W O M E N IN T H E O T T O N I A N C H U R C H :

AN I C O N O G R A P H I C PERSPECTIVE

by ROSAMOND MCKITTERICK

ALTHOUGH the principal relationship observable in an early

^ A medieval manuscript illustration is that between the artist and his
JL -V.or her1 text, the interests of the reader, and in many cases the
first owner or commissioner of an illustrated book, could to some degree
determine the extent and the elaboration of the illustrations, and,
possibly, aspects of the iconography.2 The incidence of women in the
illustrations of Christian books of the Carolingian and Ottonian periods,
therefore, is a potentially fruitful source for examining the attitudes
towards women's role in the Church in the early Middle Ages. It may be
possible to see, firstly, whether the prominence of women in the New
Testament, and in the Gospels in particular, is enhanced and elaborated in
ninth- and tenth-century visual interpretations of these Christian texts,
or, secondly, whether there are any other innovations in Carolingian or
Ottonian illustrations which shed light on the religious work of women
within the Church. But to what extent is this potential realized? Are
omissions as significant as inclusions? Can we conclude much from the
relative dearth of pictures of women in Carolingian books, as opposed to
the greater number of women portrayed in Ottonian books? It is the
purpose of this paper to examine this phenomenon and its context and
thereby to suggest some preliminary explanations.3
1
I do not use this phrasing, 'his or her' in the interests of modern gender issues, but simply
because there is evidence for the production of books by groups of women in religious
communities in the eighth and ninth centuries, and these books are decorated in con-
temporary styles: for example, see the work of the nuns of Chelles identified by Bernhard
Bischoff, 'Die Kolner Nonnenhandschriften und das Skriptorium von Chelles' in MStn, I
(1966), pp. 16-24, and that of the nuns of Jouarre, R. McKitterick, 'The diffusion of insular
culture in Neustria between 650 and 850: the implications of the manuscript evidence', in
H. Atsma, ed., La Neuslrie. Les pays au nord de la Loire de 650 a &50 = Beihefle der Francia, 16/2
(Sigmaringen, 1989), pp. 395-432-
2
For the importance of the text to the Carolingian artist see R. McKitterick, 'Text and image in
the Carolingian world', in R. McKitterick, ed.. The Uses of Literacy in Early Mediaeval Europe
(Cambridge, 1990), pp. 297-3' 8. The consumers' interests and their impact on book illustra-
tion are explored by Kurt Weitzmann, 'The selection of texts for cyclic illustration in Byzan-
tine manuscripts', in Byzantine Boobs and Bookmen. A Dumbarton Oaks Colloquium, tayi
(Washington, 1975), pp. 69-109.
J
A larger study of the laity, both men and women, within the Ottonian Church is in prepara-
tion; I should stress, moreover, that the suggestions that follow are not only preliminary, but
tentative.

79
 R O S A M O N D MCKITTERICK

Let us first, and briefly, look at the incidence of women in Carolingian

book illustration. There are not many, but they can be classified
according to the type of book and its iconographic traditions. Thus
within the classical tradition maintained in many Carolingian paintings
there are the personifications of the Virtues, as in the portrayal of
Prudence, Justice, Fortitude, and Temperance in Paris, Bibliotheque
nationale, MS latin i (Charles the Bald's First Bible or Vivian Bible, fol.
215v: compare also the Sacramentary of Marmoutier, Autun, Biblio-
theque Municipae, MS 19615, fol. 173V) which were extended to the
poetic and visual personifications of both Virtues and Vices in the
Psychomachia of Prudentius and its illustrated Carolingian copies, such as
Bern, Burgerbibliothek, MS 264, fol. 42. There are also allegorical
figures, such as that of Terra, in the Metz Sacramentary (BN, MS lat.
1141, fol. 6) and of the moon in the same manuscript (fol. 6v), and the
personification of countries, similar to the Late Antique personifications
of cities in, for example, Charles the Bald's Codex Aureus (Munich,
Bayersiche Staatsbibliothek, MS Clm 14000, fol. 5v). Here the ladies,
wearing mural crowns and carrying cornucopias, are identified as Francia
and Gothia. There are also the female figures representing the legends of
the stars in such constellations as Andromeda and the Pleiades from the
Leiden Aratea (Leiden, Bibliotheek der Rijksuniversiteit, MS Voss. lat.
Q.79, fol. 30V and fol. 42v), and those representing the quadrivium in the
Tours copy of Boethius's DeMusica made for Charles the Bald (Bamberg,
Staatliche Bibliothek, MS H.IV.12).
Some innovations, however, were made by Carolingian artists. We find
in a Fulda manuscript (Geneva, Bibliotheque de la Ville, MS 22), for
example, and in the Bible of San Paolo fuori le Mura (Third Bible of
Charles the Bald) representations of Frankish queens, namely, the
Empress Judith (Louis the Pious's second wife) and Queen Richildis
(second wife of Charles the Bald), respectively. These have received full
expositions, and the portrayal of Richildis in particular has been linked
with the inauguration of an elaborate liturgical ritual to enhance her
fertility.4 Another innovation is the variation in the representation of the
apocalyptic adoration of the Lamb in the Metz Sacramentary of Charles
the Bald, where women, representing female saints, are included in the
celestial hierarchies adoring Christ in Majesty (BN, MS lat. 1141, fol. 5r).

4
E. H. Kantorowicz, 'The Carolingian king in the Bible of San Paolo fuori le Mura', in Late
Classical and Medieval Studies in Honor of Albert Matthias Friend Jnr (Princeton, 1955), pp. 2 8 7 -
300.

