Barbara Jane Newman is an American medievalist, literary critic, religious historian, and author. She is Professor of English and Religion, and John Evans Professor of Latin, at Northwestern University. [1] Newman was elected in 2017 to the American Philosophical Society. [2]
Newman was raised near Chicago, Illinois. After an undergraduate education at Oberlin College and graduate work at the University of Chicago, she began her scholarly career with a 1981 dissertation at Yale on Hildegard of Bingen. [3]
She has written on issues of gender and identity in a broad range of literary and theological texts, as well as translating important works from Latin, French, and Middle High German. Her scholarship has explored figures such as Julian of Norwich, Heloise and Abelard, Thomas of Cantimpré, Mechthild of Hackeborn, Marguerite Porete, Henry Suso, and Guillaume de Lorris. [4] She has been described as "one of the finest Hildegard scholars". [5] Her 2003 book, God and the Goddesses: Vision, Poetry, and Belief in the Middle Ages suggested that medieval Christianity included multiple female figures, "distinctive creations of the Christian imagination", who deepened the medieval vision of God. [4] Her book was praised in Speculum as a "provocatively and eloquently written study" in which "Newman has directed her lifelong passion for the feminine in medieval Christian literature toward a finely tuned reading of female figures" as Goddesses; Caroline Walker Bynum wrote that when "we look back fifty years from now, we will see this book as one that changed the face of scholarship and maybe even our understanding of Christianity itself." [4] In 2006 Newman published a study and translation of the Song of Songs or Marienleich of Heinrich Frauenlob, which was described in The Times Literary Supplement as being "a gorgeous publication, clearly and forcefully written, stunningly laid out and carefully edited." [6] In 2015 she was elected to a one-year term as President of the Medieval Academy of America. [7]
Newman was elected in 2005 to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. [8] In 2008 she was awarded an Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Distinguished Achievement Award, currently the most valuable award in the humanities. [9] In 2009 she was awarded the Charles Homer Haskins Medal by the Medieval Academy of America, for God and the Goddesses. [10] Her research has been supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the Guggenheim Foundation. Medieval Crossover: Reading the Secular against the Sacred (2014) has been named a Choice Outstanding Academic Book for 2014. [11]
Hildegard of Bingen, also known as Saint Hildegard and the Sibyl of the Rhine, was a German Benedictine abbess and polymath active as a writer, composer, philosopher, mystic, visionary, and as a medical writer and practitioner during the High Middle Ages. She is one of the best-known composers of sacred monophony, as well as the most recorded in modern history. She has been considered by scholars to be the founder of scientific natural history in Germany.
Medieval literature is a broad subject, encompassing essentially all written works available in Europe and beyond during the Middle Ages. The literature of this time was composed of religious writings as well as secular works. Just as in modern literature, it is a complex and rich field of study, from the utterly sacred to the exuberantly profane, touching all points in-between. Works of literature are often grouped by place of origin, language, and genre.
Mechthildof Magdeburg, a Beguine, was a Christian medieval mystic, whose book Das fließende Licht der Gottheit is a compendium of visions, prayers, dialogues and mystical accounts. She was the first mystic to write in German.
Héloïse, variously Héloïse d'Argenteuil or Héloïse du Paraclet, was a French nun, philosopher, writer, scholar, and abbess.
Benjamin Bagby is an American singer, composer, harpist, and performer of medieval music.
Viriditas is a word meaning vitality, fecundity, lushness, verdure, or growth. It is particularly associated with abbess Hildegard von Bingen, who used it to refer to or symbolize spiritual and physical health, often as a reflection of the Divine Word or as an aspect of the divine nature.
Gertrude the Great, OSB was a German Benedictine nun and mystic from the monastery of Helfta. She is recognized as a saint by the Catholic Church and figures in the General Roman Calendar on November 16 for optional celebration as a memorial throughout the Roman Rite.
Mechtilde of Hackeborn, OSB, also known as Mechtilde of Helfta, was a Saxon Christian saint and a Benedictine nun. She was famous for her musical talents, gifted with a beautiful voice. At the age of 50, Mechtilde went through a grave spiritual crisis, as well as physical suffering. In the modern Benedictine calendar, her feast is celebrated on the anniversary of her death, November 19. She died in the convent of Helfta, near Eisleben.
Edmund Blair Leighton was an English painter of historical genre scenes, specialising in Regency and medieval subjects. His art is associated with the pre-Raphaelite movement of the mid-to-late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
The Wiesbaden Codex, Hs.2 of the Hessische Landesbibliothek, Wiesbaden, is a codex containing the collected works of Hildegard of Bingen. It is a giant codex, weighing 15 kg and 30 by 45 cm in size. It dates from c. 1200, and was started at the end of her life or just after her death, at the instigation of Guibert of Gembloux, her final secretary. The only segment of her work missing from the codex are her medical writings, which may never have existed in a finished format.
Sequentia is an early music ensemble, founded in 1977 by Benjamin Bagby and Barbara Thornton. The group specializes mainly in Medieval music. Sequentia focuses particularly on music with texts, specifically chants and other stories with music, such as the Icelandic Edda. They are interested in the interplay between drama and music, and sometimes do partially staged performances, such as that of Hildegard of Bingen's Ordo Virtutum. Bagby and Thornton have both been active in original research on the projects they perform.
Christina the Astonishing, also known as Christina Mirabilis, was a Christian holy woman born in Brustem, Belgium. She was considered a saint in her own time, and for centuries following her death, as noted by her appearance in the Fasti Mariani Calendar of Saints of 1630, and Butler's Lives of the Saints - Concise Edition, published in the 18th century.
Ordo Virtutum is an allegorical morality play, or sacred music drama, by Hildegard of Bingen, composed c. 1151, during the construction and relocation of her Abbey at Rupertsberg. It is the earliest morality play by more than a century, and the only medieval musical drama to survive with an attribution for both text and music.
Saint Bertha of Bingen was the mother of Rupert of Bingen. Her biography was written, and subsequently her cult popularized, by Hildegard of Bingen, who lived in the same region, about four hundred years later. Bertha and Rupert share a feast day on 15 May.
Scivias is an illustrated work by Hildegard von Bingen, completed in 1151 or 1152, describing 26 religious visions she experienced. It is the first of three works that she wrote describing her visions, the others being Liber vitae meritorum and De operatione Dei. The title comes from the Latin phrase Sci vias Domini. The book is illustrated by 35 miniature illustrations, more than that are included in her two later books of visions.
Betty Radice was a literary editor and translator. She became joint editor of Penguin Classics, and vice-president of the Classical Association. She produced numerous English translations of classical and medieval Latin texts which were published in the mid-twentieth century.
Michael Thomas Clanchy was a British medievalist who was Professor Emeritus of Medieval History at the Institute of Historical Research, University of London and Fellow of the British Academy.
This is a bibliography of Hildegard of Bingen's works.
The Haskins Medal is an annual medal awarded by the Medieval Academy of America. It is awarded for the production of a distinguished book in the field of medieval studies.
Peter Abelard was a medieval French scholastic philosopher, leading logician, theologian, poet, composer and musician.