Some New Sources for the Life of Blessed Agnes of Bohemia
Including a Fourteenth-Century Latin Version (Bamberg, Misc. Hist. 146, E. VII, 19): and a Fifteenth-Century German Version (Berlin, Germ. Oct. 484)

An important contribution to the study of Agnes of Bohemia, a key figure in early Franciscan female spirituality.

Walter W. Seton (Author)

9781108017602, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 26 August 2010

200 pages, 6 b/w illus.
21.6 x 14 x 1.2 cm, 0.26 kg

Walter Seton's 1915 book focuses on one of the key, understudied figures of the early Franciscan movement. Abbess of the Convent of Prague, Blessed Agnes was central to the establishment of the Order of Saint Clare. She presented persuasive arguments to convince the Holy See to permit female Franciscans to live according to their Rule and practise voluntary poverty. Seton's edition, drawn from manuscripts in German libraries, includes the oldest extant Latin version of Agnes' Life together with a fifteenth-century German version and German copies of four letters she received from Saint Clare. Praised in 1916 for its 'admirable thoroughness', this edition sheds new light on Blessed Agnes, whose importance was long overshadowed by her more prominent contemporaries, Saint Clare and Saint Elizabeth of Hungary, her cousin. This reissue makes this valuable primary material accessible again to scholars working on Franciscan history and medieval women's spirituality.

Introduction
The fourteenth century Latin version of the legend
The fifteenth century German version of the legend
The fourteenth century German version of Saint Clare's letters to Blessed Agnes and of the Benediction of Saint Clare
Appendices.

Subject Areas: Ancient history: to c 500 CE [HBLA]