The editors of Monastic Matrix (http://monasticmatrix.org) Announce

The second annual prize competition for undergraduates:

"Communities of Women in the Middle Ages"

As a part of our ongoing project to present the most comprehensive online resource for the study of medieval women's monastic experience, the editors at Monastic Matrix are inviting entries to our second annual undergraduate competition. This year's theme is "Communities of Women in the Middle Ages."

We invite undergraduates to submit profiles of female religious communties active during the Middle Ages. The editors will review all submissions received by the deadline (below), and award a prize of $300 for the best profile, with a runner-up award of $100. Winning entries will be published, with authors fully credited, in the "Monasticon" section of Monastic Matrix. Prizewinners will be announced on our Contributors page.

We are soliciting profiles of communities that:

...were for all or part of their existence communties of women;
...were active as female communities sometime between 400 and 1600 c.e.; and
...were located in Europe (eastern or western), North Africa, the Eastern Mediterranean, Byzantium, or Russia/Ukraine.

Profiles must be about communities not already included as full profiles in the Monasticon; however, meaningful expansions of existing but undeveloped profiles are welcome.

Examples of some fully-developed profiles can be viewed at: Wienhausen and S. Daniel de Galligants. For an example of an extant but undeveloped profile, see Aix-en-Provence

Submissions

...must be the product of the contributor's original research; all sources should be thoroughly credited in the bibliographic fields (i.e., "Manuscript Sources", "Published Primary Sources", "Secondary Sources"). Sources should be scholarly.
...should not be in essay format, but rather input as field-specific information on Monastic Matrix's submission form. Although scholars retain intellectual ownership of their materials, Monastic Matrix reserves the right to publish electronically any information submitted.
Connections with other areas of the website (Bibliographia, Figurae, Vitae) may be noted within the submission in the appropriate field.

Download the PDF form HERE.

Monastic Matrix focuses on monasticism in the Catholic Christian church, but submissions on other branches of the Christian church (e.g. Orthodox, Coptic, etc.) are most welcome.