lay-sisters

Its church was intended chiefly for use by its members, choir nuns, lay-sisters, lay-brothers, and male clergy.

Sensual Encounters: Monastic Women and Spirituality in Medieval Germany 2008

They would prostrate themselves before the altar in a prayer position made popular by Dominic known as a venia. 63 In the quiet hours between Matins and sunrise, many nuns and lay-sisters used the choir for personal prayer and meditation.

Sensual Encounters: Monastic Women and Spirituality in Medieval Germany 2008

This annex served as domestic space, housed conversi (lay-brothers) and conversae (lay-sisters), and was the center of the monastery's economic network of rural land. 25 1840 drawing that reconstructs the layout of Unterlinden.

Sensual Encounters: Monastic Women and Spirituality in Medieval Germany 2008

Many sisters did service in the kitchen, either on a rotating basis or in the case of some lay-sisters for their entire lives.

Sensual Encounters: Monastic Women and Spirituality in Medieval Germany 2008

Work was thus something that was rewarded in the lives of the lay-sisters, much as obedience was in the lives of the choir nuns.

Sensual Encounters: Monastic Women and Spirituality in Medieval Germany 2008

Since the Sister-Books employ Latin, the nuns (and possibly the lay-sisters) must have been familiar with the language.

Sensual Encounters: Monastic Women and Spirituality in Medieval Germany 2008

One cannot assume, however, that all of the lay-sisters were illiterate in both languages.

Sensual Encounters: Monastic Women and Spirituality in Medieval Germany 2008

The Sister-Book of St. Katharinenthal is the most explicit of all in mentioning the location of devotional art objects and how they were used by the nuns and lay-sisters.

Sensual Encounters: Monastic Women and Spirituality in Medieval Germany 2008

The mid-fourteenth century translation of Anna of Münzingen's Chronik into German may indicate a wish to make the text more accessible to an audience whose Latin was based on knowledge of the liturgy, or perhaps it was felt that the lay-sisters or novices could not benefit from the vitae because of the language.

Sensual Encounters: Monastic Women and Spirituality in Medieval Germany 2008

Especially for the lay-sisters, the kitchen was a space with spiritual context, as can be seen in the life of Ite of Hallau.

Sensual Encounters: Monastic Women and Spirituality in Medieval Germany 2008