Presentations

Findings from Unknown Hands have been presented at international conferences and workshops, including:

• Guéville, Estelle. “Multilingualism and Literacy Among Medieval Female Scribes.” International Congress on Medieval Studies, Western Michigan University. 9 May 2025.
• Guéville, Estelle.“Unknown Hands: Addressing the Scribal Gender Gap in Manuscript Studies.” Harvard-Yale-Brown Graduate Conference in Book History. 5 May 2025.
• Guéville, Estelle.“Unknown Hands. The Scribal Gender Gap and Historical Exclusion.” Yale Medieval Lunch Colloquium, Yale University. 18 February 2025.
• Guéville, Estelle.“Manuscript Collections and Inclusivity: Making Premodern Female Scribes’ Production Accessible.” (Re)imag(in)ing the Past Symposium, Gjøvik, Norway. 4–6 December 2024.
• Guéville, Estelle.“Unknown Hands: Medieval and Early Modern Manuscripts and their Female Scribes.” International Congress on Medieval Studies, Western Michigan University. May 2024.
• Guéville, Estelle.“Women in the Scriptorium: Female Manuscript Production in Pre-Modern Europe.” Race, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Colloquium, Yale University. 24 October 2023.
• Guéville, Estelle.“Unknown Hands: Medieval and Early Modern Manuscripts and their Female Scribes.” Yale Medieval Lunch Colloquium, Yale University. 24 October 2023.

Select Bibliography - Female Scribes and Women’s Literacy

• Judith Bennett and Ruth Karras, eds.The Oxford handbook of women and gender in medieval Europe. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013.
• Cardoso, Paula Filipa Freire.Art, Reform and Female Agency in the Portuguese Dominican Nunneries: Nuns as Producers and Patrons of Illuminated Manuscripts (c. 1460-1560). 2019.
• Blanton, Virginia, Stoop, Patricia and O'Mara, Veronica.Nuns' Literacies in Medieval Europe: the Antwerp Dialogue. Turnhout, Belgium, BELGIUM: Brepols Publishers, 2018.http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/yale-ebooks/detail.action?docID=5434791
• Rêpas, Luís Miguel and Barreira, Catarina Fernandes.“La cultura escrita en los monasterios femeninos del Císter en Portugal (siglos XIII-XV): balance y perspectivas.” Lusitania Sacra, no. 45 (2022): 33-51.https://doi.org/10.34632/lusitaniasacra.2022.11603.
• Blanton, Virginia, Stoop, Patricia and O'Mara, Veronica.Nuns' Literacies in Medieval Europe: The Kansas City Dialogue. Turnhout, Belgium, BELGIUM: Brepols Publishers, 2015.http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/yale-ebooks/detail.action?docID=5206288
• Luijtelaar, Inge.“Colofonconventies in middeleeuwse handschriften uit vrouwenkloosters in de Nederlanden.” Unpublished Master’s thesis, Radboud University. Nijmegen (2015).
• Poor, Sara S.“Stimmen schreibender Frauen in der Mystik des 15. Jahrhunderts: Der Fall Anna Eybins.” (2013).
• Edmunds, Sheila.“The life and work of Clara Hätzlerin.” Journal of the Early Book Society for the study of manuscripts and printing history 2 (1999): 1-25.
• Baskin, Judith R..“Some parallels in the education of medieval Jewish and Christian women.” Jewish History 5, no. 1 (1991): 41-51.https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01679792.
• Stevenson, Jane.“Women Latinists of the Renaissance in Northern and Central Europe.” In Women Latin Poets: Language, Gender, and Authority from Antiquity to the Eighteenth Century, edited by Stevenson, Jane, 0. Oxford University Press, 2005.https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198185024.003.0011
• DeMaris, Sarah Glenn.“Anna Muntprat's Legacy for the Zoffingen Sisters: A Second Copy of the Unterlinden Schwesternbuch 1.” Zeitschrift für deutsches Alterthum und deutsche Litteratur 144, no. 3 (2015): 359-378.https://www.proquest.com/docview/1711515768/abstract/EE8F5104828142ABPQ/1
• Drach, O..“Female education and upbringing of women in Medieval Europe: thoughts of contemporaries.” Вісник Черкаського університету. Серія Історичні науки, no. 3-4 (2016).https://history-ejournal.cdu.edu.ua/article/view/1772
• Oliveira, Terezinha and Viana, Ana Paula dos Santos.“A study of women in the medieval educational process of the ninth century: reflections on the Dhuoda’s manual.” Revista de Ciências Humanas 52, no. 0 (2018): 1-20.https://doi.org/10.5007/2178-4582.2018.e55140.
