Books by Sarah Joan Moran
NV reserves the right to protect the publication against unauthorized use and to authorize dissem... more NV reserves the right to protect the publication against unauthorized use and to authorize dissemination by means of offprints, legitimate photocopies, microform editions, reprints, translations, and secondary information sources, such as abstracting and indexing services including databases. Requests for commercial re-use, use of parts of the publication, and/or translations must be addressed to Koninklijke Brill NV.
Book Chapters by Sarah Joan Moran
Campaspe Talks Back: Women Who Made a Difference in Early Modern Art, 2024
Brueghel: The Family Reunion, 2023
Women and Gender in the Early Modern Low Countries 1500-1750, 2019
Women and Gender in the Early Modern Low Countries, 1500 - 1750, 2019
On July 21 of 1640, the 100-year anniversary of the founding of the Jesuit order, a short but gra... more On July 21 of 1640, the 100-year anniversary of the founding of the Jesuit order, a short but grand procession took place inside the Antwerp Jesuit church (Figs. 8.1, 8.2).1 Members of the community's Marian sodality, a confraternity dedicated to the promotion of the cult of the Virgin, carried a statue of Our Lady of Scherpenheuvel ( 3) from the church's northern lateral chapel, where it had been kept temporarily, back to the southern chapel. The latter had been erected in c. 1620/21-1622 specifically to house this statue, and its walls had just recently been covered with panels of intricately carved, multicolored Italian marble.2
Peer-reviewed Articles by Sarah Joan Moran
Proposing activity as a useful category of analysis, this special issue considers Catholic and P... more Proposing activity as a useful category of analysis, this special issue considers Catholic and Protestant women in Europe and the Americas in the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries. We examine women in religious communities, which include both monastic communities as well as confessional communities. A close analysis of the social, economic, and cultural actions of these women religious challenges historiographical assumptions about monastic cloister and domestic space in the early modern period. In fact, we revisit monastic and domestic spaces to reveal them as stages for previously unexamined activity. This cross-denominational and transnational special issue highlights new spheres of women’s religious activity and raises new questions for the study of early modern women’s lives and their capacity to act in early modern society, economy, and culture.
From the thirteenth century through the nineteenth, the Court Beguinages, large semi-monastic com... more From the thirteenth century through the nineteenth, the Court Beguinages, large semi-monastic communities for women called Beguines, were integral to urban life in the Catholic Low Countries. In the wake of the Dutch Revolt and reestablishment of Spanish rule in the Southern provinces from the mid-1580s, the Beguinages became increasingly aligned with the ideology of female monasticism, and particularly with the tradition of Mary and Martha: the mix of contemplative prayer and humble work that had traditionally been at the heart of tertiary convents and other active female congregations. While many Beguines did indeed make their livings from manual labor, the Beguinages also offered women of ambition unparalleled opportunities to take on leadership roles of great responsibility and authority. This essay examines the labor of Beguinage administration in the early modern period and situates the careers of Beguine leaders in their social and gendered contexts.
Online Publication by Sarah Joan Moran
Conceived and edited by Christine Göttler (University of Bern) and Sarah Joan Moran (University o... more Conceived and edited by Christine Göttler (University of Bern) and Sarah Joan Moran (University of Bern/University of Antwerp), in collaboration with Sven Dupré (Max Planck Institute for the History of Science/Freie Universität Berlin), this website provides access to a complete transcription and translation of the 1617 probate inventory of the moveable goods belonging to Portuguese merchant-banker Emmanuel Ximenez and his wife Isabel da Vega in Antwerp. The translation of the inventory (completed by Sarah Joan Moran) is accompanied by analytical essays written by twenty-one authors on various categories of Ximenez's and da Vega's possessions, Ximenez's town house and country estate, his correspondence with the Florentine glassmaker Antonio Neri (1601-1603), and the world of the Portuguese New Christian community in Antwerp to which he belonged.
