We uncover all we can about the mysterious woman who penned a rare medieval prayer text
Examples of medieval female authorship are few and far between, so when one is available, it’s worth examining. Such is the case with Prayers and Meditations, a prayer guide written around 1415 by a woman and focusing on women from the Bible, such as Mary, Martha and Mary Magdalene. Where did it come from, who was the author, and who commissioned it? These are just some of the questions we wanted to ask Dr Ben Parsons whose new book, Two Middle English Prayer Cycles, explores this text and its significance.
How did you first become aware of Prayers and Meditations and its significance?
Like most readers, I first encountered the text through the short samples included in Alexandra Barratt’s excellent anthology Women’s Writing in Middle English. However, I’m ashamed to say that I did not appreciate its full resonance at that point, no doubt owing to the embarrassment of riches Barratt offers. Some years later, the text drifted across my radar again when I was approached by a priest and amateur historian who wanted help reading a scan of its manuscript. I duly obliged, and my interest in this singular and significant piece was well and truly piqued.
Why is it believed that this was written by a woman and why is that significant?
The author makes her gender clear from the outset. In her prologue, when making a customary plea for the reader’s prayers, she asks that God ‘have mercy and pité on me, sinful, and make me a good woman’. The very fact that she reveals her identity, even in such oblique terms, is significant in its own right. There are a handful of texts from the period demonstrably written by women, but most are only identifiable from broad hints. For every Julian of Norwich or Margery Kempe, there are a number of shadowy, anonymous figures whose genders have to be inferred from their work, such as the authors of the romantic dream vision The Flower and the Leaf or the short lyrics of the Findern Manuscript. Yet the author does not only increase the number of medieval female writers known to us; she also adds to our understanding of female authorship itself and the potential forms it might take. One of the main idiosyncrasies of her work is the fact that she is expressly serving as mentor to her reader, and doing so with an easy self-assurance; it is very unusual to see a medieval woman self-consciously taking on the role of instructor, let alone so unapolog
