Katerina's Windows

“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

“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 base for 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

“Schleif and Schier’s book is truly stellar. Thanks to their sensitive understanding of the era’s social and religious dynamics, they have authored one of the finest studies in recent years about early modern Germany. They have added the articulate voice of Katerina to our dialogue about this period.” —Jeffrey Chipps Smith, Renaissance Quarterly

“The significance of these letters is substantial, for they are a rare group of primary texts written by an enclosed nun herself, without the filters or biases one usually finds in much of the convent literature, most of which was written by men.

Art historians and historians interested in monastic economics will find the present study of greatest interest and use. For art historians, the reader is granted a rare, documented account of artistic patronage by nuns.” —Stanley Weed, The Medieval Review (TMR)

“Katerina Lemmel's letters, especially in combination with the authors' critical assessments of them, shed new light on the cultural and economic impact of women as donors, fund-raisers, patrons, administrators, and art critics. This well-crafted, beautifully illustrated study helps to adjust readers' perceptions of female self-determination in medieval and Renaissance Germany, and of the complex ways in which the visual was inextricably linked to other sensory experiences such as music and literature.” —H. J. Van Miegroet, Choice

“This is a book of profound importance to . . . anyone interested in late medieval life and religion. The book is nothing less than a 500 page epic—a magnificent, utterly engrossing, splendidly illustrated, five-star achievement which brings a lost world to life and represents a major contribution to medieval stained glass studies and much more.” —Roger Rosewell, Vidimus

“This is a profoundly important volume for the study of stained glass, sixteenth-century female spirituality and early modern cultural history. It has been meticulously and lavishly compiled and the illustrations alone are excellent sources of information. The authors and publishers are to be congratulated on an outstanding achievement.” —Megan Cassidy-Welch, The Burlington Magazine

“There is a wealth of material here . . . to be mined by economic, social, and church historians as well as feminists. The book provides a welcome shift in focus from the scholarship on individual piety, private interaction with images, and mystical experience that has constituted much of the recent interest in nuns. . . . The disciplinary expertise of the authors, an art historian and a musicologist, give readers a nuanced and multifaceted view of the interactions of art and music, donation and liturgy, and sadly also the motivations for iconoclasm and very different perspectives on the ‘poverty’ and value of religious life in its contemporary society. The book is richly illustrated with black-and-white and color images interspersed.” —Judith Oliver, Speculum: A Journal of Medieval Studies