Women as Scribes

Review of the hardback: 'Beach has studied her women with rigour and sensitivity providing a durable account of their work, fascinating observations on their interrelations with male counterparts, and thought-provoking reflections on their place in twelfth-century spiritual culture. As an illustration of the contribution that palaeography can make to intellectual and religious as well as bibliographical history, Women as Scribes deserves a wide readership.' The Library This excellent study of female scribes in twelfth-century Bavaria demonstrates how careful paleographical and codicological analysis can provide important new insights into medieval women's religious lives...This creative approach to manuscript studies makes important contributions to the scholarship on female monasticism, to the study of monastic reform in German-speaking lands and to our understanding of monastic participation in the intellectual revival of the twelfth century. - H-Net Beach's study provides a thoughtful balance of general information regarding medieval spirituality and book production, valuable to a general readership, and detailed manuscript evidence and paleographical descriptions, worthy of the expert's attention. - Journal of English and Germanic Philology, Debra L. Stoudt, University of Toledo ...if her book is indeed merely a beginning of an answer to the questio nof whether women copied books in the Middle Ages, it is unquestionably a very sound beginning, and the information it contains is of the greatest value. - Speculum David N. Bell, Memorial University of Newfoundland