Hearing prayers recited in community, seeing a crucifix hanging in the chapel, or holding a devotional book were not only everyday experiences in monastic life, but also events that regularly appeared in medieval nuns' visionary lives. In the book and multimedia online publication, Sensual Encounters, Erika Lindgren examines how Dominican nuns and lay sisters located in six southern German houses during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries interpreted their surroundings and incorporated their sensory experiences into their spiritual and devotional lives. Lindgren explores the relationships between belief, practice, and environment by considering how medieval nuns culturally constructed their spirituality as well as how spirituality reshaped their understanding of everyday experiences.
Lindgren describes the “sensual environment” created in the carefully defined Dominican communities shaped by architecture, artwork, sounds, silences, and texts. This project, a revision of her dissertation, is important because, among other reasons, Dominican women have been relatively understudied. Not allowed to participate in the mendicant life of their male counterparts, they engaged in a different sort of poverty that relied on asceticism and mysticism within their cloistered communities. Thus, Dominican women provide an interesting lens through which to examine medieval feminine spirituality. By using “sister books,” that is, records of communal life, Lindgren's focus provides insight into the ordinary rather than the great women of the order.
The bulk of the book contains thoughtful analyses of four specific areas of the monastic environment. First, Lindgren documents the spatial environment, particularly noting how architectural elements and functionality in different parts of the monastery provided different spiritual outlets. These claims were richly supported by anecdotal evidence. Second, she discusses how paintings and sculptures provided an important backdrop for spirituality. The material culture of the monastic world bore significant influence on these women. Devotional art ultimately could lead to levitation, trances, and even mystical union with God. While paintings provided visual inspiration, sculptures also allowed the women to incorporate their sense of touch as they rubbed the wounded feet of a crucifix or dressed a sculpture for a procession. Besides these more obvious forms of art, Lindgren notes that textiles, medallions, and gravestones also connected women to the spiritual lives of central Christian figures as well as their predecessors in the order. Lindgren also examines the acoustic environment, uncovering how both silence and sound played central roles in the communal and individual lives of the nuns. Singing, prayers, preaching, talking, conversation, communal reading, crying, screams, bells ringing, boards banging, and silence itself shaped spirituality. Whether it was the Apostle John speaking in a vision or the persistent keeping of silence among the sisters, these aural experiences often drew on the sounds heard every day and were frequently connected to space.
Finally, Lindgren examines the roles that texts—the intersection between hearing, seeing, and touching—played in the life of the community. These monasteries dealt with the change from purely written Latin to more extensive vernacular writing in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, so many of the sources contain a mix of the two. Likewise, the nuns' visions also contain a mix of Latin and German, combining words and phrases familiar from the Mass and office. Latin had authority attached to it while the vernacular lent a sense of individuality to the visions. Women also not only could recite texts, but could read, copy, and even compose their own texts for their community.
This book was simultaneously published as part of the Gutenberg e-history on-line series and as a print text edition. The online edition can be found at http://www.gutenberg-e.org/lindgren/. The online edition creates a multimedia experience that the printed edition does not provide. For example, many of the images Lindgren discusses in the book are available in the online edition. These added images provide the reader with a sense of the visual and spatial environments that she so thoroughly describes in her book. Readers should be warned, however, that when they click on the image to see the enlarged image, the “back” button returns users to the top of the page rather than where the image is in the online text, so some navigation is involved in the process. The format is generally user-friendly and the font is easily readable. Users can easily move back and forth between the endnotes for each chapter and the text. The online version is the “actual” version of the text and the one that should be recommended to readers because it provides a much fuller sense of the world that Lindgren so engagingly discusses. Another added benefit is that the online work is an open access work and therefore is free for users. The disadvantages beyond some of the clunky navigation are simply that there is no way to mark the text and it is unclear how long this book will continue to be hosted. The physical book provides readers the opportunity to interact more fully with the text by writing in the book, holding the book, and so forth. It is perhaps ironic that Lindgren understands texts as a true combination of the senses of seeing, hearing, and touching, and yet her own book is understood primarily as an online publication, depriving readers of the chance to hold the book in their own hands.
Regarding the arguments themselves, they are quite persuasive. However, one is left with the impression that the approach was to create a composite portrait rather than the diversity among the six houses she deftly surveys. This lingering question, however, is a minor criticism, and perhaps one which Lindgren will address in future projects—both in print and online—that deal with this rich yet understudied subject. Lindgren's careful and thorough research is evident as is her deep understanding of the medieval world. This book provides a rich discussion of materials for those interested in female spirituality and the close relationship between social setting, beliefs, and practices.
