This breaks new ground in our understanding of the beginnings of European literary tradition, analysing women's role in the middle ages as mediators between the literate culture of the monastery and the largely illiterate culture of the secular courts.

PART I: READING AND THE INSTRUCTION OF RELIGIOUS WOMEN
Women, Literacy and Vernacular Writing c.1150
The Psalter of Christina of Markyate: Image, Narrative and the sponsa corporaliter
Speculum Virginum I: Images, Instruction and Oral Performance
Speculum Virginum II: Constructing the Woman's Mirror
PART II: VERNACULAR LITERATURE AND THE AUDIENCE AS WOMAN
Translating Scripture: The Audio-Visual Call to the Bride
Narrative and the sponsa et mater: Wernher's 'Maria' and Gautier de Coincy's 'Les Miracles Nostre Dame'
The Seduction of Lady Memory: Audio-Visual Poetics and the Secular Performance Space
'Parzival' and the Layman's Epiphany

MORGAN POWELL is Assistant Professor of Modern Languages at Franklin College Switzerland. He has been a fellow of the Institute for European History in Mainz, Germany, and was a Getty Postdoctoral Fellow in Art History and the Humanities in 2000-2001.