Periodic Reporting for period 1 - LITVIS (Literary and Visual Cultures in the shaping of female monastic life (Iberian Peninsula, c. 1350-1550))
Période du rapport: 2021-07-01 au 2023-06-30
Through activities centred on the translation of scientific research to the general public, LITVIS will promote lifelong learning and the democratization of culture, offering the citizens a new perspective on an important part of European heritage and identity that is underrepresented in schools, museums and fictional recreations of the period.
The project started with a fieldwork (fieldwork 1) which main objective was to form a corpus of study based on the artworks and texts that had survived in Iberian convents in this period (c. 1350-1550). The analysis of the possible convents to include in the study was based on the adequacy and availability of surviving sources. After the consultation of inventories and databases that could contain information on the possession and location of texts and artworks produced or acquired in Iberian nunneries during the period of study, a corpus of study was defined. This was followed by the consultation of the selected texts and artworks in several archives and libraries. This, along with the objects’ contextualization in the period and the history of the convents in which they were used/ produced revealed important information about the nuns’ literary and visual cultures, enabling the researcher to reach objectives 1 and 2. These results were used in conjunction in order to analyse the interrelation between the literary and visual cultures in female convents. A second period of fieldwork in which the researcher analysed the role of artworks and texts in the nuns’ religious praxis, enabled her to reach objective 3, and thus, the main goal of the project. The joint and interdisciplinary analysis of elements of material culture that survived from the Iberian convents - such as convent inventories, chronicles, liturgical books and artworks -, enabled the researcher to (1) characterize what informed the nuns’ choice and use of artworks and texts, (2) contribute to the understanding of how both media were interconnected in the nuns’ religious praxis and monastic life in general and (3) reveal the role of both media in shaping these communities’ religious identity.
These conclusions of the project were disseminated in seven scientific meetings, will be available in open-access and will be reported in: three peer-reviewed publications in scientific journals; one peer-reviewed book chapter. They were also communicated to university students through seminars and made available to the general audience through an online course (MOOC), public talks for the general public and a contribution to an exhibition catalogue.
Thus, the results of this project contributed to the knowledge of late-medieval and renaissance convent culture through the specific case of Iberian nunneries, providing new information for researchers, students, the general audience and also cultural heritage institutions connected to the history of monasticism. Moreover, LITIVS helped establishing an interdisciplinary methodology that can be used for a holistic comprehension of monastic culture in future studies. The project included activities centred on the translation of scientific research to the general public, promoting lifelong learning and the democratization of culture, offering the citizens a new perspective on an important part of European heritage and identity. These activities were also designed to raise awareness to the lack of gender issues in the writing of History (which is still reflected on History books, museums’ exhibitions and historical recreations in general), and to the importance of funding its rewriting.