Is the VMS a work of female authors ?

[Koen G]

It would be interesting to hear why some people are so convinced that the VM was made by women. Does it go further than "many pictures of women, so made by women"?

To play the devil's advocate, I might say that for example it would be unlikely for a medieval male author to devote a work entirely to women. After all, people in those days were often utterly misogynistic by today's standards.

But there are counterexamples. The first one that comes to mind is the 14th century work "You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view." by the very male author Boccaccio. Even the title says "this book is about women", yet it is authored by a man. And conversely, Hildegard was a woman but there are plenty of men in the Scivias illustrations (Prophets, other biblical figures, normal people...). Here female figures are often allegorical, like the "bride of the Lamb" for the Church/Ecclesia; and Synagoga. I'm not 100% certain but I would guess there are considerably more men than women in her images.


Synagoga is full of bearded men.



My own opinion: we cannot say anything about the gender of the maker(s) based on the images. Especially since certain allegorical representations leaned towards the female. For example, there is ample evidence that male authors thought of their own soul (Latin anima ) as a female entity.

But again, I would be interested to hear arguments in favor of female authorship that are not simply based on the amount of female figures in the imagery.