• DOI:10.2307/767170
• Corpus ID: 163623643

"Gothic" Women and Merovingian Desert Mothers

@article{Oliver1993GothicWA,
  title={"Gothic" Women and Merovingian Desert Mothers},
  author={Judith Oliver},
  journal={Gesta},
  year={1993},
  volume={32},
  pages={124 - 134}
}

• J. Oliver
• Published 1 January 1993
• History
• Gesta

A previously unstudied Brabantine psalter-hours of the late thirteenth century has textual and liturgical contents pointing to ownership by a devout religious woman, most probably a beguine. The extraordinary length of its litany, especially the list of virgin saints, sets this manuscript apart from other extant devotional books of the period made in the region. It includes local female saints of Merovingian origin whose cults reemerged in the late twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Reliquaries created in the same period provide us with tangible evidence for their veneration. Thus by exploring the evidence provided by the vitae of thirteenth-century mulieres sanctae from the diocese of Liège as well as contemporary art, liturgy, and popular French literature, we may be able to regain a greater understanding of the devotion by beguines and other religious women for these Merovingian female saints.