{"id":7715,"date":"2021-04-14T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-04-14T16:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/manuscript-studies\/?p=7715"},"modified":"2021-06-01T11:26:11","modified_gmt":"2021-06-01T15:26:11","slug":"could-medieval-women-read","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/manuscript-studies\/2021\/04\/14\/could-medieval-women-read\/","title":{"rendered":"Could Medieval Women Read?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

As a specialist in the study of women\u2019s education and literacy in England in the Middle Ages, I\u2019m asked this question a lot. I\u2019ll cut to the chase: YES. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

How do we know this? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Medieval England (on which I\u2019ll focus this blog) was a multilingual nation.1<\/a><\/sup> English had been its primary vernacular from the time of the Anglo-Saxons (about 450) until the Norman Conquest of 1066, when French became the language of the nobility, government, and diplomacy.2<\/a><\/sup> By the mid-fifteenth century, though, English had reasserted dominance as the primary vernacular language, while the Church, clerics, and higher education continued to use Latin.3<\/a><\/sup> Because medieval English people would have heard and used all three languages in daily life, children were taught to read and speak all of them.4<\/a><\/sup> Whether children\u2019s reading knowledge became advanced depended on the importance of reading in their lives and what socioeconomic station they attained. In fact, most of the evidence for literacy survives from the upper classes; uncovering the history of less privileged groups remains difficult. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In infantia<\/em><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Medieval scholars commonly thought of childhood in three divisions: infantia<\/em> (birth to about 7 years), pueritia<\/em> (about 7 to 14 years), and adolescentia<\/em> (about 14 to 21 years).5<\/a><\/sup> The teaching of reading began in infantia<\/em> with parents and nurses, if the family could afford such help. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Girls and boys began by learning the letters of the Latin alphabet and the sounds they made. In this way they acquired the basic skills of early reading, called contemporaneously sillibicare <\/em>(sounding out syllables) and legere <\/em>(sounding out words), even if they didn\u2019t understand what those sounds or words meant.6<\/a><\/sup> Singing might have been used as well to teach pronunciation, as sung Latin was used in church services. Because reading was important to promote spiritual instruction, and had indeed been cited at least as far back as Jerome in the fourth century as a reason girls should be taught to read, some of the earliest texts learned were the Pater Noster<\/a>, the Ave<\/a>, and the Creed<\/a>. Alphabets and these simple prayers could be written out on a variety of surfaces: boards, painted walls, wooden trays covered in ash or sand, ceramic or metal vessels, or hand-held tablets made of materials such as slate, horn, or board covered in parchment (more on this below).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Beginning around 1300 in England, medieval parents had a model of teaching in St. Anne<\/a>, the mother of the Virgin Mary. Depictions of her teaching Mary to read appeared in stained-glass windows, manuscript illuminations, wall paintings, and other artistic representations.7<\/a><\/sup> One such survives today in the Church of St. Nicholas in Stanford-on-Avon<\/a>, Northamptonshire, England.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Image
\u201cSaint Anne teaching the Virgin to Read,\u201d about 1330\u00ad\u201350, the Church of St. Nicholas, Stanford-on-Avon, Northamptonshire, England; south aisle, east window, farthest left panel. Image from Painton Cowen\u2019s The Online Stained Glass Photographic Archive<\/a>. <\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

In this window, Mary is shown sitting in Anne\u2019s lap and holding a bound book with letters written on its pages. She holds the book open so the text is visible to the reader. Her mother Anne points upward, in a gesture both teacherly and pointing heavenward, perhaps emphasizing the importance of reading for spiritual development.8<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This beautifully-painted miniature from a Book of Hours<\/a> shows Anne and a young Mary holding a book together. With her right hand, Anne isolates text for Mary to examine.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Saint Anne Teaching the Virgin to Read, a miniature painted by Master of Sir John Fastolf (French, active before about 1420\u2013about 1450), in a Book of Hours created in France or England about 1430\u20131440. Tempera colors and gold ink on parchment. Los Angeles, Getty Museum, MS 5 (84.ML.732), fol. 45v<\/a>. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Other surviving representations show Anne using a hornbook<\/a> (mentioned above) to teach Mary to read. This illustration comes from a Book of Hours that originated in England around 1325\u00ad\u20131300. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Douce 231, fol. 3<\/a> <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

This detail shows the hornbook more closely. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Though the hornbook was at least a medieval invention (discussed recently by Erik Kwakkel<\/a> and Trinity College, Cambridge, librarians<\/a>), it survives only from early modern centuries, as in this example, created in London around 1625. The text is printed on sheepskin parchment and fixed to an oak paddle with a brass frame and iron nails; the handle is used for holding the hornbook. The parchment is laminated over with a processed animal horn<\/a> (hence the name) to protect the text. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
“Aabc (English hornbook),” Washington, Folger Shakespeare Library, STC 13813.6<\/a> (dated 1625).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

