PIMSPontifical Institute
of
Mediaeval Studies

Dr Bugyis is a historian of medieval religious women, especially interested in recovering the liturgical practices they cultivated and the levels of literacy they attained as readers, copyists, and composers of different genres of texts, from prayers to plays. Her book with Oxford University Press, The Ministries of Benedictine Nuns in England, 900–1225, reconstructs the liturgical and pastoral roles Benedictine nuns performed on the basis of the books they produced and used.

At Radcliffe, Bugyis looks forward to pursuing her next book project, Liturgy Matters: Benedictine Women’s Communities in Medieval England, which reclaims the materiality of Benedictine nuns’ liturgical practices by viewing these women as “technologists” who transformed, and were transformed by, their sensual engagement with the objects they created, acquired, handled, and treasured. This book situates every object within the ritual contexts in which it was used; interrogates the scripts directing interactions with it; and highlights its abilities to transfigure appearance, refashion identity, and (re)invest authority and agency.

The full list of Radcliffe fellows for 2018–2019 is online at www.radcliffe.edu/fellows2018.