Liturgical life and latin learning at Paradies bei Soest, 1300-1425

En savoir plus sur le livre

This study, crafted by an international team of art historians, historians, and a musicologist, delves into the intellectual, scribal, artistic, and musical culture of the Dominican nuns of Paradies. It focuses on a little-known collection of fourteenth- and early fifteenth-century liturgical manuscripts from the Dominican convent of Paradies bei Soest in Westphalia, providing a revisionary account of the Dominican order's development in late medieval Germany. The collection includes two antiphonaries, three graduals, and additional fragments, reflecting a self-aware liturgical culture linked to the growth of the female branch of the order. Notably, one gradual, created around 1380, stands out as the most extensively illuminated liturgical manuscript of the Middle Ages, featuring a wealth of inscribed images. These inscriptions enable a reconstruction of the nuns’ library and prompt a reevaluation of the learning and Latin literacy among mendicant nuns during the late fourteenth century, a time often dismissed by modern scholars and medieval reformers as one of decline. Through text, image, and chant, the nuns crafted a comprehensive commentary on the liturgy, showcasing their creativity, learning, ambition, and devotion.