Unconventual Women in the Habsburg Low Countries, 1585–1794
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- ISBN 9789462986343
- Dimensions: 156 x 234mm
- Publication Date: 24 Aug 2026
- Publisher: Amsterdam University Press
- Publication City/Country: NL
- Product Form: Hardback
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This book examines the Court Beguinages, a fascinating group of semi-monastic female communities that were endemic to cities of the Southern Low Countries from the thirteenth century into the twentieth.
Their members, called Beguines, played fundamental social and religious roles in their communities, and they also became major patrons of art and architecture, building vast complexes and filling them with paintings, sculptures, prints, textiles, and all sorts of other decorative objects. As the first comprehensive and primary source-driven account of Court Beguinage visual culture, this study explores the historical importance of these institutions and reveals how the Beguines used buildings and images to support devotional practice, shape public perception, raise funds, and negotiate power relationships during the Counter Reformation.
Unconventual Women in the Habsburg Low Countries is intended for scholars and students of Early Modern history, art and architectural history, cultural history, religious history, and women’s and gender studies.
Sarah Joan Moran is an independent scholar focused on early modern women and their relationships to visual culture. She received her PhD in the History of Art and Architecture from Brown University in 2010, and her work has been funded by the Fulbright Foundation, Belgian American Educational Foundation, the Swiss National Science Foundation, the European Research Council, and the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study. From 2009 to 2103 she held a junior faculty post at the University of Bern, and at Utrecht University she was Assistant Professor of Art before 1850 in 2017–2018, and Associate Professor of Art before 1850 from 2018 until 2022. Dr. Moran currently works as a developmental editor and freelance exhibition curator.