• Jarrett, Jonathan.“Nuns, Signatures and Literacy in Late-Carolingian Catalonia.” Traditio 74 (2019): 125-152.https://doi.org/10.1017/tdo.2019.7.
• Haselberger, Mallory N..“A ‘Book of Drawings’ and the ‘Writing Pen’: Women Artists’ Self-Teaching and Transnational Print Culture in Early Modern Europe.” Parergon 40, no. 2 (2023): 55-85.https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/62/article/914781
• Saunders, Corinne and Watt, Diane.Women and Medieval Literary Culture: From the Early Middle Ages to the Fifteenth Century. Cambridge University Press, 2023.
• Edmunds, Sheila.“Anna Rügerin revealed.” Journal of the Early Book Society for the study of manuscripts and printing history 2 (1999): 179-181.
• Morrée, Cécile.“Scribal Collaboration and Gender in a Middle Dutch Song Manuscript and a Rapiarium of the Devotio Moderna: The Case of Berlin SBB-PK mgo 185 and Zwolle HCO Emmanuelshuizen 13.” Church History and Religious Culture 102, no. 3-4 (2022): 344-373.https://doi.org/10.1163/18712428-bja10043.
• McKitterick, Rosamond.“Nuns' Scriptoria in England and Francia in the Eighth Century.” (1992).
• Callan, Maeve B..“St Darerca and Her Sister Scholars: Women and Education in Medieval Ireland.” Gender & History 15, no. 1 (2003): 32-49.https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-0424.00288.
• Cyrus, Cynthia J..The scribes for women's convents in late medieval Germany. London, [England]: University of Toronto Press, 2009.
• Kersey, Shirley.“Medieval education of girls and women.” Educational Horizons 58, no. 4 (1980): 188-192.https://www.jstor.org/stable/42924397
• Edmunds, Sheila.“A Scribe and Her Patrons.” Early Book Society Newsletter (1995): 5-7.
• Hamburger, Jeffrey F..Nuns as artists: the visual culture of a medieval convent. University of California Press, 1997.http://hdl.handle.net/2027/heb33202.0001.001
• Classen, Albrecht.“Fifteenth- and Sixteenth-century German Women Scribes, Women Editors and Women Poets.” Amsterdamer Beiträge zur älteren Germanistik 56, no. 1 (2002): 199-222.https://doi.org/10.1163/18756719-056-01-90000015.
• O'Mara, Veronica.“A Syon Scribe Revealed by Her Signature: Mary Nevel and Her Manuscripts.” Kungliga Vitterhets Historie och Antikvitets Akademien, Konferenser 93, Continuity and change: Papers from the Birgitta Conference at Dartington 2015, editors Elin Andersson, Claes Gejrot, E. A. Jones, and Mia Åkestam. ISBN: 978-91-7402-449-4 (2017).https://hull-repository.worktribe.com/output/453215/a-syon-scribe-revealed-by-her-signature-mary-nevel-and-her-manuscripts
• Stoop, Patricia.“From Reading to Writing: The Multiple Levels of Literacy of the Sister Scribes in the Brussels Convent of Jericho.” In Nuns’ Literacies in Medieval Europe, edited by Blanton, Virginia, O'Mara, Veronica and Stoop, Patricia, 47-66. Turnhout: Brepols Publishers, 2015.https://www.brepolsonline.net/doi/10.1484/M.MWTC-EB.5.105524
• Riegler, Michael and Baskin, Judith R..““May the Writer Be Strong”: Medieval Hebrew Manuscripts Copied by and for Women.” Nashim: A Journal of Jewish Women's Studies & Gender Issues, no. 16 (2008): 9-28.https://doi.org/10.2979/nas.2008.-.16.9.
• Haines-Eitzen, Kim.“"Girls Trained in Beautiful Writing": Female Scribes in Roman Antiquity and Early Christianity.” Journal of Early Christian Studies 6, no. 4 (1998): 629–646.http://www.proquest.com/docview/1308097221/citation/CC8BDBE211F84D93PQ/1
• Moreton, Melissa N.."Scritto di bellissima lettera": nuns' book production in fifteenth and sixteenth-century Italy. University of Iowa, 2013. https://iro.uiowa.edu/esploro/outputs/doctoral/9983777087502771
• Winston-Allen, Anne.“Making Manuscripts as Political Engagement by Women in the Fifteenth-Century Observant Reform Movement.” Journal of Medieval Religious Cultures 42, no. 2 (2016): 224-247.https://doi.org/10.5325/jmedirelicult.42.2.0224.