A text from the 1230s, written by a layman, Walter of Bibbesworth, also reveals much about how boys and girls learned, especially languages, in a gentry household. Bibbesworth was a wealthy English landowner and a knight who wrote this book for his neighbor and fellow member of the gentry, Dionisie de Munchensi. Dionisie had three young children to educate, and as part of the expectations of their class, they would have needed to learn a French more advanced than what they would have picked up through everyday living. The image below shows the opening leaf of Walter of Bibbesworth\u2019s Tretiz<\/em>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
The opening leaf of Walter of Bibbesworth\u2019s Tretiz. The manuscript dates from 1325. London, British Library, Additional MS 46919, fol. 2r.<\/a> <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Walter addresses Dionisie in column 1, lines 10-20, identifying the purpose of his text: \u201cChere soer, pur ceo ke vous me \/ pryastes ke jeo meyse en ecsryst [sic] \/ pur vos enfaunz acune apryse \/ de fraunceys en breve paroles\u201d (Dear sister, because you have asked that I put in writing something for your children to learn French in brief phrases). What follows is a narrative poem, beginning in column 1, line 21, that describes childhood, starting with birth and ending in young adulthood with a large household feast. In each scene, Walter presents French vocabulary for Dionisie\u2019s children to learn. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many clues in the text demonstrate that the physical book was shown to children so they could learn the reading of words on a page, not just the sounds of them. Walter gives many homophones, for example, that would only make sense in writing, rather than in pronunciation. Some of the vocabulary also has English translations written in between the lines of the main text. You can see this in the image above in the poem, which starts at column 1, line 21, and goes into column two. All the smaller words written between the lines give the English translation of the main text, which is written in French.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In pueritia<\/em> and adolescentia<\/em><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Once they moved into pueritia<\/em> (about 7-14 years of age), girls of the upper classes would often transition into the care of a mistress (called at that time magistra<\/em>, magistrix<\/em>, or maitresse<\/em>). The mistress provided education in such things as deportment, embroidery, dancing, music, and reading.9<\/a><\/sup> For any skills the mistress did not herself have, she could bring in other household members, such as the minstrel for musical training, the chaplain for more advanced reading and spiritual instruction, and the huntsman for hunting. Specialized academic tutors could teach girls more advanced academic subjects. Sometimes these well-to-do girls were sent to other households to be fostered, serving as ladies-in-waiting to upper-class women. Girls, especially those of the upper classes, could be sent to nunneries as well (sometimes beginning in infantia<\/em>) for education. Not all girls sent to nunneries were meant for the vocation of nun.10<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

As their reading abilities progressed, girls and boys moved on to reading comprehension (intelligere<\/em>) and began to read more sophisticated spiritual texts, such as prayer-books<\/a>, books of hours, psalters<\/a>, antiphonals<\/a>, and saints\u2019 lives<\/a>. They also would continue on, as personal libraries grew in the thirteenth century, in reading romances<\/a>, histories, poetry, classical authors, theology, philosophy, and more. It is most likely, given that women were not admitted to the university (unlike boys, who could progress from this stage to Latin grammar school and then on at a university level to the study of business, liberal arts, medicine, canon or civil law, or theology), that the reading of these last few would have been limited to girls whose families could afford private tutors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Miscellany of religious, medical, and secular verse and prose in French, Latin and English. Oxford, Bodleian Libraries, MS Digby 86, fol. 68r<\/a>. Produced in Worcestershire, England, c.1271\u201383, this \u201ccommon-place book\u201d contains French, Latin and eighteen English texts of various genres including fabliau, romances, devotional and didactic texts, prognostications, charms and prayers, among others written between 1271 and 1283. The manuscript was written by its owner and has amateurish scribal drawings and decoration. This image shows three sections of French text: the end of the hymn Veni Creator Spiritus<\/em> (Come, Creator Spirit) (top 11 lines); a list of the unlucky days in the year (middle section of the text); and at the bottom a list of Arabic numerals 1 through 46. Three shields decorate the bottom. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In adulthood<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

