CONTENTS -- List of Illustrations -- Preface Gender, Power, and Patronage: The Impact of Penelope D. Johnson on Medieval Studies (Katherine Allen Smith and Scott Wells) -- List of Contributors -- Introduction Penelope D. Johnson, the Boswell Thesis, and Negotiating Community and Difference in Medieval Europe (Katherine Allen Smith and Scott Wells) -- PART I SHAPING IDENTITY THROUGH SACRED SPACES AND TEXTS -- Chapter One Living with a Saint: Monastic Identity, Community, and the Ideal of Asceticism in the Life of an Irish Saint (Diane Peters Auslander) -- Chapter Two A Tale of Two Dioceses: Prologues as Letters in the Vitae Authored by Jacques de Vitry and Thomas de Cantimpré (Christina Roukis-Stern) -- Chapter Three "Within the Walls of Paradise": Space and Community in the Vita of Umiliana de' Cerchi (1219-1246) (Anne M. Schuchman) -- Chapter Four Architectural Mimesis and Historical Memory at the Abbey of Mont-Saint-Michel (Katherine Allen Smith) -- Chapter Five Holy Women and the Needle Arts: Piety, Devotion, and Stitching the Sacred, ca. 500-1150 (Jane Tibbetts Schulenburg) -- PART II PARTNERSHIPS AND DEVOTIONS ACROSS THE GENDER DIVIDE -- Chapter Six The Politics of Gender and Ethnicity in East Francia: The Case of Gandersheim, ca. 850-950 (Scott Wells) -- Chapter Seven Noble Women's Power as Refl ected in the Foundations of Cistercian Houses for Nuns in Thirteenth-Century Northern France: Port-Royal, les Clairets, Moncey Lieu and Eau-lez-Chartres (Constance Hoffman Berman) -- Chapter Eight "Inseparable Companions": Mary Magdalene, Abelard, and Heloise (Susan Valentine) -- Chapter Nine Book, Body, and the Construction of the Self in the Taymouth Hours (Kathryn A. Smith) -- PART III BLOOD, EMBODIMENT, AND DEFINING SEPARATION -- Chapter Ten Abbot Erluin's Blindness: The Monastic Implications of Violent Loss of Sight (Susan Wade).

Chapter Eleven Blanche of Artois and Burgundy, Château-Gaillard, and the Baron de Joursanvault (Elizabeth A.R. Brown) -- Chapter Twelve The Matter of Others: Menstrual Blood and Uncontrolled Semen in Thirteenth-Century Kabbalists' Polemic against Christians, "Bad" Jews, and Muslims (Alexandra Cuffel) -- General Index -- Index of Manuscripts.