80
 Women in the Ottoman Church

Further, in the'rural and literal scenes to be found in the Utrecht Psalter

there are occasional vignettes, such as the woman in labour (Psalm 47),
which may well have been drawn from life.
More productive are biblical and liturgical illustrations, which are
derived from the customary representations of biblical picture-cycles
elaborated in the Late Antique period, such as the portrayal of the women
at the empty tomb, the two Marys greeting Christ, and Christ and Mary
Magdalene on Easter Morning in the Drogo Sacramentary (BN, lat. 9428,
fol. 58r) in the initial 'D' opening the Easter Mass,5 the depiction of Eve in
the Genesis stories, in such books as the Moutier Grandval, Bamberg, and
VivianBibles from Tours (BL, MS Add. io$46,fol. 5v;Bamberg,Staatliche
Bibliothek, MS Misc. Class. Bibl 1, fol. j \ ; BN, MS lat. 1, fol. iov), the
portrait of Judith with the head of Holofernes in the initial for the Book
ofJudith in the Vivian Bible (BN, MS lat. 1, fol. 3or), or the women in the
Judgement of Solomon, in such books as the Bible of San Paolo fuori le
Mura in Rome (fol. 188). Choice of a particular biblical scene could also be
made to point a political moral. The vindication of the innocence of the
Empress Judith (though some would say it is Queen Theutberga, Lothar
II's much-maligned wife who was being alluded to), for example, appears
to have been the reason for the choice of the story of Susannah and the
Elders engraved on the Lothar Crystal*
Identifying whether particular New Testament illustrations in
Carolingian manuscripts are ninth-century innovations, however, is a less
simple matter than might appear. The difficulty is exacerbated by much
of the current exposition of Carolingian illuminations and iconographic
content, which analyses particular choices of subject and style of repre-
sentation in terms of lost and hypothetical Late Antique archetypes.7 In
very few instances are art historians willing to state that there is no known

5
Cf. the Utrecht Psalter, Utrecht, Bibliotheek der Rijksuniversiteit, MS Script, eccles. 484, fols.
8r and 9or, which also have die scene of the women before die empty tomb of Christ.
6
See my interpretation of the significance of this crystal in R. McKitterick, The Frankish
Kingdoms under lite Carolingians, 751-987 (London, 1977), p. 174.
7
An extreme example of this type of argument, and the unproven assumptions upon which it
rests, is H. Kessler, The Illustrated Bibles from Tours (Princeton, 1977), but it is a fundamental,
general, and questionable methodology of early medieval art criticism to interpret the book
paintings almost exclusively with reference to the artist's possible models, and to give in-
sufficient weight to the possibility ot original and visual interpretation oi the text on the part
of the artist. The search for models can, of course, prove fruitful and enlightening in many
instances, as, for example, in much of the work of Kurt Weitzmann, and especially his Studies
in Classical and Byzantine Manuscript Illumination (Chicago, 1971), but it can also be carried too
far beyond die historical context and possibilities of the milieu in which a particular painting
was produced.

8l
 ROSAMOND MCKITTERICK

precedent for a particular picture, and thus make it possible for us to draw
conclusions about contemporary attitudes from it. Even if the icono-
graphy of Carolingian illuminations cannot be established as innovative,
we still have to acknowledge the element of deliberate selection that a
ninth- or tenth-century artist might have made from older iconographi-
cal traditions, and the reasons for such choices either on the part of the
artist or with respect to his anticipated audience.
One apparent instance of Carolingian innovation, however, is the
Jerome picture-cycle in the Vivian and San Paolo Bibles, which were
presented to Charles the Bald (ruler of the West Franks from 840-77).8
The letter to Paulinus and the preface to the Pentateuch are preceded by
full-page illustrations, arranged in three strips, containing scenes from
the Life of Jerome, including his departure from Rome, his intellectual
activities in Palestine, and the dissemination of the completed Vulgate.
In the second strip or register in each Bible frontispiece Jerome is
portrayed instructing his female friends (plate 1). The Vivian Bible shows
him addressing four women, and the San Paolo Bible depicts him
teaching or dictating to two women, one of whom holds an open book
and inkpot, and the other a scroll. Behind them there is a monk who
appears to be recording whatever Jerome says on a wax tablet; outside
the building there is a second, female, stenographer, sometimes inter-
preted as a spy, and linked with the clandestine attacks on his reputation
that Jerome refers to in his letter to John of Jerusalem.9 Although it is
easy enough to identify who the figures in these pictures are supposed to
represent, how are we to account for this choice of particular aspects of
Jerome's life?
Kessler's expositions of the pictorial sources of the Jerome cycle are not
compelling. None accounts for the depiction of the women. He does
suggest that the choice of the general subject of scenes from Jerome's Life
in the Tours Bibles was dictated by contemporary concerns, in that
Jerome's work as translator of the Vulgate was considered an apt parallel
for the enterprise at Tours for the production of the revised Vulgate
text.10 This certainly makes good sense, but it makes no allowance for the
possibility that the pictures could be the Tours' artists' own response to
both the Vulgate prefaces and the knowledge of Jerome's life from his

8
See Kessler, Illustrated Bibles of Tours, pp. 82-95. The Jerome pictures are also discussed by
J. Gaehde, 'The Turanian sources of the San Paolo Bible', FStn, 5 (i07i),pp. 359-400.
' Jerome, Ep. 57, c. 4, S. EusebiiHieronymiEpistulae, ed. I. Hilberg, CSEL, 54-6, 1.
10
Kessler, Illustrated Bibles of Tours, p. 95.