By the time they reached adulthood, women who were privileged enough to have obtained a sophisticated education and their own libraries could be avid readers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Gospel lectionary written in Latin, made in England c.1025\u201350, later owned by St. Margaret of Scotland. Oxford, Bodleian Libraries, MS. Lat. liturg. f. 5, fols. 21v\u201322r<\/a>. This opening shows St. Luke with the start of his gospel reading. The Bodleian Libraries digital Treasures exhibition notes: \u201cA compact selection of passages from the Gospels, this finely illustrated book was Margaret\u2019s favourite, and one she read and studied closely, even when she travelled. A poem added at the front describes how this very book was dropped into a river but remained almost unharmed: this miracle contributed to her growing reputation for holiness.\u201d<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The historical and literary records provide examples of such sophisticated learning, primarily among the nobility. For example, the Norman monk and chronicler Robert of Torigni (c.1110\u20131186), praised the education of St. Margaret of Scotland (d. 1093) and her daughter Matilda (1080\u20131118), wife of Henry I, writing, \u201cQuantae autem sanctitatis et scientiae tam saecularis quam spiritualis utraque regina, Margareta scilicet et Mathildis, fuerint\u201d (Of how great holiness and learning, as well secular as spiritual, were these two queens, Margaret and Matilda).11<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a different Latin life, commissioned by Matilda about her mother Margaret, the biographer describes how Margaret from her childhood would \u201cin Divinarum lectionum studio sese occupare, et in his animum delectabiliter exercere\u201d (occupy herself with the study of the Holy Scriptures, and delightfully exercise her mind) and notes that her husband, King Malcom III, cherished the \u201clibros, in quibus ipsa vel orare consueverat, vel legere\u201d (books, which she herself used either for prayer or reading), even though Malcom himself could not read Latin.12<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
London, British Library, Harley MS 2952<\/a>, fol. 19v. Book of Hours, made in France c.1400\u20131425. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

This image above shows the unidentified female patron of this Book of Hours<\/a> kneeling on a prie-dieu, her prayer book open to the text \u201cMaria mater gratiae<\/a>\u201d (Mary, mother of grace). This open book with its discernable text has several functions: it leads the reader into the  prayer; it demonstrates the piety of the patron, kneeling in prayer before both her spiritual book and the Blessed Virgin and Christ (illustrated on the facing leaf); and it shows one of the primary purposes of teaching children to read: being able to use spiritual texts in personal devotion. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even women who were not noble and who were not able to read much Latin possessed and used books such as the one pictured above. In the mid-fifteenth century Englishwoman Margery Kempe wrote through her scribe of a memorable time in her church of St. Margaret in King\u2019s Lynn when a chunk of masonry fell from the ceiling down onto her as she was praying with her prayer book in hand. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The image below comes from her Book of Margery Kempe<\/em> as preserved in London, British Library, Additional MS 61823. Lines 24-28 narrate, \u201cSche knelyd upon hir \/ kneys heldyng down hir hed. and hir boke in hir hand. \/ pra<\/em>yng owyr lord cri<\/em>st ihes<\/em>u for grace and<\/em> for mer<\/em>cy. Sodeynly fel \/ down fro \u00fee heyest party of \u00fee cherche<\/em> vowte fro undyr \/ \u00fee fote of \u00fee sparre on hir hed and<\/em> on hir bakke a ston \/ whech weyd .iii. pownd\u201d (She knelt on her knees, bowing down her head and holding her book in her hand, praying to our Lord Christ Jesus for grace and mercy. Suddenly fell down from the highest party of the church out from under the foot of the rafter onto her head and her book a stone which weighed three pounds). She survived, for which she credited the mercy of Christ.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
The Book of Margery Kempe, online facsimile and documentary edition hosted by Southeastern Louisiana University, project director Joel Fredell. London, British Library, Additional MS 61823, fol. 11r<\/a>. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Finally, a note on those of the working classes. I have not discussed them in detail as it is unfortunately difficult, in fact nearly impossible, to say much about the reading skills of those who left few or no records behind: the great majority of women (and men) of the medieval population were laborers who left little trace in the written record. Yet as we see from the image here below, even for working women, especially in the last few centuries of the Middle Ages, possession and use of books was within the norm, provided those books could be afforded. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
A woman attendant reading a book, from La Bible historiale <\/em>of Guyart des Moulins, c. 1470s. London, British Library, Royal MS 15 D I, fol. 18<\/a>.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Conclusion<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

My focus here has been tightly on the teaching of reading to medieval English girls. Girls and boys alike were taught to read, and began their reading education in the same ways. Boys alone could attend the medieval university and reach the highest (and best educated) ranks of clerics, but if girls had access to the right resources, they too could be highly educated. The evidence demonstrates that the teaching of reading was not linked specifically to gender; rather, it was a function of both socioeconomic station and the usefulness of such skills for one\u2019s life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you\u2019re interested in this topic, I cover the subject in much greater detail, with many other examples and suggested readings, in my article, \u201cWomen\u2019s Education and Literacy in England, 1066\u20131540<\/a>,\u201d in the “Medieval and Early Modern Education” special issue of\u00a0History of Education Quarterly<\/em>, and the accompanying HEQ&A<\/a> podcast.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Megan J. Hall, Ph.D.
University of Notre Dame<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Twitter @meganjhallphd<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

