Women and Strasbourg Cathedral: Thirteenth-Century Portal Sculpture and Representations of Women

In this thesis, sculptures of women on the south transept (c.1220-25) and west facade (c.1280-1300) at Strasbourg Cathedral are studied as they correspond to thirteenth-century Rhenish thinking on women. Strasbourg Cathedral cleverly altered popular portal iconography to educate its audience on contemporary perceptions of women. The women on the south transept portal invite such explorations, particularly with the inclusion of a female donor inscription and imagery from the Hortus deliciarum by a local abbess, Herrad von Hohenbourg. The west facade then provides a display of the evolution of regional thinking on women with its portrayal of exemplary and cautionary women. The biblical, allegorical, and literary women of the portals present comparative examples that correspond to groups of medieval women present in the thirteenth-century city. Varied primary sources are consulted throughout this to provide a nuanced exploration of regional thinking on women coinciding with the sculpture. Despite the fertile grounds for research, this is the first large-scale study on the portrayal of women in medieval portal sculpture. This thesis works to fill a gap in scholarship, building a new methodology for the study of medieval women and portal sculpture, through engagement with primary sources alongside theories on the function of medieval sculpture