book rec! beneath the panic.
Apr. 29th, 2011 11:24 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bedlamsbardMan, I really like this whole "take a week off before finals start" thing, it's so much more relaxing than having two measly study days after the last day of classes before finals start. Because (at least for me, and I assume for most college students) the last week of classes is MADNESS MADNESS MADNESS AND DEADLINES and then you have two days of STUDY STUDY STUDY WRITE WRITE WRITE STUDY and then you have a week and a half of STUDY STUDY TEST TEST TEST STUDY TERM PAPER STUDY and then when your finals are over you go into AGH I AM LEAVING TOMORROW I HAVE TO PACK UP MY ENTIRE LIFE IN TWELVE HOURS AND GET THEE TO THE FEDEX.
So it's nice. Having that week-long break in between. And I kind of lucked out with my classes and my exam schedule, so it might have been different for people with other classes, but damn, it's been nice. I read a lot of books, not for class. After tomorrow I'll start doing more hardcore studying for the finals I need to put a lot more work into, but right now I've just been watching a lot of movies and TV and baking and trying to finish the books I've taken out from the library for leisure reading and also going through one Shakespeare play a day for my Shakespeare final tomorrow. Very nice. I highly approve. Occasionally I pack up a box and then despair because why do I have so much STUFF OMG? (I have one box of clothes and one box of books packed. I am estimating three to four more boxes of books. *despairs*)
Er, anyway, this was going to be a lead up to a BOOK REC.
*
I picked up Virgins of Venice: Enclosed Lives and Broken Vows in the Renaissance Convent from the library a few months ago when I was browsing for ideas for my medieval religious culture tutorial, and just got around to starting it on Easter Day. The title makes it sound a bit more racy and scandalous than I think it actually is. And it's fascinating; I've never done anything with nuns before so I don't know if Mary Laven is really presenting anything new, but she's an excellent writer and the book is organized very well.
Of course there's some scandal; I think I went into the book expecting there to be much more on sexual misdemeanors, of which there are a few (of course), but that's hardly the main focus of the book. Instead it's largely about the day-to-day life of the Venetian nun in the Renaissance, many of whom (the choir nuns) were women from the highest noble families in Venice and had been shunted off to the convent so that the rising price of the dowry could be focused on one daughter rather than spread out over several. The choir nuns are those that are professed and sworn, then you have the conversa, or the lower-ranking nuns, who come from lesser families and who act as servants to the choir nuns. These are women who are used to luxury, some of whom have no real religious vocation, and who are being increasingly enclosed during the Counter-Reformation. So on the one hand there are small acts of rebellion, like wearing jewelry and expensive clothes and so on, and then of course there are sexual misdemeanors -- heterosexual relationships with men outside the convent (one nun bashed a hole in the wall of a shed with an iron bar in order to let her lover into the convent!), and homosexual relationships with nuns inside the convent (this comes up a few times, though Laven glosses over it). And SCANDAL, sometimes of the worst kind -- like the confessor who basically kept one convent as his own private harem, abusing and molesting the women within it (and possibly driving some to suicide, if I'm reading the subtext correctly). That guy was beheaded. Sort of. They couldn't get his head off with an axe, which the papal nuncio said was God's punishment for his crimes.
The main focus of the book, though, isn't on sexual misdemeanors as an end of itself, but instead of the nuns' desire to remain part of the outside world, even as they were being increasingly enclosed by the Venetian government and the Catholic church. Whether this came from family relationships -- there's a very sweet story about a pair of siblings (or cousins?) who go fishing and decide to visit their aunt in a convent; they're just about to cook the fish when the authorities show up and then there are arrests and trouble and so on -- or from fostering relationships (heterosexual or heterosocial) with male priests, the emphasis is that nuns want to be a part of the world they're shut off from. Did you know that, at least before the Counter-Reformation, there was actually some political power? If they were men, they would be ruling the republic of Venice; as women...well, in 1521, the doge was presented with the angry 106-year-old abbess from Santa Chiara, who was followed by four other abbesses from other convents. (This never would have happened after the Counter-Reformation, alas.) All were accompanied by other nuns of noble families, families that were the absolute elite of Venice.
And other exciting things that one does not think of! Various attempts by men to rig the elections for abbess, which was just Not On, and one converse's complaint that she could barely walk through the convent because there was chicken shit everywhere, and cross-dressing. There's a surprising amount of cross-dressing. I wish Laven had gone into more detail on some of it, but it's a good read, and a lot of fun. (Not very long either -- 206 pages of actual text, with another forty pages of footnotes.)
