Ladies, Whores, and Holy Women: A Sourcebook in Courtly, Religious, and Urban Cultures of Late Medieval Germany With Sarah Westphal-Wihl (2010)

This book contains accessible editions and English translations, with introductions, of seven late medieval German texts. It is suitable for anyone interested in or teaching about women and gender in the medieval period and beyond.

Chapter one features “A Woman’s Confession,” (Die Beichte einer Frau), a popular fifteenth-century comic text. Chapter two features two examples from the wildly popular late medieval German tradition of texts in a pious woman, seeking spiritual guidance and enlightenment, becomes the pupil of a holy man (a confessor, theologian, monk, or hermit), who over time comes to recognize that her spiritual authority exceeds his. The texts are The Sister Catherine Treatise (Schwester Katrei) and The Twenty-One-Year-Old Woman (Die Frau von ein-und-zwanzig Jahren). Chapter three presents a document, The Booklist of Elisabeth von Volkenstorff, a list of books owned by an Austrian noblewoman from the first half of the fifteenth century. Chapter four presents two versions of the anonymous rhymed couplet text known as Stepmother and Daughter, one of whose medieval titles better describes its contents: How a Mother Teaches her Daughter Whoring. Chapter Five features the Nuremberg brothel ordinances.

The individual book chapters can be downloaded from JSTOR.