• Pellegrino, Deborah.Women's Literacy and Numeracy in Late Medieval and Renaissance Florentine Mercantile Culture. United States -- New York: New York University, 2018. https://www.proquest.com/docview/2080382069/abstract/C5101747D8D64C6EPQ/1
• Moreton, Melissa.“Pious Voices: Nun-scribes and the Language of Colophons in Late Medieval and Renaissance Italy.” Essays in Medieval Studies 29, no. 1 (2013): 43-73.https://doi.org/10.1353/ems.2013.0000.
• Beach, Alison Isdale.The female scribes of twelfth-century Bavaria. United States -- New York: Columbia University, 1996. http://www.proquest.com/docview/304248013/abstract/EFFA99F1FEE1477DPQ/1
• Brown, Josh.“Women's Literacy in a Late Medieval Religious Community: Organisation and Memorialisation at Santa Marta in Milan, 1405–1454.” Journal of Religious History 45, no. 3 (2021): 435-454.https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9809.12758.
• Stoop, Patricia.“Sermon-Writing Women: Fifteenth-Century Vernacular Sermons from the Augustinian Convent of Jericho in Brussels.” Journal of medieval religious cultures 38, no. 2 (2012): 211-232.https://doi.org/10.5325/jmedirelicult.38.2.0211.
• Morley, Stephanie.Reading Women in Late Medieval England. Canada -- Ontario, CA: McMaster University (Canada), 2010. https://www.proquest.com/docview/872552058?pq-origsite=summon
• Krug, Rebecca.Reading families : women's literate practice in late medieval England. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2002.
• Sigmon, Rebecca A..“Reading Like a Nun: The Composition of Convent Libraries in Renaissance Europe.” Journal of Religious & Theological Information 10, no. 3-4 (2011): 81-102.https://doi.org/10.1080/10477845.2011.595663.
• Houston, Kerr Nicholas.Painted images and the Clarisse, 1212--1320 Aspects of production and reception, and the idea of a nunnery art. 2001.
• Pérez Vidal, Mercedes.“Female Aristocratic Networks: Books, Liturgy and Reform in Castilian Nunneries.” In Relations of Power, edited by Bérat, Emma O., Hardie, Rebecca and Dumitrescu, Irina, 105-132. Göttingen: V&R unipress, 2021.https://www.vr-elibrary.de/doi/10.14220/9783737012423.105
• Wattenbach, Wilhelm.Das Schriftwesen im Mittelalter.. Graz: Akademische Druck- u. Verlagsanstalt, 1896.https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/012286173
• Aussems, Johannes Franciscus Alphonsus.“Christine de Pizan: the Scribal Fingerprint.” (2013).https://era.ed.ac.uk/handle/1842/7789
• Putnam, George Haven.Books and their makers during the middle ages: a study of the conditions of the production and distribution of literature from the fall of the Roman empire to the close of the seventeenth century. New York: G.P. Putnam's sons, 1896.https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/000775616
• Stoop, Patricia.“Bridging the Convent Wall: Female Book Producers in the Convent of Jericho and Collaboration with Male Intermediaries.” Queeste 28, no. 2 (2021): 207-228.https://doi.org/10.5117/QUE2021.2.002.STOO.
• Beach, Alison I..Women as scribes : book production and monastic reform in twelfth-century Bavaria. Cambridge, U.K. ; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004.
• Blanton, Virginia, O'Mara, Veronica and Stoop, Patricia, eds.Nuns’ Literacies in Medieval Europe: The Hull Dialogue. Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols Publishers, 2013.https://www.brepolsonline.net/doi/book/10.1484/M.MWTC-EB.6.09070802050003050309070200
• Schlotheuber, Eva, McQuillen, John T., Schlotheuber, Eva and Jaeger, Eliza.“Books and Libraries within Monasteries.” In The Cambridge History of Medieval Monasticism in the Latin West, edited by Beach, Alison I. and Cochelin, Isabelle, 975-997. Cambridge University Press, 2020.https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/9781108766760%23CN-bp-53/type/book_part
• Hedlund, Monica.“Nuns and Latin, with Special Reference to the Birgittines of Vadstena.” In Nuns? Literacies in Medieval Europe: The Hull Dialogue, 97-118. Brepols Publishers, 2013.https://www.brepolsonline.net/doi/10.1484/M.MWTC.1.101521
• Hemptinne, Thérèse.“Des femmes copistes dans les Pays-Bas au bas moyen âge (14e-15e siècle). Approche d'une activité féminine mal connue..” Secretum scriptorum. Liber Alumnorum Walter Prevenier (1999): 129-143.http://hdl.handle.net/1854/LU-109856
• John William Bradley.A Dictionary of Miniaturists, Illuminators, Calligraphers and Copyists,...: With References to .... B. Quaritch, 1887.http://archive.org/details/adictionarymini00bradgoog
• Barker, Sheila and Cinelli, Luciano, eds.Artiste nel chiostro: produzione artistica nei monasteri femminili in età moderna. Firenze: Nerbini, 2015.
