Joni M. Hand: Women, Manuscripts and Identity in Northern Europe, 1350-1550

Abstract

In her book Women, Manuscripts and Identity in Northern Europe, 1350-1550, Joni M. Hand, assistant professor in art history at the Southeast Missouri State University, sets out to explore in which way illuminations in devotional manuscripts belonging to aristocratic women in the later Middle Ages reflect their religious, political, and/or genealogical concerns through portraits, coats of arms, marginalia, and texts. She also aims to incorporate how the same women respond to changes in religious doctrines, political life, and educational ideology in the same period - a great and ambiguous task.