Mediaeval Women Writers

Donald Lateiner

A Research Project for the World Wide Web

Bibliography for Constantia of Angers (Le Ronceray) ca.1075

Bond, Gerald. 1995. The Loving Subject: Desire, Eloquence, and Power in Romanesque France. Philadelphia Chapter 2 is devoted to Baudri’s "play of desire" and chapter 5 to praise of Adela of Blois with some comments on Constance herself.

Curtius, Ernst R. 1953. European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages. Princeton, transl. by W. Trask. (Orig. Bern 1948). Baudri on p. 362 (the letter to which C. responds). An essential foundation for understanding its subject.

Dronke, Peter. 1984. Women Writers of the Middle Ages. Cambridge. Essential guide from 200 to 1300 CE. Constance figures on pp. 84-91.

Eckenstein, Lila. 1896. Women under Monasticism. Cambridge, Mass. Nothing on Constance but much on Hildegard and others.

Ferrante, Joan M. 1997. To the Glory of her Sex. Women’s Roles in the Composition of Medieval Texts. Bloomington. Constance reaches the index! See pp. 33-34 with notes.

Gilchrist, R. 1994. Gender and Material Culture. The Archaeology of Religious Women. New York and London.

Grössinger, Christa. 1997. Picturing Women in Late Medieval and Renaissance Art. Manchester and New York. No Constance but discussion of iconography and images of good and evil women.

Haskins, Ch. 1927. The Renaissance of the Twelfth Century (repr. Cleveland 1957). A fine survey of the age of our poet.

Hilbert, Karlheinz. 1965. Baldricus Burgulianus Carmina. Heidelberg. Source of the present text. It is a fitting feminist irony that poems to and from Constance can be recovered only in her godfather’s mss. Baudri’s poetry also is printed in the energetic and extensive Migne’s Patrologia Latina, vol. 166, pp. 1049-1212.

Jacobsen, H. 1974. Ovid’s Heroides. Princeton. Basic study of Constance’s model, Ovid’s love poems from women whose husbands or lovers are absent.

Kibler, William and G.A. Zinn, edd. 1995 Medieval France. An Encyclopedia. New York. Covering the 5th to 15th centuries, Baudri has an entry, but not Constance.

Klapisch-Zuber, Chr. ed. 1992. A History of Women. Silences of the Middle Ages. Cambridge MA. Chiara Frugoni’s chapter on "The Imagined Woman" discusses "women and literacy on pp. 397-422. Images therein show women reading and writing.

Labalme, Patricia. 1980. Beyond Their Sex. Learned Women of the European Past. New York. Tilted more to the Renaissance, this collection of essays does not include Constance, but the topic is relevant.

Lateiner, Donald. 1990. "Mimetic syntax: metaphor from word order, especially in Ovid’s poetry," American Journal of Philology 111: 204-37.

Lateiner, D. 1998. "Blushes and Pallor in Ancient Fictions," Helios 25.2 (1998) 163-89.

McNamara, J.K. 1996. Sisters in Arms. Catholic Nuns through two Millennia. Cambridge, Mass.

Manitius, Max. 1931. Geschichte der lateinischen Literatur des Mittelalters. Munich. Vol. III, 883-898. Pp. 886-91 concern Baudri’s literary output, including brief mention of Constance. This careful study is the standard reference for medieval Latin literature.

Niermeyer, J.F. 1993.Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus. Leiden. A good source for words not in the Classical dictionaries such as P. Glare et al.

Pucci, Joseph. 1997. Medieval Latin. Chicago. The latest anthology but with more selections by women than any previous collection.

Raby, F.J. 1957. Secular Latin Poetry. Oxford, second edit. The standard work in English, Vol.1, pp. 337-48 concern Baudry.

Sigal, G. 1996. Erotic Dawn-Songs of the Middle Ages. Voicing the Lyric Lady. Gainesville. To pursue the aubade.

Smith, L. and J. Taylor 1996. Women and The Book. Assessing the Visual Evidence. London and Toronto. A study of images of learned women such as St. Bridget, St. Scholastica, Catherine of Siena, and legendarily, Mary Magdalen.

Verducci, Florence. 1985. Ovid’s Toyshop of the Heart. Princeton. A study of six examples of Ovid’s form and thought.