• Ommundsen, Åslaug, Conti, Aidan K., Haaland, Øystein A. and Holst, Bodil.“How many medieval and early modern manuscripts were copied by female scribes? A bibliometric analysis based on colophons.” Humanities and Social Sciences Communications 12, no. 1 (2025): 1-5.https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-025-04666-6.
• De Pisan, Christine.Album Christine de Pizan. Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2012.
• Van Hemelryck, Tania and Reno, Christine.“Dans l’atelier de Christine de Pizan. Le manuscrit Harley 4431.” Pecia 13 (2010): 267-286.https://doi.org/10.1484/J.PECIA.1.100955.
• Omont, Henri.“Note sur un recueil de grammairiens latins, copié par une femme au Xe siècle.” (1905).https://doi.org/10.3406/crai.1905.71523.
• Schreiner, Peter.“Female Copyists in Byzantium. With a Note on the Scribe Eugenia in Par. lat. 7560.” In Schreiner, Byzantine Culture 2, 35-45. 2009.
• Ouy, Gilbert and Reno, Christine M..“Identification des autographes de Christine de Pizan.” Scriptorium 34 (1980).https://doi.org/10.3406/scrip.1980.1173.
• Willard, Charity C..“An autograph manuscript of Christine de Pizan?.” Studi francesi 9 (1965): 452-457.
• Laidlaw, James.“Christine and the Manuscript Tradition.” In Christine de Pizan. A Casebook.. New York: Routledge, 2003.
• Ouy, Gilbert.“Une énigme codicologique: les signatures des cahiers dans les manuscrits autographes et originaux de Christine de Pizan.” In Mélanges Léon Gilissen, 119-131. 1985.
• Lewis, Gertrud J..By women, for women, about women : the sister-books of fourteenth-century Germany. Toronto, Ont: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1996.
• Thiébaux, Marcelle.The writings of medieval women: an anthology. Oxon: Routledge, 2018.
• Fianu, Kouky.“Les femmes dans les métiers du livre à Paris (XIIIe - XVe siècle).” In La collaboration dans la production de l'écrit médiéval, 459-481. 2003.
• Delsaux, Olivier.Manuscrits et pratiques autographes chez les écrivains français de la fin du Moyen Âge : l'exemple de Christine de Pizan. Genève: Librairie Droz S.A., 2013.
• Parussa, Gabriella.“Autographes et orthographe. Quelques considérations sur l'orthographe de Christine de Pizan.” (1999).https://doi.org/10.3406/roma.1999.1493.
• Ouy, Gilbert.“Le catalogue des manuscrits autographes et originaux de Christine de Pizan.” In Sur le chemin de longue étude, 127-133. 1998.
• Ouy, Gilbert.“Les hésitations de Christine: étude des variantes de graphies dans trois manuscrits de Christine de Pizan.” Revue des langues romanes 92 (1988): 265-286.
• Aussems, Mark.“Christine de Pizan et la main X: quelques questions.” In Hommage James Laidlaw, 209-220. 2008.