82
oo

Plate i Jerome and Paula (Paris, Bibliotheque narionale, MS lat. I, fol. 3v). (485 mm X 370 mm)
 ROSAMOND MCKITTERICK

other writings. The specific iconography of the instruction of the women

still needs to be explained.
Jerome's friendship with the noble Roman widow Paula and her
daughter Eustochium is well known from Jerome's own writings, particu-
larly his letters and prefaces to his Vulgate translations. Paula and
Eustochium accompanied Jerome to Palestine, settled near him in a house
for women dedicated to the ascetic life in Bethlehem, and remained his
close companions to the end of their lives (Paula died in 404, Eustochium
in 419, and Jerome himself in 420).11 So, too, the career of another Roman
matron, Melania, her convent for women on the Mount of Olives in
Jerusalem, her friendship with Rufinus, and, in the early years of his
sojourn in the Holy Land, with Jerome, is also well documented in texts
available in the Carolingian period. Bible text production at Tours, where
the great Vulgate pandects containing these Jerome picture-cycles were
produced, was part of a more general one associated with the court school
of Charlemagne, Metz,12 and Lorsch.13 Jerome's work of translation and
his methods were thus well known in places where artists were active, and
which were in a position to exercise influence on artistic styles within the
Frankish kingdom. The dissemination of Jerome's letters and com-
mentaries, furthermore, with the details they provide of Jerome's life, is
overwhelming in the number of Carolingian representatives.14 Karlsruhe,
MS Aug.CV, to cite just one example from the many possible, produced at
Lorsch at the end of the eighth century (possibly from an Anglo-Saxon
exemplar), still in the Lorsch library in the first half of the ninth century,
when it was listed in the first catalogue (Vat. MS pal. lat. 1877, fol. 2or),
and at Reichenau by the fifteenth century, provides firm evidence of
access to Jerome's letters in a centre closely associated with the royal

11
See the sympathetic account of this friendship provided by J. N. D. Kelly, Jerome, His Life,
Writings and Controversies (London, 1975), pp. 91-103 and 273-82, and Jerome's letters,
particularly Epistulae I, Ep. 22, and II, Ep. 108 (the Epistula ad Eustochium and the Epitaphium
Paulae). The preface to the Pentateuch is dedicated to Eustochium and that to the Book of
Esther to both Paula and Eustochium.
12
On Carolingian editions of the Bible see R. Loewe, 'Mediaeval editions of the Bible', in CHB,
2, pp. 101-3, and B. Fischer, 'Bibeltext und Bibelreform unter Karl dem Grossen', in
W. Braunfels, ed., Karl der Grosse. Lebenswerk und Nachleben IIDas CeisteigeLeben (Diisseldorf,
1965), pp. 156-216.
11
A fragment of Tobias from a Lorsch pandect, dated to the late eighth century, and sold in
1988 by Bernard Quaritch Ltd of London, throws light on how Lorsch fits into the general
enterprise of Carolingian Bible production: see R. McKitterick, 'Carolingian book produc-
tion: some problems', TheLibrary (1990), pp. 1—33, at p. 31.
14
See the list of extant manuscripts of Jerome's letters in Hilberg, ed., Epistulae, at the begin-
ning of each letter. The greater proportion of all witnesses he cites is Carolingian.

84
 Women in the Ottoman Church

court. 15 The early ninth-century catalogue actually provides details of the

content of this volume, and specifies that it contains the Letter to
Eustochium (the famous libellus on the aims of and rules of conduct for a
celibate life, with its details of Jerome's own life, accounts of Roman
society in his day, and observations on monasticism as it was practised in
Egypt), the consolatory letter Jerome wrote to Paula on the death of
Blesilla, letters to Marcella, and many others. 16 The Tours artists' access to
Jerome's letters is indicated by MS no 281, produced at Tours itself. From
ninth-century library catalogues, such as those of St Wandrille, St Gall,
and Reichenau, we can also ascertain Carolingian familiarity with
Jerome's letters.17
Given the integration of image and text in Carolingian painting, and
the clear evidence of artists (such as the St-Germain-des-Pres artist
responsible for the Stuttgart Psalter, or the Tours artists in the great
pandects) who were familiar with the exegetical extrapolations of the
particular texts they were illustrating, who chose to provide pictorial
commentaries on their texts, and who made deliberate, intelligent, and
often original choices of image, it is inconceivable that a Carolingian
painter would not have been able to use his or her knowledge of the main
outlines of Jerome's life to provide a new set of pictorial images to
illustrate it. If we cannot account for the inclusion of the instruction of
Paula and Eustochium by Jerome with reference to an earlier icono-
graphic model, then it seems that we may turn to contemporary
inspiration of some kind. In other words, a deliberate choice was made of
this particular aspect of Jerome's career (from the many possible). Not
only is there a general parallel being made between Hieronymian and
Carolingian work on the Bible, but there is also perhaps a contemporary
and specific allusion to friendships between Carolingian clerics and
particular royal or aristocratic ladies who sought biblical instruction and
religious guidance from them, such as the relationship between Alcuin
and the sister, daughters, and female cousins of Charlemagne, that
between Walafrid Strabo or Hraban Maur and the Empress Judith, the
laywomen for whom biblical commentaries were prepared by a number

" E. A. Lowe, CodicesLatini Antiquiores, 8 (Oxford, 1959), no 1080, and B. Bischoff, Lorsch im
Spiegel seiner Handschriflen (Munich, 1974), pp. 66 and 96-7. Access does not prove
knowledge, of course, but the probabilities of possession of books implying an ability to read
them in the Carolingian period are discussed by R. McKitterick, The Caroiingians and the
Written Word (Cambridge, 1989), pp. 135-64.
" See G. Becker, Catatogi bihliothecarum antiqui (Bonn, 1880), no 37, item 220, p. 97.
" Full details of these library catalogues, editions of them and dieir content, are provided in
McKitterick, The Caroiingians and the Written Word, pp. 165-210.