[1]<\/sup><\/a> On languages in medieval England, see Amanda Hopkins, Judith Anne Jefferson, and Ad Putter, Multilingualism in Medieval Britain (c. 1066\u20131520): Sources and Analysis <\/em>(Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2012).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[2]<\/sup><\/a> W. M. Ormrod, \u201cThe Use of English: Language, Law, and Political Culture in Fourteenth-Century England,\u201d Speculum <\/em>78, no. 3 (July 2003), 750\u201387, at 755; and William Rothwell, \u201cLanguage and Government in Medieval England,\u201d Zeitschrift f\u00fcr franz\u00f6sische Sprache und Literatur<\/em> 93, no. 3 (1983), 258\u201370.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[3]<\/sup><\/a> David Bell, What Nuns Read: Books and Libraries in Medieval English Nunneries<\/em> (Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 1995), 57.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[4]<\/sup><\/a> On the complexities of a trilingual England, with a number of helpful citations therein for further reading, see Christopher Cannon, \u201cVernacular Latin,\u201d Speculum <\/em>90, no. 3 (July 2015), 641\u201353. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

[5]<\/sup><\/a> A variety of frameworks were imposed upon the ages of humankind, though these major divisions for the stages of childhood were fairly commonly accepted. For a discussion, see Nicholas Orme, From Childhood to Chivalry: the Education of the English Kings and Aristocracy, 1066-1530<\/em> (London: Methuen, 1984), 5\u20137; and Daniel T. Kline, \u201cFemale Childhoods,\u201d in The Cambridge Companion to Medieval Women\u2019s Writing<\/em>, ed. Carolyn Dinshaw and David Wallace (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 13\u201320, at 13.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[6]<\/sup><\/a> Jocelyn Wogan-Browne, \u201c\u2018Invisible Archives?\u2019 Later Medieval French in England,\u201d Speculum<\/em> 90, no. 3 (July 2015), 653\u201373. For more on levels of reading Latin, see Bell, What Nuns Read<\/em>, 59\u201360; and Malcolm B. Parkes, \u201cThe Literacy of the Laity,\u201d in Scribes, Scripts, and Readers: Studies in the Communication, Presentation, and Dissemination of Medieval Texts<\/em>, 1976<\/em> (London: Hambledon Press, 1991), 275\u201397, at 275.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[7]<\/sup><\/a> On the cult of St. Anne and the teaching of reading, see Nicholas Orme, Medieval Children <\/em>(New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2001), 244\u201345; and Clanchy, \u201cDid Mothers Teach their Children to Read?,\u201d in Motherhood, Religion, and Society in Medieval Europe, 400\u20131400: Essays Presented to Henrietta Leyser<\/em>, ed. Conrad Leyser and Lesley Smith (Farnham, UK: Ashgate, 2011), 129\u201353. For further examples and a detailed analysis of the Education of the Virgin motif, see Wendy Scase, \u201cSt. Anne and the Education of the Virgin,\u201d in England in the Fourteenth Century: Proceedings of the 1991 Harlaxton Symposium<\/em>, ed. Nicholas Rogers (Stamford, UK: Paul Watkins, 1993), 81\u201398.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[8]<\/sup><\/a> For a discussion of this window, see Orme, Medieval Children<\/em>, <\/em>244\u201345.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[9]<\/sup><\/a> Boys (especially royal princes) typically followed the same path of moving from the nursery into the care of an educator-caretaker: pedagogus <\/em>(a term used into the eleventh century) or magister<\/em> or me[i]stre <\/em>(terms in use from the twelfth century forward) (Orme, From Childhood to Chivalry<\/em>, 19).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[10]<\/sup><\/a> Excellent reading on the education of girls in nunneries is found in Eileen Power, Medieval English Nunneries, c. 1275 to 1535<\/em> (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1922); Alexandra Barratt, \u201cSmall Latin? The Post-Conquest Learning of English Religious Women,\u201d in Anglo-Latin and Its Heritage, Essays in Honour of A. G. Rigg on His 64th Birthday<\/em>, ed. Si\u00e2n Echard and Gernot R. Wieland (Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2001), 51\u201365; and J. G. Clark, \u201cMonastic Education in Late Medieval England,\u201d in The Church and Learning in Late Medieval Society: Essays in Honour of R. B. Dobson; Proceedings of the 1999 Harlaxton Symposium<\/em>, ed. Caroline Barron and Jenny Stratford (Donington, UK: Shaun Tyas\/Paul Watkins, 2002), 25\u201340; and Dorothy Gardiner, English Girlhood at School: A Study of Women’s Education Through Twelve Centuries <\/em>(Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1929).<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