• O’Mara, Veronica.“Scribal Engagement and the Late Medieval English Nun: The Quest Concludes?.” In Medieval Women: Texts and Contexts, edited by Blanton, Virginia, O'Mara, Veronica and Stoop, Patricia, 187-208. Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols Publishers, 2018.https://www.brepolsonline.net/doi/10.1484/M.MWTC-EB.5.112674
• Garí, Blanca.“What Did Catalan Nuns Read? Women’s Literacy in the Female Monasteries of Catalonia, Majorca, and Valencia.” In Medieval Women: Texts and Contexts, edited by Blanton, Virginia, O'Mara, Veronica and Stoop, Patricia, 125-148. Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols Publishers, 2018.https://www.brepolsonline.net/doi/10.1484/M.MWTC-EB.5.112671
• Amt, Emilie.“Making their Mark: The Spectrum of Literacy among Godstow’s Nuns, 1400–1550.” In Medieval Women: Texts and Contexts, edited by Blanton, Virginia, O'Mara, Veronica and Stoop, Patricia, 307-325. Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols Publishers, 2015.https://www.brepolsonline.net/doi/10.1484/M.MWTC-EB.5.105537
• Winston-Allen, Anne.“Outside the Mainstream: Women as Readers, Scribes, and Illustrators of Books in Convents of the German-Speaking Regions.” In Medieval Women: Texts and Contexts, edited by Blanton, Virginia, O'Mara, Veronica and Stoop, Patricia, 191-206. Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols Publishers, 2015.https://www.brepolsonline.net/doi/10.1484/M.MWTC-EB.5.105531
• O’Mara, Veronica.“Nuns and Writing in Late Medieval England: The Quest Continues.” In Medieval Women: Texts and Contexts, edited by Blanton, Virginia, O'Mara, Veronica and Stoop, Patricia, 123-147. Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols Publishers, 2015.https://www.brepolsonline.net/doi/10.1484/M.MWTC-EB.5.105528
• Dverstorp, Nils.“Step by Step: The Process of Writing a Manuscript in the Female Convent of Vadstena.” In Medieval Women: Texts and Contexts, edited by Blanton, Virginia, O'Mara, Veronica and Stoop, Patricia, 109-122. Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols Publishers, 2015.https://www.brepolsonline.net/doi/10.1484/M.MWTC-EB.5.105527
• Wiethaus, Ulrike.“Collaborative Literacy and the Spiritual Education of Nuns at Helfta.” In Medieval Women: Texts and Contexts, edited by Blanton, Virginia, O'Mara, Veronica and Stoop, Patricia, 27-46. Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols Publishers, 2015.https://www.brepolsonline.net/doi/10.1484/M.MWTC-EB.5.105523
• Cyrus, Cynthia J..“Vernacular and Latinate Literacy in Viennese Women’s Convents.” In Medieval Women: Texts and Contexts, edited by Blanton, Virginia, O'Mara, Veronica and Stoop, Patricia, 119-132. Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols Publishers, 2013.https://www.brepolsonline.net/doi/10.1484/M.MWTC.1.101522
• Scheepsma, Wybren.“Writing, Editing, and Rearranging: Griet Essinchghes and her Version of the Sister-Book of Diepenveen.” In Medieval Women: Texts and Contexts, edited by Blanton, Virginia, O'Mara, Veronica and Stoop, Patricia, 275-292. Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols Publishers, 2013.https://www.brepolsonline.net/doi/10.1484/M.MWTC.1.101531
• Stoop, Patricia.“Nuns’ Literacy in Sixteenth‑Century Convent Sermons from the Cistercian Abbey of Ter Kameren.” In Medieval Women: Texts and Contexts, edited by Blanton, Virginia, O'Mara, Veronica and Stoop, Patricia, 293-312. Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols Publishers, 2013.https://www.brepolsonline.net/doi/10.1484/M.MWTC.1.101532
• O’Mara, Veronica.“The Late Medieval English Nun and her Scribal Activity: A Complicated Quest.” In Medieval Women: Texts and Contexts, edited by Blanton, Virginia, O'Mara, Veronica and Stoop, Patricia, 69-93. Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols Publishers, 2013.https://www.brepolsonline.net/doi/10.1484/M.MWTC.1.101520
• Beach, Alison I..“‘Mathild de Niphin’ and the Female Scribes of Twelfth-Century Zwiefalten.” In Medieval Women: Texts and Contexts, edited by Blanton, Virginia, O'Mara, Veronica and Stoop, Patricia, 33-50. Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols Publishers, 2013.https://www.brepolsonline.net/doi/10.1484/M.MWTC.1.101518
• Stoop, Patricia.Schrijven in commissie: de zusters uit het Brusselse klooster Jericho en de preken van hun biechtvaders. Hilversum: , 2013.
• Rossi, Carla.Beyond the Margins: Female Illuminators in Medieval and Renaissance Europe. Ethics International Press, 2024.
• Hudson, Alison, Chadrow, Sarah N., Lima, Brianna, Riedesel, Adelaide, Smith, Madison, Srinivasan, Nivedha and Feliciano, Nicole A..“Late Medieval Women Scribes in Europe, the Mediterranean, and the Near East, 1000–1500.” In The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Medieval Women's Writing in the Global Middle Ages, 1-9. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham, 2025.https://link.springer.com/rwe/10.1007/978-3-030-76219-3_202-1
• Härtel, Helmar.Geschrieben und gemalt : Gelehrte Bücher aus Frauenhand : eine Klosterbibliothek sächsischer Benediktinerinnen des 12. Jahrhunderts. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz in Kommission, 2006.