Religion And Prayer Flashcards
More prayer books have survived than…
Any other type of book owned by medieval women
The daily reading of psalms was…
Engrained in day to day life, according to contemporary writers
Psalms would be read…
First thing in the morning and last thing at night
The Latin verb for psalm was…
Psallebat, and probably meant reading out loud
The Dominican monk Antoninus of Florence (1446) condemned…
Women who would use nightly prayers to avoid having sex with their husbands
The Book of Hours included…
Core texts from the breviary
Prayers in the Book of Hours were to be said…
At specific hours, but it was not strictly observed
The eight services in the Book of Hours were known as…
The Divine Office
Each Book of Hours was tailored to…
It’s patrons, with portraits, illustrations, and illuminations
At the beginning of a Book of Hours was a…
Calendar, in which women would record births and deaths
The Virgin Mary was honoured above all other saints by women because
She was venerated as the mother of Christ, but was also the archetypal mother to whom everyone could turn
The Virgin Mary was also called…
Mater Misericordiae / Mother of Mercy
Many royal and aristocratic women would have read their prayers in…
A private, often decorated, chapel
Poorer women would have performed prayers and devotions in…
Parish churches
Bridget of Sweden (1303-1373)…
Was a highly devotional woman who often made pilgrimages with her husband. After his death, she created the holy order of the Bridgettines and went on a pilgrimage to Bethlehem where she saw visions of the birth and death of Christ. From these visions she created the Fifteen O’s and her interpretations heavily influenced 14th century nativity art.
Art in psalters and books ad hours depicted women in certain ways, such as…
Significantly more women than men were shown with mirrors in art.
- implication of women as vain seductresses
- critiques on female narcissism
- female skeletons holding mirrors were a reminder of morality, mortality, and behaviour
The serpent from the garden of Eden was often depicted as female because…
Peter Comestor described the serpent as female in in Historia Scholastica because the bible said it had the face of a virgin
The serpent of Eden mirrored Eve and, by extension,…
All women
The Fourth Lateran Council decreed that everyone of both sexes should…
Make confession to their parish priest at least once a year
Many churchmen believed women’s minds and bodies left them…
More vulnerable than men to the influence of good and evil
