Women's Books? Gendered Piety and Patronage in Late Medieval
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Title Page Women’s Books? Gendered Piety and Patronage in Late Medieval Bohemian Illuminated Codices by Allison McCann Bachelor of Fine Arts, Kutztown University of Pennsylvania, 2013 Master of Arts, University of Pittsburgh, 2015 Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Pittsburgh 2019 COMMITTEE PAGE UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH DIETRICH SCHOOL OF ARTS AND SCIENCES This dissertation was presented by Allison McCann It was defended on December 3, 2019 and approved by Renate Blumenfeld-Kosinski, Distinguished Professor Emerita, French and Italian Katheryn Linduff, Professor Emerita, History of Art and Architecture Barbara McCloskey, Professor, History of Art and Architecture Christopher Nygren, Assistant Professor, History of Art and Architecture Dissertation Advisor: Shirin Fozi, Assistant Professor, History of Art and Architecture ii Copyright © by Allison McCann 2019 iii Abstract Women’s Books? Gendered Piety and Patronage in Late Medieval Bohemian Illuminated Codices Allison McCann, PhD University of Pittsburgh, 2019 The manuscripts forming the core of this dissertation’s four case studies are some of the most artistically ambitious and theologically rich books to emerge from fourteenth-century Bohemia—and the European Middle Ages broadly—but they have not yet been considered together as an art historical phenomenon. Made at a moment when aristocratic women were playing a new role as divine matriarchs, these complicated and dynamic manuscripts open new avenues of inquiry into the intersection of later medieval gender and patronage. The pictorial programs of these manuscripts visualize the agency of their patrons, owners, and subjects in challenging and expansive ways and enrich our understanding of late medieval devotional practice and art production in the broadest terms. Each of the four case studies centers on a group of objects, people, and geographies that have often been pushed to the periphery of medieval manuscript studies, building upon pivotal investigations first put forward in the 1980s and 90s by a new wave of inquiry into the visual culture of late medieval women’s mysticism. The first case-study chapter considers the richly illustrated manuscripts of Queen Elizabeth Richeza and recuperates Richeza’s role as an influential art patron through a close look at twelve vibrant donor portraits found within her manuscript corpus. The Passional of Abbess Kunigunde is the focus of the second case study, which unpacks the manuscript’s illustrated dedicatory page and the ways it subverts expectations about male– female monastic relationships and traditional scholarly assumptions about Kunigunde’s iv interventions in the manufacture and use of her Passional. The third case study, which focuses on the Hedwig Codex, investigates why male patrons commissioned works of art for and about women. The fourth and final case study considers the so-called Krumlov Picture-Codex—a manuscript whose origins are contested in modern scholarship—and explores the interpretive potential of assigning both a female patron and user to the manuscript. Together, these case studies demonstrate that works of art ostensibly made for or about women were used by both women and men to assert political ambitions, establish hereditary power, and claim a place in heaven. v Table of Contents List of Abbreviations ................................................................................................................. viii Preface ........................................................................................................................................... ix 1.0 Introduction ............................................................................................................................. 1 1.1 Bohemia, Medieval and Modern ................................................................................... 2 1.2 Gendering Medieval Devotion and Patronage ............................................................. 7 2.0 The Marginal Queen: The Manuscript Corpus of Elizabeth Richeza ............................. 18 2.1 The Historical Moment ................................................................................................ 25 2.2 Modern Historiography ............................................................................................... 28 2.3 The Richeza Manuscript Corpus ................................................................................ 37 2.4 Richeza’s Place in Her Manuscripts ........................................................................... 45 2.5 Recovering Richeza’s Agency ...................................................................................... 