Jennifer Edwards

This is a really excellent case study that explores the workings of power and authority in a monastic community—the Benedictine abbey of Sainte-Croix de Poitiers—over a period of roughly a thousand years. Tackling such a long period of time is achievement enough, but one that Jennifer Edwards bolsters through her careful reading of the surviving documentary, liturgical, and art historical sources. Her discussion of the continuities of Ste-Croix’s use of cultural artifacts and political strategies over a long period of time is particularly fascinating, and grad students will find her overview of the recent historiography on women’s monasticism succinct and useful. There’s maybe a bit of inconsistency in how Edwards frames the significance of the power of Ste-Croix’s abbesses (exceptional? not exceptional?) but this is overall a fine book which has much to offer both to people in the field and those interested in questions of power in the Middle Ages more generally.… (altro)