Also, I was reading this at the same time as another book on Venice, and now I'm just really pissed at Napoleon and Austria for DESTROYING ALL THE RECORDS. /historian rage
As an interesting end note: two convents, Le Convertite and Santa Maria Maggiore, are now prisons in modern-day Venice. Le Convertite is the women's prison and Santa Maria Maggiore is the city's main jail.
So it's nice. Having that week-long break in between. And I kind of lucked out with my classes and my exam schedule, so it might have been different for people with other classes, but damn, it's been nice. I read a lot of books, not for class. After tomorrow I'll start doing more hardcore studying for the finals I need to put a lot more work into, but right now I've just been watching a lot of movies and TV and baking and trying to finish the books I've taken out from the library for leisure reading and also going through one Shakespeare play a day for my Shakespeare final tomorrow. Very nice. I highly approve. Occasionally I pack up a box and then despair because why do I have so much STUFF OMG? (I have one box of clothes and one box of books packed. I am estimating three to four more boxes of books. *despairs*)
Er, anyway, this was going to be a lead up to a BOOK REC.
*
I picked up Virgins of Venice: Enclosed Lives and Broken Vows in the Renaissance Convent from the library a few months ago when I was browsing for ideas for my medieval religious culture tutorial, and just got around to starting it on Easter Day. The title makes it sound a bit more racy and scandalous than I think it actually is. And it's fascinating; I've never done anything with nuns before so I don't know if Mary Laven is really presenting anything new, but she's an excellent writer and the book is organized very well.
Of course there's some scandal; I think I went into the book expecting there to be much more on sexual misdemeanors, of which there are a few (of course), but that's hardly the main focus of the book. Instead it's largely about the day-to-day life of the Venetian nun in the Renaissance, many of whom (the choir nuns) were women from the highest noble families in Venice and had been shunted off to the convent so that the rising price of the dowry could be focused on one daughter rather than spread out over several. The choir nuns are those that are professed and sworn, then you have the conversa, or the lower-ranking nuns, who come from lesser families and who act as servants to the choir nuns. These are women who are used to luxury, some of whom have no real religious vocation, and who are being increasingly enclosed during the Counter-Reformation. So on the one hand there are small acts of rebellion, like wearing jewelry and expensive clothes and so on, and then of course there are sexual misdemeanors -- heterosexual relationships with men outside the convent (one nun bashed a hole in the wall of a shed with an iron bar in order to let her lover into the convent!), and homosexual relationships with nuns inside the convent (this comes up a few times, though Laven glosses over it). And SCANDAL, sometimes of the worst kind -- like the confessor who basically kept one convent as his own private harem, abusing and molesting the women within it (and possibly driving some to suicide, if I'm reading the subtext correctly). That guy was beheaded. Sort of. They couldn't get his head off with an axe, which the papal nuncio said was God's punishment for his crimes.
The main focus of the book, though, isn't on sexual misdemeanors as an end of itself, but instead of the nuns' desire to remain part of the outside world, even as they were being increasingly enclosed by the Venetian government and the Catholic church. Whether this came from family relationships -- there's a very sweet story about a pair of siblings (or cousins?) who go fishing and decide to visit their aunt in a convent; they're just about to cook the fish when the authorities show up and then there are arrests and trouble and so on -- or from fostering relationships (heterosexual or heterosocial) with male priests, the emphasis is that nuns want to be a part of the world they're shut off from. Did you know that, at least before the Counter-Reformation, there was actually some political power? If they were men, they would be ruling the republic of Venice; as women...well, in 1521, the doge was presented with the angry 106-year-old abbess from Santa Chiara, who was followed by four other abbesses from other convents. (This never would have happened after the Counter-Reformation, alas.) All were accompanied by other nuns of noble families, families that were the absolute elite of Venice.
And other exciting things that one does not think of! Various attempts by men to rig the elections for abbess, which was just Not On, and one converse's complaint that she could barely walk through the convent because there was chicken shit everywhere, and cross-dressing. There's a surprising amount of cross-dressing. I wish Laven had gone into more detail on some of it, but it's a good read, and a lot of fun. (Not very long either -- 206 pages of actual text, with another forty pages of footnotes.)
Also, I was reading this at the same time as another book on Venice, and now I'm just really pissed at Napoleon and Austria for DESTROYING ALL THE RECORDS. /historian rage
As an interesting end note: two convents, Le Convertite and Santa Maria Maggiore, are now prisons in modern-day Venice. Le Convertite is the women's prison and Santa Maria Maggiore is the city's main jail.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-04-29 05:09 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-04-29 08:10 pm (UTC)