The Legend of Good Women

:Women’s Friendship in Medieval Literature

“…19 The hagiographer, after describing the vision, confirms, "now the virgin to whom these things were shown was the lady Jutta's first and most intimate disciple, who, growing strong in her holy way of life even to the pinnacle of all the virtues, had certainly obtained this vision before God through her most pure and devout prayer. " 20 At the end of her life, Jutta is surrounded by nuns in a convent where she herself is prioress (Hildegard succeeds her in this position), but the vita is careful to point out that there are special relationships here. 21 15.…”

“…As Brian McGuire has suggested, describing saints as amici dei "emphasized the worth of human bonds as part of the scheme of salvation. " 20 The saint's life commemorates the importance of female friendships within that communal vision and, moreover, places Marie's work within the thriving scene of vernacular reading and literary production emerging from female religious centers. The two inscriptions on the codex of its sole extant manuscript, MS Additional 70513 at the British Library, tell us that it was likely collation literature intended for reading aloud during mealtimes for the women living at Campsey Ash priory, an Augustinian convent in Suffolk founded by two lay women in 1195.…”

“…19 A second crucial text for understanding the experiences of Syon's sisters is the Middle English Additions, a document composed around 1425 to supplement Bridget's Rule of Seynt Saviour and adapt it to the new foundation in England. 20 While…”

“…Evidence of domestic sericulture in al-Andalus, adapted from Chinese practices by Arab settlers from Syria and the Maghreb, dates as early as the eighth or ninth centuries; and the quality of silk cloth produced in Almería maintained international acclaim well into the twelfth century. 20 The second half of the twelfth century witnessed a rapid expansion of the silk industry in Norman Sicily at Palermo. By the thirteenth century, Northern Italy became an important site of European textile production, much of which relied on importation of raw fiber, including a booming cotton industry in Milan, the refining of Iberian-sourced merino wool in Florence, and the weaving of silk in Lucca and Siena.…”

“…19 One of the most important studies of nonsexual love and friendship in the Middle Ages is Stephen Jaeger's Ennobling Love, in which he argues for that secular passionate friendship that provides a diptych with spiritual friendship in medieval courtly society. 20 Jaeger's book has little to say, however, about female friendship because the friendship he examines is the masculine forerunner of courtly love. "Ennobling love" is courtly love, a cultural phenomenon which expanded on the idea of the masculine friendship as a source of self-betterment to a heterosexual ideal that included women.…”