Bauchart, Les Femmesb ibliophilesd e France, 2 vols. (Paris: D. Mor-
gand, 1886), 2:374-82.
Summer1 982 749
Signs
the disposition of less expensive books written on paper in the vernacu-
lar was frequently mentioned in wills.20
Wills and testamentary settlements attest to women's inheritance of
books from men. However, women's inheritance of books from women
is of greater significance in this analysis of medieval women's book own-
ership. Solid evidence comes from the Sachsenspiegel[ The Mirror of the
Saxons], a collection of Saxon custom laws first compiled by Eike von
Repgow in about 1215, which reflected the social mores of the previous
three centuries. Book 1 of the Sachsenspiegel discussed the household
items that were to be inherited by women. The "gerade" (or Roman
"paraphernalia") were to be passed from mother to daughter; they in-
cluded geese, small farm animals, beds, household furniture, linens,
clothing, kitchen utensils-and books (pl. 3). The text enumerating
items to be passed from woman to woman specifically includes all books
connected with religious observance: "Alle Bucher die zum Gottes-
dienste gehore [sic]."21A n additional clause in the 1279 version that
remained in later editions added that these devotional books were to be
inherited by women, because it was women who were accustomed to
reading them: "Biicher die Fraue phlege zu lese [sic]."22
The Sachsenspiegel,t ranslated from its original Latin into German by
Eike von Repgow, was frequently copied and recopied throughout the
thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. It was also adapted for non-Saxon
areas; the laws applied to wide geographic regions to the east of its
birthplace near Magdeburg, reaching far into what is now the Soviet
Union. The Sachsenspiegelc learly attests to women's role in the transmis-
sion of culture, especially lay religious culture, and to the different
reading habits and religious observances of men and women.
Women's inheritance of books from women was not confined to
Sachsenspiegela reas. A Dutch Book of Hours, inscribed with the names of
six generations of women, indicates a Western European parallel to the
Sachsenspiegel custom.23 Examples in wills of women inheriting books
from their mothers also exist.24 However, testamentary evidence of
20. For example, in 1434 Agnes Paston, a member of the English wool trading gentry,
inherited a religious tract, the "Prick of Conscience," from a burgess of Yarmouth. See
Deanesly, p. 353. Occasionally a resigned notation in a will made it clear that since a woman
had borrowed a book and kept it a very long time, she might as well inherit it permanently.
The Countess of Westmorland, however, came close to losing her copy of the Chronicleso f
Jerusalem when King Henry V died before returning the borrowed book to her. See
Thompson, p. 402.
21. Hans Hirsch, ed., Der Sachsenspiegel (Berlin and Leipzig: Walter de Gruyter,
1936), pp. 130-31.
22. Ibid., and see, e.g., the oldest dated Sachsenspiegel( May 7, 1295): Marta Asdahl
Holmberg, ed., Der Harffer Sachsenspiegel( Lund: C. W. K. Gleerup, 1957), p. 118.
23. Books of Dyson Perrins, 3 vols. (London: Sothebys Sales Catalogues, 1960), 3:98-
100, esp. 98 (lot 139; present whereabouts of lot 139 unknown).
24. For example, Catherine Payenne inherited a Book of Our Lady from her mother
Maroie. See Thompson, p. 265. Eleanor de Bohun, Duchess of Gloucester, died in 1399
750 Bell Medieval WomenB ook Owners
women's bequests of devotional books to their daughters is scarce, which
may suggest that such bequests were customary (as in the Sachsenspiegel)
and required no documentation.
Fourteenth-century records increasingly reveal names of women
who not only owned books but also collected numerous manuscripts of
the same book and assembled libraries. Mahaut, Countess of Artois, an
outstanding example, ordered thirty books of various types between
1300 and 1330.25 The countess did not collect merely for the sake of
owning luxurious and beautiful treasures. Her accounts indicate that she
paid a large sum for a desk that enabled her to read in comfort. In the
early years she preferred history and romances: the Chronicleso f the Kings
of France, Perceval, and the History of Troy. After the death of her only son
in 1316, however, she ordered only books of religion and meditative
philosophy. Between 1316 and 1328 she commissioned two different
copies of the Bible, both in French; a two-volume Bible written on
parchment and bound in red leather; two different copies of the Lives of
the Saints; a roll of illuminated prayers in a silver container; three Books
of Hours; the Lives of the Church Fathers; Miracles of Our Lady; and a
French translation of Boethius's The Consolationso f Philosophy.26I sabeau
of Bavaria's accounts show that her thirty-three books included nine
Books of Hours and sixteen other books of devotion.27 She appointed
Katherine de Villiers, one of her court ladies, to be in charge of her
books. In 1393 Katherine de Villiers paid forty-eight sous to the trunk
maker Pierre de Fou for a leather-covered wooden trunk with lock and
key so that the books could be safely transported during Queen
Isabeau's travels.28 An inventory of Gabrielle de la Tour, Countess of
Montpensier, found at her death in 1474, listed more than two hundred
volumes according to their arrangement in cupboards and chests. At
least forty of these were religious texts.29
and left a well-illustrated Golden Legend in French to her daughter Anne, and a "Book of
Psalms" and other "Devotions," which she had used constantly, to her daughter Johanna.
See Collectiono f All the Wills Now Known to Be Extant (London: Society of Antiquaries, 1780),
pp. 182-83. Cicely, Duchess of York, left the Life of Catherineo f Siena, the Life of Matilda,
and a GoldenL egend to her granddaughter Brigitta in 1495. See J. G. Nichols and J. Bruce,
eds., Willsfrom Doctors'C ommons( London: Camden Society, 1863), pp. 1-8.
25. Richard, pp. 235-41.
26. Ibid.
27. Valet de Viriville, "La Bibliotheque d'Isabeau de Baviere," Bulletin du Bibliophile 14
(1858): 663-87.
28. Ibid., p. 677.
29. A. de Boislisle, Annuaire-Bulletin de la Societe de l'Histoire de France, vol. 17 (Paris:
Societe de l'Histoire de France, 1880), pp. 297-306. There were many other women
collectors. Mechthild of Rottenburg, Countess of Palantine, who founded the universities
of Tibingen and Freiburg, collected some one hundred books in the mid-fifteenth cen-
tury. See Philipp Strauch, Pfalzgriifin Mechthild in Ihren Literarischen Beziehungen
(Tubingen: H. Laupp, 1883). Jeanne d'Evreux received Jean Pucelle's now-famous Book
of Hours at her marriage. Between 1325 and 1370 she ordered twenty devotional books,