Barking Abbey and Medieval Literary Culture

Barking Abbey (founded c. 666) is hugely significant for those studying the literary production by and patronage of medieval women. It had one of the largest libraries of any English nunnery, and a history of women's education from the Anglo-Saxon period to the Dissolution; it was also the home of women writers of Latin and Anglo-Norman works, as well as of many Middle English manuscript books.BR>The essays in this volume map its literary history, offering a wide-ranging exanination of its liturgical, historio-hagiographical, devotional, doctrinal, and administrative texts, with a particular focus on the important hagiographies produced there during the twelfth century. It thus makes a major contribution to the literary and cultural history of medieval England and a rich resource for the teaching of women's texts. Contributors: Diane Auslander, Alexandra Barratt, Emma Berat, Jennifer N. Brown, Donna A. Bussell, Thelma Fenster, Stephanie Hollis, Thomas O'Donnell, Delbert Russell, Jill Stevenson, Kay Slocum, Lisa Weston, Jocelyn Wogan-Browne, Anne B. Yardley Professor Jennifer N. Brown teaches at Marymount Manhattan College; Professor Donna Alfano Bussell teaches at University of Illinois-Springfield.

Jennifer N. Brown is an Associate Professor of English and World Literature at Marymount Manhattan College. Donna Alfano Bussell is an Associate Professor of English at the University of Illinois Springfield.