Monica HEDLUND (Uppsala)

• Cooperative nuns at Vadstena Abbey: Who wrote for whom?

During the centuries before and after 1500, Vadstena Abbey and especially the nuns' convent, was the centre of an intense literary activity. A series of strong and dedicated abbesses were very concerned about translating and copying educational and devotional reading matter in the vernacular for the nuns' table reading and private devotion. Many sisters learnt to write a very uniform hybrida, which was mainly used for vernacular texts, some also a more formal textualis, mostly used for Latin. We know some scribes by name but it has proved rather difficult to distinguish their hands. Straightforward information who wrote this or that text is rather rare, and some of the information gathered from colophons or other notes in the manuscripts themselves has proved very unreliable. It often consists of requests to pray for someone, who might be the scribe or the sister who ordered or paid for the book or just any honoured member of the community. My paper aims at discussing these problems from a palaeographical point of view and hopefully to solve at least a few of them.