This volume examines the common medieval notion of life experience as a source of wisdom and traces that theme through different texts and genres to uncover the fabric of experience woven into the writings by, for, and about women.

"The editors of this volume emphasize the importance of communities of discourse in the sharing of knowledge in informal contexts, including domestic settings . . . Women and Experience in Later Medieval Writing invites us to rethink the perceived dichotomy between male or masculine learning and female or feminine experience. Indeed it goes so far as to challenge its validity. In so doing it invites us to reconsider our very understanding of what constitutes education." - Diane Watt, Professor of English, Aberystwyth University and author of Medieval Women s Writing and Secretaries of God: Women Prophets in Late Medieval and Early Modern England

Autorentext
ANNEKE MULDER-BAKKER taught Medieval History and Medieval Studies at the University of Groningen, The Netherlands and is now Emerita at the University of Leiden. Liz Herbert McAvoy is Senior Lecturer in Gender, English Studies, and Medieval Literature at the University of Swansea.

Inhalt
Experientia and the Construction of Experience in Medieval Writing: An Introduction; A.B.Mulder-Bakker & L.Herbert McAvoy The New Devout and Their Women of Authority; K.Goudriann Partners in Profession: Inwardness, Experience, and Understanding in Heloise and Abelard; I.van Spijker Communities of Discourse: Religious Authority and the role of Holy Women in the Later Middle Ages; C.Muessig Two Women of Experience, Two Men of Letters, and the Book of Life; A.B.Mulder Bakker '(An) Awngel al colthed in white': Re-reading the Book of Life as The Book of Margery Kempe; L.Herbert McAvoy Die Gheestelicke Melody: A Programme for the Spiritual Life in a Middle Dutch Song Cycle; T.Mertens Handing on Wisdom and Knowledge in Hadewijch of Brabant's Book of Visions; V.Fraters (Aberystwyth); D.Watt