The project

Focusing on a specific period and context that is still understudied, the MSCA action entitled “Literary and Visual Cultures in the shaping of female monastic life (Iberian Peninsula, c. 1350-1550)”, aims to assess the role of nuns’ literary and visual cultures in the lives and religious praxis of late medieval and renaissance Iberian nuns.

The project was developed by Paula Cardoso at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra - Barcelona.

Translating science to the public

MOOC - Inside the Convent: Books and Images in female monastic life

1- Cardoso, Paula (2022), “Shaping an Observant identity: Narrative and image in the service of reform in the Portuguese Dominican nunneries”, Haude Morvan and Eduardo Carrero Santamaría (coord.), L’ordre dominicain dans la péninsule Ibérique: nouvelles perspectives de recherche en histoire de l’art (xiiie-xvie siècles), Dossier des Mélanges de la Casa de Velázquez. Nouvelle série, 52 (2), 2022, pp. 127-152

(Under development)

Regra de Santa Clara, Il. 208, fl, 1r, Biblioteca Nacional de Portugal

Participation in scientific meetings

• Cardoso, Paula (2021) “Literacy and Learning in the Dominican nunneries of Late-Medieval Portugal” in Leeds Medieval Congress 2021.

• Cardoso, Paula (2021), “Books for the use of nuns: Gender and religious identity in liturgical books from the sixteenth-century Portuguese nunneries”, in Jornadas Internacionales Espacios Religiosos, Poder y Género. Monasterios femeninos y mundos Ibéricos, perspectiva comparada. S. XVI, XVII y XVIII, Rome/Mexico, 2021.
  

• Cardoso, Paula (2022), “Picturing a Renewed Spirituality: The Colettine Reform and the Use of Art in the Portuguese Communities of Poor Clares”, in Leeds International Medieval Congress 2022.
  

• Cardoso, Paula (2022), “Reforming Portuguese female mendicancy: Women as agents of change", in Beyond Exceptionalism II: Women in Medieval Society, John Rylands Research Institute and Library, Manchester, 2022.
  

• Cardoso, Paula (2022), "Nuns on the move: Travelling beyond enclosure in late-medieval Portugal" in GEMELA - Women's Words Beyond Borders, 2022.
  

• Cardoso, Paula (2023), "De transitu sororum: The liturgy of death in the Dominican convent of Aveiro – Performance, material culture and memory". In International Conference Renewal and Religious Identity in the Iberian Convents (ca. 1400-1600), Barcelona, 2023.
  

• Cardoso, Paula (2023), "Between the convent and the people: Miraculous objects, shared devotions and the reform of female mendicancy in late medieval Portugal." International Medieval Congress Leeds 2023.
  

Cover image: Jorge Afonso(?), Aparição de um anjo a Santa Clara, Santa Ines e Santa Coleta, Museu/Convento de Jesus de Setúbal

This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie IF grant agreement No 101030153.