Share This Page
Katerina's Windows
Donation and Devotion, Art and Music, as Heard and Seen Through the Writings of a Birgittine Nun
624 pages | 53 color/195 b&w illustrations/4 maps | 8 x 10 | 2009
ISBN 978-0-271-03369-3 | cloth: $110.00
Paperback edition is not available in the U.S.
“This full presentation of Katerina Lemmel’s letters is remarkably good reading. After a swift introduction of Katerina, in which the authors demonstrate a thorough knowledge of the archival resources, topography, and family histories of Nuremberg and its mercantile families, their literal translation of the letters provides a ‘thick history’ that is reminiscent of the now famous history of Montaillou, or the late medieval Paston letters. Yet this is not a correspondence—with few exceptions, we hear only Katerina’s voice, addressing her cousin Hans Imhoff, with whom she has to plead for help in ensuring a sound financial basefor her house. Even so, with the help of the authors’ commentary, which contextualizes the letters, a vivid autobiography emerges, and with it an extraordinary view into her cloistered life. This is not only an erudite book, based on the authors’ own transcription of the German letters rather than on an older edition, but it is so well written that the density of facts (such as the quantities and cost of the spices used in the monastic kitchens) becomes part of the larger texture of social exchange. The commentaries are well balanced between theoretical interpretation of the economy of prayer and donation and material explanations of commerce, often drawing examples from the locale and illustrating Katerina’s visual environment with works of art in a variety of materials.” —Madeline Caviness, Tufts University
“This is an outstanding scholarly undertaking. Two scholars, one in the history of art, the other in the history of music, have focused on the translation and contextualization of an extraordinary trove of letters of the Birgittine nun Katerina Imhoff Lemmel. As unusual for its wealth of documentation as it is for its meticulous and balanced analysis, the volume is immensely rewarding. The reader is hooked, enveloped in the reality of the author’s historic voice and the tangibility of the world in which she functioned.” —Virginia Raguin, College of the Holy Cross
The wealthy Katerina Lemmel entered the Maria Mai monastery in 1516—and rebuilt it. In Katerinas Windows, readers can observe how stained glass was donated and commissioned and witness spectators reaction to it, ranging from critical aesthetic assessments to iconoclastic acts.
The book presents historical texts and interpretive analysis. Katerina Lemmel and those around her are given voice through translations of seventy-three sources, including personal and business letters, chronicle accounts, and legal documents, most of which have never been transcribed or published before. Necessary explanations as well as theoretical considerations and critical insights are provided through the voices of the authors.
Katerina Lemmels letters allow glimpses into the materiality of monastic life; views of the interconnected workings of art, music, liturgy, and literature; evidence of the persuasive powers of a nun who functioned as negotiator; accounts of one womans struggles on behalf of other women; and data on womens networks. The sources provide insiders insights into the spiritual economies later scorned by Protestant reformers. They also offer an eyewitness account of the social challenges to this system that erupted in violent clashes during the Revolution of 1525.
The material offers a fresh look at art and music made by and for nuns. Much previous literature has focused on nuns as mystics and visionaries, and on their art as primitive or mundane. This book demonstrates the roles of nuns as active agents for sophisticated art and innovative liturgical music.
Corine Schleif is Professor of Art History at Arizona State University.
Volker Schier is a musicologist and research associate with the Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies at Arizona State University.
Contents
List of Illustrations
Preface
Acknowledgments
Maps
Introduction
1. Looking Through Words, Numbers, Images, Buildings, and Melodies: Glimpses of Childhood and Marriage, Investment and Donation, in the Nuremberg of Katerina Imhoff Lemmel, 1466-1516
2. Disappearing Behind Veils and Walls with Windows: Katerina's Rituals and Rhetoric of Passage in June 1516
3. Opening Windows of Communication: Building and Business: Letters from 1516
4. Sitting at the Window: News of Shattered Promises and Bad Returns: Letters from February Through July 1517
5. Windows of Opportunity: Bad Times, Singing for Saffron; Sights and Sounds, Scents and Tastes, of Commemoration: Letters from August Through December 1517
6. Writing by Window Light, Singing by Candlelight: Benefactions Through Windows to the World Outside: Letters from 1518
7. Windows Under Scrutiny: Letters from 1519
8. Some Good Eyeglasses: Letters from 1520-1522
9. Breaking Windows: Violent Clashes in the Peasants' War of 1525
10. Now Through a Glass Darkly, but Then Face to Face: Katerina's Last Letter, Last Words, and Last Will
Conclusion: Moving Forward with a Glance in the Rearview Mirror
Genealogical Tables
Bibliography
Index