The Ladies on the Hill: The Female Monastic Communities at the Aristocratic Monasteries of Klosterneuburg and St. George’s in Prague, ed. Jeffrey F. Hamburger and Eva Schlotheuber. FoKuS Kloster: Lebens- und Wissensräume religiöser Kulturen, 2. Vienna: Böhlau, 2024, 372 pp., numerous color ill.

Cloistered women in the Middle Ages enjoyed a much higher social status than previous scholarship has assumed so far. At two workshops, one held at Klosterneuburg near Vienna (June 14–16, 2021) and one held in Prague (St. George on the Hradčany, July 18–22, 2021), this hypothesis is tested and illustrated through a close analysis of a large number of local manuscripts produced by and for the nuns in both monasteries. The papers presented were subsequently prepared for publication and are contained in this volume. To learn about these events, however, we have to turn to p. 27 where the two editors final offer the essential explanation. The topic itself proves to be highly fascinating because the history of medieval nuns is still not well researched, although the archives are filled with relevant documents, as becomes clear throughout this volume.