Tucked away in a Nuremberg archive, sixty-one letters have survived as a unique testament concerning the life of a sixteenth-century Birgittine nun. Writing from the pastoral setting of a south German convent called Maria Mai during the years 1517–1533, Katerina Lemmel maintained a lively correspondence with her cousin Hans Imhoff. Imhoff, a wealthy businessman and Nuremberg patrician, was charged with shepherding Lemmel’s financial affairs during her years of monastic withdrawal. These affairs were surprisingly complex because Lemmel was continually requesting funds in order to improve life at her institution. Only the letters written by Lemmel have survived, not those sent in return by her cousin. Imhoff’s responses are evident, however, in Lemmel’s repeated gratitude for her cousin’s helpfulness in sending money and supplies. From melons and saffron to stonemasons and stained glass, all that was needed at Maria Mai is documented through Lemmel’s letters together with her wit, her piety, and her lively interest in the affairs of her extended family and their life in Nuremberg.

Corine Schleif and Volker Schier have taken on the admirable and ambitious task of publishing these letters in Katerina’s Windows. Beyond merely translating the letters from their original late medieval German into modern English and cataloguing their contents, Schleif and Schier have combed through the considerable archives that survive in Nuremberg, assembling exhaustive comparative materials to contextualize Lemmel’s world for her new readers. The book begins with an account of her life before joining the convent, piecing together what is known about her childhood, marriage, and business affairs. Gaps in the record are filled in with suggestions based on historical guesswork, and every effort is made to convey not only the facts of Lemmel’s existence but also a larger social history of the urban elite of late medieval Nuremberg. The letters are then presented in chronological order, and each is followed by a commentary that explains the letter and situates it within the larger arc of Lemmel’s life. The conclusion offers a short summary of the whole work, closing with some general observations on the role and position of women in sixteenth-century Germany.

There can be no doubting the great value of this project. The letters were previously known only through an abridged nineteenth-century edition; their translation and complete publication presents a welcome new perspective on many topics of great interest to scholars and students alike. Lemmel’s letters offer valuable insight into female monasticism and the world of the German elite during the age of Albrecht Dürer and Martin Luther. Lemmel herself emerges from the text as an appealing character, writing lively missives that give evocative impressions of sixteenth-century monastic experience. Her descriptions of daily life within a Birgittine convent, her expressions of joy and grief over events that occurred in the world outside, her careful tallying of her business affairs, her interest in art and architecture, and above all her unshakeable faith in her calling to the Birgittine order bring Lemmel to life for modern readers, and ensure that this new volume will have a central place in future discourse on sixteenth-century Germany.

Despite the enormous significance of its contribution, however, the book is regrettably marked by some serious flaws. At times the retelling of Lemmel’s life borders on speculation, and her emotions and attitudes are painted with a freedom that is distracting to the reader. For example, when describing the rituals required for formal entry into the convent, Schleif and Schier suggest that, “if we view the entrance of a woman into a nunnery as a form of bride exchange . . . then perhaps here the fifty-year old widow Katerina may have felt that she was bartering herself” (95). Lemmel’s somewhat formulaic refrains when discussing financial matters, reminders to her cousin that material donation results in spiritual salvation, are often read uncritically as signs that, “Katerina was truly a believer in the inherent good of what was for her one system and one worldview” (375). There may be much truth to this assertion, but little effort is made to distinguish between the unique aspects of Lemmel’s thinking and the larger rhetoric of a spiritual economy that was common among her generation. Most troubling of all are the attempts to insert an anachronistic feminist agenda into the letters. The observation that Lemmel’s occasional use of doubled masculine and feminine endings “conforms to current usage among European feminists” (180; see also 377) is as unnecessary as the idea that sympathy felt by a nobleman toward peasants during the violence of 1525 could be attributed to Stockholm syndrome (461). When one letter mentions the name of the contemporary businesswoman Katharina Tucher, Schleif and Schier pause to notify readers that guides costumed as Tucher are currently available to lead tours of Nuremberg (390). This point is even illustrated, as if its relevance to the issues at hand was self-explanatory.

It would be unfair to assert that some amount of historical conjecture, cautiously applied, is without merit. It would be equally unwise to suggest that analysis of modern reception is uninteresting to the thoughtful historian. In the present case, however, these approaches are used somewhat liberally, and the result can be more disconcerting than enriching. Both the biography and the commentaries on the letters contain extraneous information that is too general to interest the specialist, and yet too specialized to be useful for a general audience. The analysis of the letters often paraphrases rather than discusses their contents, or else offers tangential comments that would have been more effectively placed in footnotes or indices rather than in the body of the text. The book is also copiously illustrated, often with images identified in passing and without discussion. At a time when so many publications are being curtailed due to financial strain, and visual arguments are rarely allotted the amount of illustration they deserve, the sheer number of excessive images presented in this volume could almost be called indulgent. Given the wealth of art and architecture that survives from late medieval Nuremberg, the impulse to offer photographs of places where Lemmel may have been and portraits of individuals she may have met is understandable. One cannot help thinking, however, that a more restrained selection of information and images would have produced a book that was more modest in scale, and thus easier to buy, to carry, and—most importantly—to read.

The most serious problem in the book, however, lies in the apparent single-mindedness of its frequently stated feminist agenda. The regularity with which other scholars of female monasticism are snubbed in the book, even in its final paragraph, is disconcerting. The venom of these comments, comparing current scholarship to “B movies, which feature images of nuns in erotic poses, engaged in strip tease, and wearing topless habits” (490), hardly seems warranted to those aware of the critical acclaim with which some of the very books attacked by the authors have been hailed. Lemmel herself is presented in idealized terms throughout the text, and her thoughts and writings are praised with a consistency that some may find a bit cloying. Even when her dealings go awry, the underlying assumption is that Lemmel possessed flawless business sense, and that her male cousins were trying to take advantage of her helpless state as a cloistered woman (see 155, for example). No opportunity is lost to find reminders of the oppressed and unhappy lot of women in this historical period, and to wax poetic about the disadvantages facing Lemmel because of her gender. Surely the reality of things was more complex. On the whole the oppression of women seems a strange point upon which to insist, given that Lemmel was among the wealthiest and most privileged individuals of her milieu, and that women of her social class enjoyed considerable freedom and luxury compared to most people of either gender in sixteenth-century Germany. It remains true that the lives of women in this period were in many ways restricted by societal norms and cultural practices that may seem offensive to modern sensibilities. This is the very tension, however, that compels the modern study of the past, sparking the need for nuance in interpreting the actions of those who lived long ago, and requiring scholars to present primary sources without an ideologically determined frame.

Lemmel adds a potent new voice to this discussion, further complicating views concerning the role and agency of women in her time. The great value of bringing her letters to a broader public thus remains abundantly clear. Schleif and Schier’s efforts in producing this book together with an interactive website, designed as a resource for students and educators, is greatly appreciated. Perhaps in subsequent editions, some of the images and commentary that are less strictly relevant to the project might be relegated to the website rather than the printed volume. Judicious pruning would help achieve the goal that Schleif and Schier themselves invoke so often, and allow Lemmel’s own words to take center stage for future generations to read.