Margareta Karthäuserin

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Margareta Karthäuserin was a mid-15th century nun at the Dominican convent of Saint Catherine in Nuremberg and an exceptionally skilled scribe. [1]

According to some historians, Karthäuserin was part of a group sent from Schönensteinbach to help the Nuremberg convent with the Dominican reform movement. [1] The library at Saint Catherine's was so large that it is believed to have served as a lending library for the whole province of Teutonia. [2] Many of the texts the nuns had copied themselves, [3] possibly up to half of the library holdings. [2] Karthäuserin is considered to have been one of the most skilled scribes of the thirty-two nun-scribes at that convent whose names are known to historians. According to C. G. von Murr, between the years of 1458 and 1470, she copied eight large choir-books which in later years could be found in the Nuremberg town library. [4] Aside from this, she also wrote the Pars Aestivalis of a Missal (1463) and the Pars Hiemalis. The latter was copied with the help of another nun from the same convent, Margareta Imhof (1452). [4]

Karthäuserin is one of the 999 notable women whose names are displayed on the Heritage Floor of Judy Chicago's The Dinner Party art installation (1979). [5]

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References

  1. 1 2 Taylor, Jane (1997). Women and the Book: Assessing the Visual Evidence. University of Toronto Press. p. 125. ISBN   0-8020-8069-3.
  2. 1 2 Wilson, Katharina M., and Nadia Margolis, eds. "Scribes and scriptoria." Women in the Middle Ages: an encyclopedia. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2004, p. 835. (Internet Archive)
  3. Taylor, Jane (1997). Women and the Book: Assessing the Visual Evidence. University of Toronto Press. p. 129. ISBN   0-8020-8069-3.
  4. 1 2 Dodgson, Campbell (1903). Catalogue of early German and Flemish woodcuts preserved in the Department of Prints and Drawings in the British Museum. London: Printed by order of the Trustees. p. 139. hdl:2027/mdp.39015015678140.
  5. "Margareta Karthauserin." Heritage Floor, The Dinner Party. Brooklyn Museum. Accessed 5 Feb. 2023.

See also