85
 ROSAMOND MCKITTERICK

of Carohngian scholars,18 or those for whom the moral florilegia were

compiled.19 At the simplest possible level, even if no specific allusion is
being made in the Jerome frontispiece, such a strikingly new choice of
figures, with women engaged in learning and in copying texts, may reflect
not only an acceptance of Jerome's example of the priestly abbot-
instructor for female students in Bible study as one congenial, familiar,
and relevant for the Carohngian period. It may also illustrate an
acceptance of the possibility of the practice of literate skills in the context
of lay piety and religious observance by these women.20 Can we in addi-
tion, as far as these Carolingian artists are concerned, detect a focus of
sympathy and interest and the provision of evidence for the instruction of
women within the Carolingian Church that we cannot document in quite
this way for an earlier period? Such questions are highly pertinent when
we come to consider the incidence of women in Ottonian paintings, and
why such images might have been chosen.
The portrayal of women in contemporary Ottonian illustrations may
provide some indication of whether there were developments, if not
changes, in women's role in the Ottonian Church in the tenth century. A
striking feature of Ottonian manuscripts, indeed, in contrast to those of
the Carolingian period, is the frequent appearance of women, particularly
in Christian and biblical books. They are portrayed, as one might expect,
in the traditional ways found in the Carolingian period. Thus there are
allegorical figures, representing political Virtues or dominion, as in the
provinces—Germania, Francia, Italia, Alamannia—bringing tribute to
Otto II in the leaf now in the Musee Conde, Chantilly, or the different
group—Sclavinia, Germania, Gallia, Roma—to Otto HI in his Gospel
Book (Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, MS 4453, fol. 23V, or the
Gospels in the Aachen Cathedral Treasury).21 But the Ottonian period
18
See, for example, Alcuin's letters to Gisela and Gundrada, MGH. Ep. merov. ei karol. aevi, I, epp.
15, 72, 84,164,195, 214,228, 241, and esp. 154 and 216, which refer to the studies of Gisela
and the biblical commentaries by Bede that Alcuin is sending her. On Judith, see F. von
Bezold, 'KaiserinJudith und ihre Dichter WalahfridStrabo',HZ 130(1924), pp. 375-439.J-J-
Contreni, 'Carolingian biblical studies', in U.-R. Blumenthal, ed., Carolingian Essays
(Washington D.C., 1983), pp. 71-98, and E. Ward, 'Agobard of Lyons and Paschasius
Radbertus as critics of the Empress Judith', above, pp. 15-25.
" On the florilegia see R. McKitterick, The Frankish Church and the Carolingian Reforms 789-895
(London, 1977), pp. 155-83.
20
On lay and, specifically, female literacy see McKitterick, The Carolingians and ihe Written
Word, pp. 211-71.
21
See the analysis of die registmm Gregorii miniatures by C. Nordenfalk, 'Archbishop Egbert's
"registrum Gregorii"', in K. Bierbrauer, P. K. Klein, and W. Sauerlander, eds, Studien zur
mittelalterlichen Kunst 800-1250. Festschriftfur Florentine Miitherich zum 70 Cehurlstag (Munich,
'985), pp. 87-100.

86
 Women in the Ottonian Church

also saw the most remarkable efflorescence of new kinds of representa-

tions in manuscript painting, building on old foundations, such as an
elaboration of the ruler portraits of Charles the Bald's palace school,22 a
new series of coronation portraits of the Ottonian kings, innovations in
dedication miniatures, and a great variety of original illustrations in New
Testament picture-cycles.23 Women are to be found in all of these, and
their portrayal may be roughly classified.
In the first place, there are the coronation portraits. Although in the
later tenth century the Ottos are portrayed in solitary glory, from the
marriage and coronation of Henry II to Kunigund in the early eleventh
century onwards we have representations of both the king and his consort.
In the Pericopes of Henry II (Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, MS
4452, fol. 2r), for example, the royal couple is crowned and blessed
together by Christ. In the Codex Aureus of Speier (El Escorial, Real biblio-
theca del monasterio, MS cod. Vit. 17) the crowned Conrad and Gisela are
at the feet of Christ (fol. 2v), while Henry III and his queen, Agnes, bow
before the Virgin, who hands a book to Henry and rests her hand in
benediction on Agnes's head (fol. 3r) (plate 2). Both Christ and the Virgin,
therefore, can bestow some special role on the Saxon queen as well as on
the king. In the Lectionary of Henry III (Bremen, Stadtbibliothek, fols 3r
and 3v) the emphasis is slightly different, for there both Henry III and
Gisela are led forward by their respective attendants. Each has an inscrip-
tion, which, in Gisela's case, stresses her piety and the peace that she may
ensure in the realm.24 Pictures and inscription combine to proclaim an
ideal of'queenship', which in the circumstances of the Ottonian kingdom
is readily explicable.25

