Medieval Alsace: Herrad of Hohenbourg's Garden of Delights

Sponsoring Organization(s)

Special Session

Organizer Name

Gillian B. Elliott

Organizer Affiliation

Corcoran College of Art + Design

Presider Name

Gillian B. Elliott

Paper Title 1

Who Else Was Able to Read Greek? Plea for an Illumination Workshop within the Hohenbourg Convent

Presenter 1 Name

Christian Forster

Presenter 1 Affiliation

Univ. Leipzig

Paper Title 2

Turning the Crank: The Wheel of Fortune in Herrad of Hohenbourg's Hortus deliciarum

Presenter 2 Name

Cheryl Goggin

Presenter 2 Affiliation

Univ. of Southern Mississippi

Paper Title 3

A View from the Top: Monastic Landscapes and the Garden of Delights

Presenter 3 Name

Danielle B. Joyner

Presenter 3 Affiliation

Univ. of Notre Dame

Paper Title 4

Respondent

Presenter 4 Name

Sarah Celentano

Presenter 4 Affiliation

Univ. of Texas-Austin

Start Date

8-5-2014 1:30 PM

Session Location

Bernhard 209

Description

During the last quarter of the twelfth-century, the abbess Herrad of Hohenburg (d. after 1196) compiled a richly illuminated manuscript, the Hortus deliciarum or the Garden of Delights, to instruct and edify the community of nuns at the monastery of Mont Sainte-Odile at Hohenburg in the region of Alsace, France. Herrad’s original manuscript was lost during a fire in 1870 started by Prussian-German troops, but fortunately this magnificent illuminated encyclopedia is still known today through copies. In 1979 Rosalie Green assembled a number of scholars to reconstruct a two-volume facsimile of the Hortus, but the rich and layered meanings of the images in the manuscript have only begun to be deciphered. In 2007 Fiona Griffiths published a monograph on the Hortus, a book that has shed new light on the historical and social context of the manuscript created by reformed Augustinian nuns. Thanks to this detailed study, scholars now have a concrete framework from which to approach the complex theological and allegorical iconography of this monumental and densely illustrated manuscript. This session welcomes papers that explore iconography, the relationship between text and image, the sources that may have influenced the manuscript, communities of nuns and pedagogy in Alsace, or the comparison of the Hortus to other manuscripts or works of art.

Gillian B. Elliott

This document is currently not available here.

Share

COinS
 
May 8th, 1:30 PM

Medieval Alsace: Herrad of Hohenbourg's Garden of Delights

Bernhard 209

During the last quarter of the twelfth-century, the abbess Herrad of Hohenburg (d. after 1196) compiled a richly illuminated manuscript, the Hortus deliciarum or the Garden of Delights, to instruct and edify the community of nuns at the monastery of Mont Sainte-Odile at Hohenburg in the region of Alsace, France. Herrad’s original manuscript was lost during a fire in 1870 started by Prussian-German troops, but fortunately this magnificent illuminated encyclopedia is still known today through copies. In 1979 Rosalie Green assembled a number of scholars to reconstruct a two-volume facsimile of the Hortus, but the rich and layered meanings of the images in the manuscript have only begun to be deciphered. In 2007 Fiona Griffiths published a monograph on the Hortus, a book that has shed new light on the historical and social context of the manuscript created by reformed Augustinian nuns. Thanks to this detailed study, scholars now have a concrete framework from which to approach the complex theological and allegorical iconography of this monumental and densely illustrated manuscript. This session welcomes papers that explore iconography, the relationship between text and image, the sources that may have influenced the manuscript, communities of nuns and pedagogy in Alsace, or the comparison of the Hortus to other manuscripts or works of art.

Gillian B. Elliott