Ecrire et lire en Catalogne (IXe–XIIe siècle)

Ecrire et lire en Catalogne (IXe–XIIe siècle). By MICHEL ZIMMERMANN (Madrid: Casa de Velázquez, 2003 (2 vols.); pp. xxii + 1403. Eur 64). ON 16 April 1044 a woman called Alba wrote in a neat and competent hand a deed of sale in favour of herself and her husband, and on behalf of the vendor; then signing it herself: Alba femina scripsit. What is unique about this document among the thousands of original charters that have survived from ninth to twelfth-century Catalonia is that it was written by a lay woman. This is all the more remarkable for the fact that in very few indeed of this large corpus of texts can even an autograph signature by a woman be found. They normally just used a mark or signum instead. Similarly, Catalan nuns of the period are almost invisible in the documentary record, and their houses seem to be entirely lacking in the book-producing scriptoria that were so notable a feature of several of the greater Carolingian and Ottonian convents of this time. Alba is thus more than extraordinary. Her document, reproduced in this book in full colour (on p. 1256, and not p. 1248 as is claimed on p. 110 note 157), shows she could not only write but wrote well. Where and why she acquired this skill is not known, nor is anything else recorded about her life

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