Originally published: 2003. Includes bibliographical references and index.
Contents:
1. God and the goddesses. St. Francis and Lady Poverty -- The soul and Lady Love -- The servant and Eternal Wisdom -- Will and Lady Holy Church -- Christine and the female Trinity -- Vision, imagination, and belief -- Why goddesses? -- 2. Natura (I) : Nature and Nature's God. The birth of nature : Bernard Silvestris's Cosmographia -- Nature's fall and lament : De planctu Naturae -- Nature as redeemed and redeemer : Anticlaudianus -- A Hildegardian coda : Nature or Nature's God? -- 3. Natura (II) : Goddess of the normative. "Ganymede and Helen" and Nature's grammar -- In Nature's forge : from Alan of Lille to Jean de Meun -- Nature at the court of King Richard : Chaucer's Parlement of fowles -- Nature and culture : Christine's revisionist myths -- Testing the norms : Nature, Nurture, Silence -- The realm of the natural -- 4. Love divine, all loves excelling. Caritas and Amor : the twelfth century -- Love's violence : the thirteenth century -- The beguine as knight of Love : Hadewijch's Stanzaic poems -- Dante, Beatrice, and l'amor che move il sole -- 5. Sapientia : the goddess incarnate. Liturgical Wisdom : poised between Christ and Mary -- Devotional Wisdom : Henry Suso and his legacy -- Contemplative Wisdom : Julian of Norwich -- Esoteric Wisdom : the alchemical Virgin -- 6. Maria : Holy Trinity as Holy Family. The Trinity as a family -- Divinizing the Virgin : the Marian Trinity in art -- Enacting the Virgin : the lability of female roles -- Domesticating the Virgin : the invention of the Holy Family -- 7. Goddesses and the one God. Imaginative theology -- The gender of God and the limits of intolerance -- Medieval Christianity as an inclusive monotheism.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.