22
F. Miitherich, Karolingische Miniaturen V Die Hofschule Karls des Kahlens (Berlin, 1978), and
F. Miitherich and H. Fuhrmann, Das Evangeliar Heinrichs des Lowen und das mittelalterliche
Herrscherbild (Munich, 1986). See also the facsimile of MS Clm 4453, with commentary,
F. Dressier, F. Miitherich, and H. Beumann, eds, Das Evangeliar Olios III, Clm 4453 der
Bayerischen Staatsbibliothek Munchen,facsimile Ausgabe (Graz, 1978).
2)
On Ottonian book painting generally the best guides are L. Grodecki, F. Miitherich,
J. Taralon, and F. Wormald, Lesiecle de Van mil (Paris, 1973) with full bibliography, and on
book production H. Hoffmann, BuchkunstandKonigtum im ottonischen undfruhsdlischen Reich, 2
vols (Stuttgart, 1986). Discussions of the manuscripts mentioned in what follows can be
found in both these books and the references they cite. See also V. Elbern, ed., Das erste
Jahrtausend. Kultur und Kunsl im werdenden Abendland am Rhein und Ruhr, 2 vols (Diisseldorf,
1962-4).
24
'Pax erit in mundo dum Gisela vixerit isto/Quae genuit regem populos pietate regentem'.
25
See the stimulating elucidation of the social position and power of the Saxon royal and noble
ladies by K. Leyser, Rule and Conflict in an Early Mediaeval Society (London, 1979), pp. 49-73.
O n the canonesses see M. Parisse, 'Les chanolnesses dans l'Empire germanique (IX-XIe
siecles)', Francia,6 (1978), pp. 107—27.

87
 ROSAMOND MCKITTERICK

Plate 2 Henry III and his Queen, Agnes, before the Virgin. (El Escorial, Real
Bibliotheca del monasterio, cod. Vit. 17, fol. 3r Codex Aureus of Speier).
(500 mm X 350 mm)

Given the divinely powerful role of the Virgin in this royal context, it
comes as no surprise that she is also given considerable prominence in the
cycle of illustrations to the Gospel books of the late tenth and early
eleventh centuries. The painter of the Petershausen Sacramentary
(Heidelberg, Universitatsbibliothek, MS Sal. IXb, fol. 40V), for example,
portrayed the Virgin (plate 3) as an Ottoman queen, a compliment to the
earthly queens then in power—Adelaide and Theophanu—if not to
the heavenly one. 26 Other artists record the many stages in her life, the
u
Some have interpreted this figure as a representation of Ecclesia; the codex was produced
between 980 and 98 5. See Grodecki, et al, he siecle de Van mil, pp. 118—25.
 Women in the Ottoman Church

Plate 3 The Crowned Virgin, Petershausen Sacramentary (Heidelberg,

Universitatsbibliothek, cod. Sal. IXb, fol. 40V). (236 mm X 183 mm)

Annunciation (for example, the Sacramentary of St Gereon, BN, MS lat.

817, fol. i2r) or the rich sequences in the Codex Epternacensis (Nurem-
berg, Germanisches Nationalmuseum, MS 2° 156142), the Visitation
(Trier, Stadtbibliothek, MS 24), the Nativity (1 single out here the
announcement to the shepherds and the Nativity scene from the Fulda
Sacramentary in the Vatican (Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, MS lat. 3 548,
fol. 8r) the coming of the Three Kings in homage to her and the Christ
Child, eloquently depicted in such resplendent books as the Gospels of
Otto III (Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, MS Clm 4453), the Flight
into Egypt, the Massacre of the Innocents (Codex Egberti, Trier,

89
 ROSAMOND MCKITTERICK

Stadtbibliothek, MS 24, fol. 15V), the Presentation in the Temple in such

manuscripts as the Salzburg Lectionary (New York, Pierpont Morgan
Library, MS G. 44, fol. 2r) the Virgin's anguish at the Crucifixion,
portrayed movingly by the artist of the Trier sacramentary in Chantilly
(Musee Conde, MS 1447, fol. 4v), the Virgin's presence at the Ascension of
Christ in the Pericopes of Henry II (Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek,
MS Clm 4452, fol. 131V), and her own death (seen, for example in the
Gospels of Bishop Bernulf of Utrecht, Aartsbisschopplijk Museum, MS 3,
fol. 173V). This was a sequence of scenes in the Life of the Virgin that was
to become very familiar in the course of the later Middle Ages, and its
variety and contexts were to change with historical circumstances. That
should not prevent us from registering the implications of these particular
manifestations of the Mother of God. At most of the crucial moments in
the Life and Passion of Our Lord she was there. By giving such
prominence to his Mother, the artist would appear to be reminding the
reader not only of the humanity of Christ, but also of women's redemp-
tion through the Virgin Mary. The books, therefore, offer an inspiration
for piety and reflection particularly pertinent to women. Human
emotions are expressed in relation to the Godhead; the great range of
homely events in the Virgin's Life may well have been intended to inspire
the religious zeal of the women of Ottoman lay society. Yet at no stage is
the sense of religious mystery lost. On the contrary, it is enhanced by the
splendour of the picture and rich pigments, and by the clear context of the
life of Christ.
The abundance of other scenes from the Gospel story and the parables
ofJesus with which women in particular might be able to identify is quite
striking. One can only suppose that the artists were catering in this respect
as well for the tastes and expectations of their audience and patrons.27 The
biblical pictures take many forms. In some, such as the crowd scenes, the
presence of women is by no means obligatory, and one might accept quite
as a matter of course the appearance of a woman or two in the Aleman-
nian version of the story of the multiplication of the loaves and fishes
(Gospel Lectionary from Alemannia, Vatican, Barberini, MS lat. 711, fol.
42r), in the picture of Christ with his angels and saints from the Bamberg
commentary on the Song of Songs (Bamberg, Staatliche Bibliothek, MS
22, fol. 5r), or the number of women coming to confession with the men
in the Fulda Sacramentary (Gottingen, Niedersachisisches Staats-und

27
Some indication of the patrons and commissioners of these books is provided by Hoffmann,
Buchkunsl undKonigtum, esp. pp. 80—91.

