Enfilade

From Routledge (and discounted until December 31, with code ADC26) . . .

Sarah Joan Moran, Unconventual Women in the Habsburg Low Countries, 1585–1794: Visual Culture at the Court Beguinages (New York: Routledge, 2026), 352 pages, ISBN: 978-9462986343, $234.

This book examines the Court Beguinages, a fascinating group of semi-monastic female communities that were endemic to cities of the Southern Low Countries from the thirteenth century into the twentieth. Their members, called Beguines, played fundamental social and religious roles in their communities, and they also became major patrons of art and architecture, building vast complexes and filling them with paintings, sculptures, prints, textiles, and all sorts of other decorative objects. As the first comprehensive and primary source-driven account of Court Beguinage visual culture, this study explores the historical importance of these institutions and reveals how the Beguines used buildings and images to support devotional practice, shape public perception, raise funds, and negotiate power relationships during the Counter-Reformation. Unconventual Women in the Habsburg Low Countries is intended for scholars and students of early modern history, art and architectural history, cultural history, religious history, and women’s and gender studies.

Sarah Joan Moran is an interdisciplinary historian focused on early modern women and their relationships to visual culture. She received her PhD in the History of Art and Architecture from Brown University in 2010, and her work has been funded by the Fulbright Foundation, Belgian American Educational Foundation, the Swiss National Science Foundation, the European Research Council, and the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study. From 2009 to 2013, she held a junior faculty post at the University of Bern; and at Utrecht University, she was Assistant Professor of Art before 1850 in 2017–18 and Associate Professor of Art before 1850 from 2018 until 2022. Dr. Moran currently holds a research faculty appointment in the Department of Theology at the University of Oslo.

c o n t e n t s

Introduction
1  Beguine Visual Culture in Context
2  The Architecture of the Court Beguinages
3  A ‘Monastic Makeover’: Art and the Consolidation of Beguine Identity in the Counter Reformation
4  Models of Piety: Portrayals of Beguines and Their Audiences
5  Inside Beguine Homes: Material Culture, Devotion, and Family Ties
6  Inside Beguine Churches: Patterns of Patronage and Devotion
7  Framing the Mass: The Altars and Their Altarpieces
8  Beguine Church Furniture for Sacrament, Sermon, and Song
Conclusions