The Literary Agency of Medieval Women

What do we miss when we see women's agency only through the lens of transgression? What happens when we expand our notion of authorship to include women who were writing books but not necessarily composing 'original' texts? To answer these questions, Sara Poor explores the writing work of the prolific nun, Kunigund Niklasin (d. 1457), scribe and compiler of at least thirty-one books by the 1450s, and the librarian for her convent's large and singular library (close to 600 German-language manuscripts). Appointed to the office of librarian sometime after the convent underwent observant reform in 1428, Niklasin created two inventories of the convent's books, one of privately owned books, the other of the convent library. The latter was part of a unique manual designed to facilitate table reading, the reading (aloud) that took place during daily meals. The analysis of this table reading manual reveals that there is in fact a wide range of writing activity attributable to women in this period. Building on scholarship about women's literacy, as well as about the connections between women in fifteenth-century reformed convents and what has been called an explosion of literary production in German-speaking areas, The Literary Agency of Medieval Women explores the wider implications of this rich resource for a more inclusive theory of female agency, an expanded notion of authorship, and a nuanced appreciation of the important roles of medieval women as writers--and authors--in the history of the book.