90
 Women in the Ottoman Church

Universitatsbibliothek, MS cod. theol. fol. 231, fol. i87r). The fact

remains, however, that artists in other milieux hitherto had been quite
capable of representing stories from the New Testament or the
Apocalypse without a woman in sight.28
Another category of picture which includes women in a matter-of-fact
way are those depicting normal social or domestic life. In the parable of
the rich man in the Codex Epternacensis (Nuremberg, Germanisches
Nationalmuseum, MS 20, 156142, fol. 79r), for example, the rich man's
wife sits haughtily beside him at table, and the man possessed by devils has
a female attendant; the bride also gets into the picture in the miracle at the
wedding at Cana in the same manuscript.29 Such domestic glosses on the
parables are also a notable feature of the sermon literature of the Carolin-
gian period, for they represented an attempt to make these events of far-
off Palestine immediate and relevant with some element of familiarity
that could be appreciated by ninth- and tenth-century Franks and
Saxons.30
More telling in the models they provide for emulation or edification,
of service to Christ, of penitence, and of faith, however, are the various
miracles and teachings of Christ involving women, such as the encounter
with the woman of Samaria at the well (Codex Epternacensis), Christ and
the woman taken in adultery (Codex Epternacensis and Liverpool ivory
M8017), the healing of the woman with the issue of blood (Codex
Epternacensis), Christ healing the daughter of the Canaanite woman
(Codex Epternacensis), the dreadful story of Salome's wickedness (Liuthar
Gospels, Aachen Domshatz, fol. 46v), and Jesus' meeting with Peter's
mother-in-law in the Hitda Codex (Darmstadt, Hessische Landes-
bibliothek, MS 1640, fol 77r, (plate 4). At a more obvious level, moreover,
and with clear early Christian antecedents, are the illustrations in many
Ottoman Gospel Books (the Codex Epternacensis, the Gospel Book of
Otto III, and the Pericopes of Henry II to mention only a few) of the
raising of Lazarus, with Martha and Mary in the foreground at Christ's

28
I mention one striking example: the artist of the Valenciennes Apocalypse, in illustrating the
turba magna of John's apocalyptic vision, portrays serried ranks of tonsured monks,
Valenciennes, Bibliotheque Municipale, fol. is. The corresponding picture in the slightly
earlier Trier Apocalypse (Trier, Stadtbibliothek, MS 34), however, does include lay people in
the 'great crowd of various peoples of the world' which prompted the editor of the facsimile
to suggest that the Trier manuscript may have been intended for a lay audience: see
R. Laufner and P. K. Klein, Trierer Apokalypse. Kommentarband (Graz, 1975).
29
There are useful comments in A. Boekler, ikonographische Studien zu den Wunderszenen
in der ottonischen Buchmalerei der Reichenau', ABAW.PH, ns $2 (1961).
30
See McKitterick, Frankish Church, pp. 80—114.

91
 ROSAMOND MCKITTERICK

,•>•. :

\ ** >*~Y ^

1
Plate 4 Jesus and St Peter's Mother-in-law (Darmstadt, Hessische Landes-
bibliothek, MS 1640, fol. 77r). (290 mm X 218 mm)

92
 Women in the Ottoman Church

feet. These would have reminded the reader of the friendship between
Christ and the household at Bethany. All the dismay and awe of the Marys
at the empty tomb is expressively conveyed by the artists of the Gospel
story in a great many of these manuscripts, perhaps none more so than the
artists of the Sacramentary of St Gereon (BN, MS lat. 817, fol. 6or) (plate 5)
and of the Pericopes of Henry II (Clm, MS 4452, fol. 1 i6v). This Ottoman
highlighting of particular incidents in Christ's ministry in which he
healed and comforted women served to enhance the participation of
women in their own contemporary religious life and to suggest religious
reflections and spiritual and biblical models for them. The Hildesheim
Bible (Hildesheim, Dombibliothek, MS 61, fol. ir), moreover, produced
at the beginning of the eleventh century for Bishop Bernward, contains
one miniature only, of a man presenting a text which reads 'In principio
erat verbum' to a woman. The man has been identified as Jerome. Despite
the suggestion that the woman should be identified as the Virgin or as a
personification of Ecclesia, I suggest that this Ottoman Bible is recalling
the iconography of the Jerome pages in the great Carolingian pandects
from Tours, and that the woman is therefore Paula. The wisdom and
learning of women vowed to the religious life is thus stressed.31 The
inclusion of all these representations of women in the grand books
produced for royal, episcopal, and aristocratic patrons suggests that in
royal and aristocratic households, and in the convents and nunneries of
the Ottoman kingdom, there was a positive and visible role for women in
the expression of their piety and in their involvement with and service to
the Church. This might seem too much to read into the choice of a
particular iconography in Ottoman liturgical books were it not for the
Carolingian parallels already adduced earlier and the clear evidence of the
role of women in the Ottoman Church with which the iconographic
evidence may be associated.