The spaces mentioned in the inventory link Ximenez's Antwerp house, on the one hand, to the 'world spaces' that the Portuguese merchants (among them the Ximenez family), helped to shape and create through the extraordinary reach of their trading network; on the other, to the urban environment of the city of Antwerp, which due to its "great gatherings" of merchants, traders, craftsmen, and artisans of all nations, was considered a marketplace of the world.
Book Reviews by Sarah Joan Moran
Conference, Panel, & Workshop Organization by Sarah Joan Moran
Uploads
Books by Sarah Joan Moran
Book Chapters by Sarah Joan Moran
Peer-reviewed Articles by Sarah Joan Moran
Online Publication by Sarah Joan Moran
The spaces mentioned in the inventory link Ximenez's Antwerp house, on the one hand, to the 'world spaces' that the Portuguese merchants (among them the Ximenez family), helped to shape and create through the extraordinary reach of their trading network; on the other, to the urban environment of the city of Antwerp, which due to its "great gatherings" of merchants, traders, craftsmen, and artisans of all nations, was considered a marketplace of the world.
Book Reviews by Sarah Joan Moran
Conference, Panel, & Workshop Organization by Sarah Joan Moran
The spaces mentioned in the inventory link Ximenez's Antwerp house, on the one hand, to the 'world spaces' that the Portuguese merchants (among them the Ximenez family), helped to shape and create through the extraordinary reach of their trading network; on the other, to the urban environment of the city of Antwerp, which due to its "great gatherings" of merchants, traders, craftsmen, and artisans of all nations, was considered a marketplace of the world.
18 mai 2017
Atelier du Gemca
Université catholique de Louvain
Margriet Hoogvliet (University of Groningen), « Multilingual and multi sensory devotion in the Religious Household (Flanders, Picardie, 15th-16th century) »
Sarah Joan Moran (Utrecht University), « Inside Beguine Houses in the Counter-Reformation: Visual Culture, Devotion, and Family Ties »
Women were fundamental actors in early modern Low Countries society, not only shaping the domestic sphere but also playing major roles in the dynamic environment of economic, artistic, and cultural exchange of both the Catholic Southern Netherlands (present-day Belgium and Luxembourg) and the Protestant Northern Netherlands (the modern-day Netherlands, founded during the Dutch revolt at the end of the sixteenth century). The Habsburg territories were governed by a string of women rulers, from Margaret of Austria (1480 – 1530) and Mary of Hungary (1505 – 1558) to the archduchess Isabella of Spain (1566 – 1633). More ordinary Netherlandish women ran businesses, pursued careers as painters and writers, joined religious communities, helped steer the course of debates between Protestants and Catholics, and patronized the arts. The wealthier among them had their portraits painted by the most famous artists of their time – Rubens, Van Dyck, and Rembrandt – while women of lesser means might find themselves in difficult situations, eking out a living in the “shadow” market for untaxed goods or imprisoned for committing crimes. At the same time, evolving traditions of the visual representation of women both reflected and determined attitudes towards gender. Understanding women’s roles in Netherlandish society and the formative part played by visual culture in defining these roles is critical for gaining a fuller picture of early modern Flemish and Dutch culture; yet despite remarkably rich archival and material resources, this field remains in many ways undeveloped.
The conference “Considering Women in the Early Modern Low Countries” represents a major step towards redressing this problem. It will be the first conference to focus on historical Netherlandish women in both the North and the South, and the program’s structure invites participants and attendees to make comparisons across the political and religious border. The conference is highly interdisciplinary: the speakers comprise eight art historians, seven social historians, and three literary scholars, and our panel chairs likewise come from diverse academic backgrounds. Subthemes that will be addressed include:
The representation of gender in the visual arts
Women as authors and artists
Women and aging
Marriage and family
Women’s work and economic roles
Convent culture and nuns’ textual and visual practices
Women’s artistic patronage
Women as religious activists
Women’s material culture
Gender in the legal system
Women’s fashion and dress
Traditional and innovative historical sources and methodologies
“Considering Women in the Early Modern Low Countries” will increase exchange among scholars working on these questions, and also aims to inspire both established and emerging researchers to take up the study of Netherlandish women.