Women's role in the middle ages as mediators between the literate culture of the monastery and the largely illiterate culture of the secular courts, widely acknowledged, remains little understood. Powell shows that 12th century monastic culture articulated an idea of woman's reception of the Word that vernacular court poets were able to shape into a poetics of text in performance. The performance becomes a vehicle of the aurally and visually manifest truth, and vernacular poetry is an alternative Scripture for laymen who "read" as women. This study contributes to our understanding of the beginnings of European literary tradition.

Women's role in the middle ages as mediators between the literate culture of the monastery and the largely illiterate culture of the secular courts, widely acknowledged, remains little understood. Powell shows that 12th century monastic culture articulated an idea of woman's reception of the Word that vernacular court poets were able to shape into a poetics of text in performance. The performance becomes a vehicle of the aurally and visually manifest truth, and vernacular poetry is an alternative Scripture for laymen who "read" as women. This study contributes to our understanding of the beginnings of European literary tradition.

MORGAN POWELL is Assistant Professor of Modern Languages at Franklin College Switzerland. He has been a fellow of the Institute for European History in Mainz, Germany, and was a Getty Postdoctoral Fellow in Art History and the Humanities in 2000-2001.