31
The miniature may have reflected wishful thinking about the ideal relationship between
learned mentor and pious and respectful student on the part of Bishop Bernward, in view of
the strife between him and Abbess Sophia of Gandersheim: see Vila Bernwardi, cap. 18, ed.
H. Kallfelz, Lebensbeschreibungen einiger Bischofe des 10.-12. Jahrhunderts (Darmstadt, 1973),
pp. 304-6, but seems more likely to be a more general recognition, as in the Carolingian use
of this image, of the parallels between the learning and biblical study of Ottonian abbesses
and canonesses and the women associated with Jerome. On the Tours antecedents of this
miniature, see C. Nordenfalk, 'Noch ein Turonische Bilderbibel', in J. Autenrieth and F.
Brunholzl, eds, FestschriftBernhardBischoff(Stuttgart, 1971), pp. 153-63, and see Grodecki, el
a/., Lesikle de Van mil, pp. 108-111. See also H. Schnitzler, 'Hieronymus und Gregor in der
ottonischen Kolner Buchmalerei', Kimstgeschichtlicheti Sludien fur Ham Kaujfmann (Berlin,
1956), pp. n - 1 8 .

93
 ROSAMOND MCKITTERICK

. - ^

Plate 5 The Women at the Empty Tomb, Sacramentary of St Gereon (Paris,

Bibliotheque nationale, MS lat. 817, fol. 6or). (268 mm X 184 mm)

94
 Women in the Ottoman Church

For one thing, abbesses presiding over large and wealthy foundations
for women are known to have commissioned and possessed some of diese
grand illustrated books. The Hitda Codex, a Gospel Book (Darmstadt,
Hessische Landesbibliothek, MS cod. 1640), for example, was given by
Abbess Hitda of Meschede to her monastery.32 The book includes a
portrait of the Abbess herself (fol. 6r) presenting the book to her patron
saint, Walburga (plate 6), as well as marvellous representations of Christ
calming the storm at sea and of the Baptism of Christ (fols n y r and 75r).
She is also known to have commissioned another book from Cologne for
the convent of Gerresheim. We know little about her, but she would
appear to have belonged to the august circle of noble and royal bene-
factors of foundations for women which formed in association with the
daughters and nieces of the Ottoman rulers at Quedlinburg, Gernrode,
Essen, and Gandersheim. Another noblewoman, Uta, is depicted in the
book she commissioned for her convent of Niedermiinster, near Regens-
burg (Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, MS Clm 13601, fol. 2r).33 Sig-
nificantly, she is handing it over to the Virgin. It is this manuscript which
includes the famous illustration of Saint Erhard celebrating Mass with the
ciborium of Arnulf, a product of Charles the Bald's workshop (fol. 4r),
but Abbess Uta (plate 7) is present as well. One can cite other books, such
as the Gospel Book of Abbess Swanhild (Manchester, John Rylands
Library, MS no), 34 the Gospels of Abbess Theophanu (Essen, Miinster-
schatz) and the Quedlinburg Gospels (New York, Pierpont Morgan
Library, MS 75 s),35 all of which are associated with Ottoman nunneries in
the tenth and eleventh centuries.
The Ottoman period is remarkable for the number of religious
foundations for women, such as Nottuln and Freckenhorst in the diocese
of Minister; Herford, Neuenheerse, and Bodekken in Paderborn;
Wunstorf, Fischbeck and Mollenbeck in Minden; Wendhausen,
Lammspringe, Gandersheim, Quedlinburg, Gernrode, and many others
in the dioceses of Hildesheim and Halberstadt. Some of these, notably

32
P. Bloch, Der Darmstadter Hitda Codex (Berlin, 1968), and P. Bloch and H. Schnitzler, Die
Oltonische Ko'lner Malschule (Diisseldorf. 1967).
33
A. Boekler, 'Das Erhardbild im Uta Codex', Studies in Art and Literature for Belle da Costa Creene
(Princeton, 1954), pp. 219-30, and B. Bischoff, 'Literarisches und kunsderisches Leben in St
Emmeram (Regensburg) wahrend des friihen und hohen Mittelalters', MStn, 2 (1967),
pp. 77-115.
34
R. Kahsnitz, T h e Gospel Book of abbess Svanhild of Essen in the John Rylands Library',
BJRL, 53 (1970-7), pp. 122-66.
35
Elbern, Das ersteJahrtausend, no 384, and Kunst undKultur im Weserraum 2 (Munster, 1967),
no 162.

95
 ROSAMOND MCKITTERICK

4!
Plate 6 Abbess Hitda and St Walburga (Darmstadt, Hessische Landes-
bibliothek, MS 1640, fol. 6r). (290 mm X 218 mm)

96
 Women in the Ottoman Church

Plate 7 Abbess Uta (Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Clm 13601, fol. 4r,
detail). (383 mm X 276 mm)