54 3.0 Patronage and the Passional, beyond Kunigunde .............................................................. 56 3.1 Kunigunde and Richeza: History and Historiography ............................................. 58 3.2 Donor Portraits as Evidence ........................................................................................ 66 3.3 Reconsidering Kunigunde’s Agency as Patron .......................................................... 71 3.4 Audience as Agent: The Nuns at Saint George’s ....................................................... 79 3.5 Networks of Patronage ................................................................................................. 82 4.0 Patron Saints and Saintly Patrons: Imaging Male Interests in the Hedwig Codex ......... 85 4.1 The Noble Branches of Hedwig’s Family Tree .......................................................... 97 4.2 Image and Text in the Pictorial Quire ...................................................................... 104 4.3 Patron Saints and Saintly Patrons ............................................................................ 119 vi 4.4 Women’s Books for Men............................................................................................ 122 5.0 Queens of Heaven and Earth: The Krumlov Picture-Codex Reconsidered .................... 124 5.1 The Picture-Codex Described .................................................................................... 126 5.2 The Full-Page Illustrations and the Scopic Economy of Women’s Devotion ....... 137 5.3 The Krumlov Picture-Codex and Its Audience ......................................................... 154 6.0 Conclusion ........................................................................................................................... 157 Appendix A Figure Captions ................................................................................................... 164 Bibliography .............................................................................................................................. 168 vii List of Abbreviations The following abbreviations have been used for commonly cited institutions in shelf-marks throughout: JPGM: J. Paul Getty Museum KBR: Knihovna benediktinů v Rajhradě MZAB: Moravský zemský archive v Brně NKČR: Národní knihovna České republiky ÖNB: Österreichische Nationalbibliothek viii Preface A number of granting bodies supported my research and writing. I’d like to acknowledge the Wilkinson Prize for funding my first solo research trip to Germany and the Czech Republic, where I learned the lay of the land; the Czechoslovak Nationality Room for an extended stay in the Czech Republic to study the early literature on the Passional of Abbess Kunigunde; the J. Paul Getty Trust for funding travel to Austria and the Czech Republic to study the Richeza manuscript corpus; and numerous travel and research grants from the University of Pittsburgh to study the Hedwig Codex in Los Angeles and to attend exhibitions and conferences in the United States and abroad. The material and intellectual generosity of my committee and of other members of the Department of History of Art & Architecture at the University of Pittsburgh helped this project take shape at various critical points. Thank you, Renate Blumenfeld-Kosinski, Veronica Gazdik, Karen Gerhart, Linda Hicks, Kiana Jones, Kate Joranson, Katheryn Linduff, Barbara McCloskey, Christopher Nygren, Marcia Rostek, and Karoline Swiontek. My advisor, Shirin Fozi, has been an inspiring teacher, mentor, and editor, and I’m very grateful for the opportunity I had to work with her. I would also like to thank my colleagues in the publications department at the Getty Research Institute: thank you, Laurie Bolewitz, Doris Chon, Michele Ciaccio, Lauren Edson, Karen Ehrmann, Lauren Gendler, Lea Johnson, Tobi Kaplan, Adriana Romero, and Laura Santiago, for your forbearance and encouragement as I finished writing. Thanks, too, to friends, colleagues, and mentors from HAA and beyond: Phoebe Adams, Christine Atiyeh, Allan Bäck, Ian Boon, Lily Brewer, Nicole Coffineau, Sarah Reiff Conell, Mark Danowsky, Christian De Leon, ix Rae Di Cicco, Jeremy Henry, Kim Johnston, Zach Jones, Bill Kowalsky, Elizabeth Leo, Jacqueline Lombard, Alan London, Charlie Lotterman, Andrea Maxwell, Meredith North, Laurent Odde, Julia Oswald, Paulina Pardo, Nicole Scalissi, Golnar Yarmohammad Touski, and Carolyn Wargula. To my parents, Jay and Katie McCann, for their support and encouragement, and to Libby, Zach, Arlo, and Ike Luckhart for the good times. Finally, to Milo Crimi and our cats, Kiki and Pat: I can’t wait to see where the pack goes next. x 1.0 Introduction The art of late medieval Bohemia was a substantial force