Publisher's Synopsis
Contextual analysis of the representation of women and Jews in the fourteenth-century manuscripts of the German law book known as the Sachsenspiegel. A Germanist and an art historian examine the pictures and text in the four densely illustrated manuscripts of the Sachsenspiegel that were produced in the century following its composition by Eike von Repgow. This is the first extensive study of these famous picture books in English. Using critical frameworks based on performative and feminist theory, the authors give detailed consideration to the social differences reshaped and maintained by text and image. Although Eike's project, realized in the early 1220s, was concerned with peaceful interaction between diverse groups, including Slavic Wends as well as Germans, and with the provision of guardians for the young, the handicapped and the judicially impaired, his text is open to subversion by the images. Changing emphases in the pictures