97
 ROSAMOND McKITTERICK

Gandersheim and Quedlinburg, were the foundations of women of the

royal house or presided over by members of the royal family for genera-
tions, such as Gerberga (Otto l's great-aunt, abbess of Gandersheim) and a
later Gerberga (Otto l's niece, who was also abbess, and who founded
another convent, St Mary's in Gandersheim), Matilda of Essen, Matilda of
Quedlinburg, Sophia of Gandersheim, Adelheid of Quedlinburg. The
social imperatives behind this phenomenon have been fully elucidated by
Leyser. He points out that for a widow with many estates 'the foundation
of a religious house was the best security she and her daughters could have
against the importunity of their co-heredes'.36 They were also institutions
which transcended the social problems of daughters to dispose of in the
turbulent world of aristocratic politics. They offered a positive system of
new values and the transfer of responsibility, but not necessarily of power,
on the part of the men in whose muni the women belonged. Leyser has
suggested, too, that the houses for women therefore represented a kind of
holiness by proxy and the chance to demonstrate a vicarious piety for the
lay male aristocracy in general.37 The ruler also stood to gain as much as
the Church from these foundations, for the bestowal of royal immunity
and the granting to these houses of the status of royal monastery could
banish the claims of kinsmen and make the alienation of the land to
religious uses permanent. In other words, 'royal intervention favoured the
institution against the heredes of its individual members'.38
All these factors no doubt provided the institutional underpinning and
material support for these foundations, but without the religious convic-
tions to sustain them and the willing co-operation of the women for their
own reasons, such arrangements would have been doomed to failure. The
huge numbers of religious foundations for women is above all a religious
response of a particular kind as well as a social one. It has to be explained,
therefore, not only in terms of the outward social benefits and the obvious
spiritual benefits for their menfolk of the prayers they offered and the
good works they performed. It also has to be observed from the point of
view of the religious sensibilities and aspirations of the women and their
own concept of themselves as ancillae Dei.
Ottoman dynastic, royal, and feminine sanctity, its expression,
manifestations, and political ramifications, particularly evidenced in the
hagiography of the period, has recently been the subject of an important

36
Leyser, Rule and Conflict, p. 63.
37
Ibid., p. 66.
38
Ibid., p. 68.

98
 Women in the Ottoman Church

new study, which considerably enhances our understanding of the

religious sensibilities of lay women and their cloistered sisters in the tenth
and eleventh centuries.39 Some indication of how one might understand
the essentially new role for royal and aristocratic women being
demonstrated in these houses is, as I have suggested in this paper, to be
gained from the manuscripts, but we also have much to learn from the
writing of some of these women, not least the learned and witty effusions
of Hrotsvitha of Gandersheim.40 The convent of Gandersheim under
Abbess Gerberga was, thanks to a charter of Otto I in 947, virtually an
independent principality ruled by women, canonesses as well as nuns.41 It
had its own courts, army, the right to mint coins, its own representative at
the imperial assembly, and direct papal protection and immunity from
the bishop of Hildesheim. It seems likely that Hrotsvitha herself had spent
time at court and had been educated by men as well as by women.
Dronke's sympathetic study brings out the deep religious dedication and
aspiration of Hrotsvitha, and how her world was one in which there was a
different range of expectations for men and for women, and for their
capacities. The women in her plays achieve moral victories. She enters the
world of wantonness in order to challenge it. She can counter worldly and
shameful weakness with the triumph of womanly frailty and the con-
fusion of virile force. Her aim, above all, is to proclaim the power of
Christ, and she is convinced of the divine element in human creativity
when she says, 'I feel joy deep in my heart that God, through whose Grace
I am what I am, is praised in me'.42 The physical frailty of women is
balanced by their moral strength and by their intellectual and cultural
capabilities. Hrotsvitha can tackle the most delicate of subjects, such as
Abraham's visit to the brothel to rescue St Mary the Harlot, with a
sureness of touch and moral certainty in the triumph of virtue and human
compassion, as well as with the sort of sympathy which was surely behind
the inclusion of Christ's championing of the woman taken in adultery in
the new cycles of Gospel illustrations.
Reiter has commented on the potential conflicts between the noble
ideal of a woman, physically beautiful, wealthy, magnificent in clothes

n
P. Corbet, Lessaints ottoniens = Beihefte der Francia, 15 (Sigmaringen, 1986).
40
P. Dronke, Women Writers of the Middle Ages (Cambridge, 1984), pp. 55-83, is a lucid and
sympathetic discussion of Hrotsvitha's writing and her perception of herself as an author.
41
MCH.DR, Conradil, Heinrici I et Ononis J. Dipbmata, no 89, pp. 171-2. See also, D. Schaller,
'Hrotsvit von Gandersheim nach Tausend Jahren', ZeitschritftfurdeutschePhilologie, 96 (1977).
pp. 105—114, and F. Bertini, // 'teatro'diRosvita (Genoa, 1979).
42
Dronke, Women Writers, p. 74.

99
 ROSAMOND MCKITTERICK

and jewellery, and brave, and the ecclesiastical ideal of spiritual beauty, of
a life devoted to service of God, the Church, and the poor, of almsgiving
and generosity, and of prayer and the promotion of moral and spiritual
worth.43 In the portrayal of the Virgin the stress laid on women's special
role in the Life of Christ, and the new dedication portraits of women
offering service to the Virgin and Child on their own terms as indepen-
dent, powerful, and educated abbesses, there would appear to be a
recognition of one possible resolution of such a conflict and a forceful
definition of women's role in the Church. It was not only to influence
subsequent iconography, but also to have repercussions on the under-
standing of women's independent and distinctive contribution to the life
of the Church in later centuries.

Newnham College, Cambridge

" S. Reiter, 'Weltliche Lebensfbrmen von Frauen im zehnten Jahrhundert. Das Zeugnis der
erzahlenden Quellen', in W. Affeldt and A. Kuhn, eds Frauen in der Geschkhte, 7 (Diisseldorf,
1986), pp. 209-26.

IOO