Thieves and Carnivals: Gender in German Dominican Literature of the Fourteenth Century

Abstract

As the Latin meaning of vernaculus cited above indicates, languages denote not only a sense of place, but also of relations of power.¹ These relations include gender and thus gender-specific usage of language as a category of economic, cultural, and social discrimination.² In terms of medieval literacy, the rise of vernacular religious literacy and literatures has often been traced to the contributions of female Christian authors.³ Barred from the study of Latin at universities and often also in monasteries, religious women took refuge in writing in their mother tongues and produced works of remarkable originality and depth.⁴ Male-authored spiritual writings in the vernacular followed suit with some delay and were frequently written for an often explicitly female religious audience.⁵

“vernacular, adj [L. vernaculus, belonging to homeborn slaves, indigenous verna, a homeborn slave] Using the native language of a country or place.”

—Webster’s New Old Dictionary

“Am I to go on saying for myself, for her This is my body, Take and destroy it?”

—Adrienne Rich, Dreams of a Common Language