Saints, Sinners, and Sisters: Gender and Northern Art in Medieval and Early Modern Europe

A collection of original essays, Saints, Sinners and Sisters showcases the diverse questions and methodologies currently being asked by gender scholars dealing with French, German, and Netherlandish art from the medieval and early modern periods. Saints, Sinners and Sisters begins by asking new questions of women who were positive exempla within their societies as well as those whose sexuality society sought to denounce and control. The book's second section moves beyond the reclamation of "lost" female artists and the customary good-bad dichotomy by which medieval and early modern women have been categorized. Here the definitions of women's responsibilities are expanded and realigned historically. Saints, Sinners and Sisters argues that the nuances surrounding gender can only be understood when the social and cultural context is broadened, revealing how art responded to the full range of women's roles, be they spinner or sorceress, weaver or wife.