Ambivalent Images of Authorship

This chapter focuses on the question of Birgitta of Sweden’s and Catherine of Siena’s status as authors with emphasis on the visual representations of the two women in the manuscripts containing their texts. Images found in the earliest extant codices portray Birgitta in the act of writing—an extremely uncommon visual rendering of a female author in the medieval period—whereas Catherine is never depicted with a pen in her hand. This difference emerges as a paradox when contrasted with representations of the two women in their respective texts, where Birgitta is often put forward as a passive medium while Catherine explicitly is delineated as a writer with agency. The tension between texts and images serves as the point of departure for scrutinizing the role of the visual in shaping the authority of their works as well as notions of Birgitta and Catherine as authors in a time when female literary authority was still controversial.