[11<\/sup><\/a>]<\/sup> Robert of Torigni [Robertus de Monte], Historia nortmannorum liber octavus de Henrico I rege anglorum et duce northmannorum<\/em>, ed. J.-P. Migne, Patrologia cursus completus, series latina 149 (Paris, 1853), col. 886; translated in \u201cHistory of King Henry the First, by Robert de Monte,\u201d ed. Joseph Stevenson, The Church Historians of England<\/em> vol. 2, part 1 (London, 1858), 10.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[12]<\/sup><\/a> Transcribed in Symeonis Dunelmensis Opera et Collectanea<\/em>, ed. J. Hodgson Hinde, vol. 1 (London, 1868), at 238, 241, from the version preserved in London, British Library, Cotton MS Tiberius D iii, fols. 179v\u2013186r (late twelfth century).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As a specialist in the study of women\u2019s education and literacy in England in the Middle Ages, I\u2019m asked this question a lot. I\u2019ll cut to the chase: YES.  How do we know this?  Medieval England (on which I\u2019ll focus this blog) was a multilingual nation.1 English had been its primary vernacular from the time … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Could Medieval Women Read?”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1966,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[67956,43988,56012,264206,264216,264210,460589],"tags":[483895,483896,483907,76007,75943,73961,76067,264218,483913,483926,5954,324767,18046,264328,73910,43988,49529,103,77966,56012,483927,264310,264404,483902,8874,483891,75988,324722,483918,264298,64,14827,483925,483923,483924,483893,76056,49776,483905,483928,264454,12687,324727,264269,324788,31144,43989,49528,483892,55936,73938,75998,264270,249772,73901,483911,483915,264419,76025,483919,483912,324659,76045,48604,483908,460523,483933,483934,264293,483936,9740,16403,75937,16418,483894,483916,483906,73913,468570,483909,324741,483901,483903,17872,73442,483922],"class_list":["post-7715","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-art-history","category-digital-humanities","category-english","category-history-disciplines","category-manuscript-studies","category-romance-languages-and-literatures","category-womens-studies","tag-abc","tag-abcs","tag-adolescentia","tag-alphabet","tag-anglo-norman","tag-anglo-saxon","tag-annotations","tag-book-history","tag-book-of-hours","tag-book-of-margery-kempe-british-library","tag-children","tag-christine-de-pizan","tag-church","tag-church-history","tag-codicology","tag-digital-humanities","tag-early-modern","tag-education","tag-england","tag-english","tag-fathers","tag-female","tag-feminism","tag-fourteenth-century","tag-gender","tag-girls","tag-gloss","tag-grammar","tag-grammar-school","tag-hagiography","tag-higher-education","tag-history","tag-history-of-education","tag-history-of-literacy","tag-history-of-reading","tag-hornbook","tag-humanities","tag-illumination","tag-infantia","tag-labor-laborer","tag-laity","tag-language","tag-language-contact","tag-latin","tag-latin-learning","tag-learning","tag-libraries","tag-library","tag-literacy","tag-manuscript","tag-manuscripts","tag-marginalia","tag-margins","tag-material-history","tag-medieval","tag-medieval-church","tag-medieval-england","tag-medieval-history","tag-medieval-literature","tag-medieval-manuscript","tag-medieval-prayer-book","tag-medieval-studies","tag-middle-english","tag-motherhood","tag-mothers","tag-multilingualism","tag-norman","tag-nunnery","tag-nuns","tag-parenthood","tag-parents","tag-pedagogy","tag-piety","tag-prayer","tag-prayer-book","tag-psalter","tag-pueritia","tag-romance","tag-saints-lives","tag-st-anne","tag-stained-glass","tag-thirteenth-century","tag-twelfth-century","tag-virgin-mary","tag-women","tag-womens-history"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/manuscript-studies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7715","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/manuscript-studies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/manuscript-studies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/manuscript-studies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1966"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/manuscript-studies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7715"}],"version-history":[{"count":22,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/manuscript-studies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7715\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7872,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/manuscript-studies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7715\/revisions\/7872"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/manuscript-studies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7715"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/manuscript-studies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7715"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/manuscript-studies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7715"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}