Böcker utgivna av D S BREWER

Margery Kempe's text draws on her maternal, female body to illuminate her relationship to the divine.

With an Introduction, Interpretive Essay and BibliographyTHE LETTERS OF PERCHTA AND ANEZKA offer an illuminating insight into how two aristocratic women in fifteenth-century Bohemia saw themselves and their lives. The central topic of this collection is Perchta's expression, in letters to her father, of her deep unhappiness at his choice of husband for her, in which her expectations of respect and companionship in marriage clearly emerge. This rare discussion on paper of a situation that must have faced many women in the middle ages is valuable for its illustration of how much a woman might do to influence plans made for her, made all the more interesting by the vigorous personalities of the two sisters and the incidental illumination of family and castle life.

Margaret of Oingt was born around 1240 into a noble family in the French Beaujolais region, and became prioress of the Carthusian charterhouse of Poletains; visionary and mystic, her writings are intelligent and humorous. Includedhere are the Page of Meditations, on sin and salvation; the Mirror, a vision of Christ; the Life of the Virgin Saint Beatrice of Ornacieux, an exemplary text; and letters and stories, including comments on her problems as prioress. They are translated from the Latin and Francoprovencal with an introduction, notes, and interpretative essay. Renate Blumenfeld-Kosinski is Chair, Department of French and Italian, and Professorof French, at the University of Pittsburgh.

Frances Beer chooses Julian's first, more intimate, Revelations on which to base this accessible edition and study of her life and work.