"Judith of Flanders and Her Books: Patronage, Piety, and Politics in mid-eleventh century Europe" in Telling Tales and Crafting Books, Essays in Honor of Thomas H. Ohlgren, eds. Dorsey A. Armstrong, Shaun F. D. Hughes, and Alexander L. Kaufman. Kalamazoo, MI: Medieval Institute Publications, 2016, 267-322.

This essay analyzes the illustration sequences of the four magnificent Gospel books made for Judith of Flanders within the context of the political chaos in pre-Conquest England. These deluxe display books indicate one of the ways that literacy and literary patronage provided cultural legitimacy and social status for secular women in the late Anglo-Saxon period. The evangelist symbols in Judith’s English books—some of them very unusual—demonstrate Judith’s use of patronage as a cultural strategy to proclaim her wealth and position in the political theater of northern Europe. She exemplifies th... Mehr ...