Rosary devotion has long been considered a "female-centered" religious practice. Despite this correlation, no scholars have investigated the relationship between women and the rosary. In this thesis I attempt to fill that void by examining a range of meanings the rosary held for laywomen in late fifteenth- and early sixteenth-century Northern Europe, c. 1470 to c. 1530. Using a theoretical framework informed by materialism, gender theory, and Marian theory, my thesis argues that beyond its usual associations with indulgences, the rosary also signified prayers for conception and safe childbirth. In reciting prayers to the Madonna, laywomen spiritually and mystically projected themselves into the narrative of the Virgin's pregnancy, desiring to bear a child as Mary bore Christ.To explicate the relationship between women and the rosary, my thesis considers a variety of rosary images: female donors with their prayer beads, Andachtsbilder portraying the Christ Child holding and playing with a string of beads, images of the Holy Kinship, instructive prints from rosary manuals, and early family portrait scenes. As a whole, these images suggest that the rosary symbolized a budding womb, a wife's ideal piety, the desire for children, the maternal qualities of the Virgin, and an amulet to assuage the rigor of childbirth. Lastly, my thesis considers the rosary as religious jewelry. By looking to several examples of women depicted with ornate rosaries, my thesis argues that laywomen wore beads to elevate their status and to emulate the aristocracy. Moreover, wearing rosaries and/or being painted with one's rosary allowed for a public pronouncement of one's private piety. For women, then, wearing a rosary was another way in which they could enter into the public devotional realm. In arguing that the rosary was perceived by women as a blossoming vine, as a piece of religious jewelry, and as an aid in childbirth, I hope to have contributed new ways of understanding this multivalent devotional tool, and to have opened new avenues for others to consider the rosary beyond its usual associations with prayer counting and indulgences.

Le portrait individuel, qui est toujours marqué par l’autorité et l’identité du modèle, devient un genre accessible pour les riches bourgeois et occupe une place culturelle importante au XVe siècle. Les grands portraitistes, particulièrement dans le nord de l'Europe, maîtrisent ce genre de peinture. Alors que les peintres flamands et les artistes italiens utilisent principalement une échelle similaire pour le portrait, Hans Memling (1433-1494) développe un vocabulaire visuel distinct pour ce genre. Par l’utilisation de paysages verdoyants à l’arrière-plan de ses portraits individuels, peints majoritairement à partir de 1470, Memling déborde des cadres picturaux européens traditionnels plus anciens, enracinés au Moyen Âge. Ce mémoire représente une analyse minutieuse de l’imagerie du paysage et de son rapport avec les contextes social, culturel et artistique dans les portraits de Memling; et il tente d’éclairer les conceptions de l’identité au XVe siècle. En considérant la structure de la production artistique à Bruges, cette étude examine le rôle de l'identité artistique ainsi que celle du modèle représenté, et la réciprocité de leurs caractéristiques avec la valeur conceptuelle du paysage. L’emploi de vastes paysages par Memling, à l'arrière-plan de ses portraits individuels, révèle une dualité de sens qui a contribué à la valeur unique et extraordinaire de ses œuvres. Cette représentation pourrait être signifiée non seulement par la pensée spirituelle de l’homme de la Renaissance, mais aussi par la définition sociale de la noblesse. En outre, elle pourrait faire référence à l’aspect expérimental et empirique de l’art de Memling. / The individual portrait, which is always marked by the authority and identity of the model, became an accessible genre for the rich bourgeoisie and occupied an important cultural place in the fifteenth century. The great portrait painters, especially in northern Europe, excelled at this kind of painting. While Flemish painters and Italian artists mainly used a similar scale for portraiture, Hans Memling (1433 – 1494) developed a distinct visual vocabulary for this genre. By using rich, green landscapes in the background of his individual portraits, painted mostly after 1470, Memling expanded the boundaries of an older European pictorial tradition, which was rooted in the Middle Ages. This thesis presents a careful analysis of landscape imagery and its relation to social, cultural and artistic contexts in Memling's portraits, and attempts to shed light on conceptions of identity in the fifteenth century. Considering the structure of artistic production in Bruges, this study examines the role of artistic identity as well as that of the model represented, and how this reciprocal relationship was represented within the conceptual value of the landscape. Memling’s use of vast landscapes in the background of his individual portraits reveals a duality of meaning that contributed to the unique and extraordinary value of his work. The inclusion of landscapes in a portrait may not only signify the spiritual philosophy of Renaissance man, but may also enhance the social definition of nobility. Moreover, the use of landscape in the portraits refers to the experimental and empirical aspect of Memling's art.

With the rising popularity of Mary's mother, St. Anne, Birth of the Virgin images proliferated at the beginning of the sixteenth century. However, these images have not been analyzed in great depth by any previous art historical scholarship. This thesis indicates the broader significance of these images by considering Birth of the Virgin compositions by Jan de Beer, Jacob Cornelisz van Oostsanen, and Adriaen van Overbeke. First, this thesis considers how these artists derived iconography from Robert Campin to connect Mary's nativity to the birth of her son. Thus, the artists invite the viewer to witness the significance and purity of both babies. Next, I argue that the sacrificial imagery of these panels cultivates a sacerdotal space, in which midwives become pseudo-priests and everyday objects are conflated with ritual material culture. These panels, which draw upon Old and New Testament covenants, present Mary as co-sacrifice, indicating a sixteenth-century expansion of the Virgin's co-redemptive role alongside Christ. The paintings emphasize the beginnings of the Virgin's life to explore the life-giving quality of mankind's redemption. Finally, I explore the viewership possibilities of these paintings for a lay audience, who could interpret their own experiences with birth through these images. Many of the objects in the artworks bear similarities not only to priestly objects but also to the material culture associated with birth. Overall, this thesis demonstrates the important role that Birth of the Virgin images played in interpreting the role of the Virgin Mary and her mother Anne in increasingly affective piety. The subject matter was a way to explore the doctrinal implications of Mary's sacrificial, life-giving power even as it invited viewers to frame their own day-to-day experiences with childbirth in more religious terms.

At the end of the fifteenth century, Hieronymus Bosch provided the foremost expression of the strict religious piety embodied by the Devotio Moderna and the impending embrace of secular humanism. As a result, Bosch's seemingly complex images provided viewers with positive messages concerning the journey of life through the use of binary symbolism. He utilized the pilgrimage motif as a guide throughout his paintings and in relation to the liminal spaces surrounding his works. This article will examine his important triptych, The Haywain, (c.1495-1516) as an example of spiritual paths taken simultaneously by both religious and contemporary figures, along with the viewers themselves. The underlying theme of Christ's Ascension in The Haywain plays out in an interwoven assortment of journeys, identified by characteristic northern and medieval Christian iconography. Christ's final journey acts as the ultimate goal and the paradigm for both the pilgrim within the triptych and the viewer. Evidence of processional celebrations mimicking pilgrimages reveals that the motifs in Bosch's works were located throughout his visual culture. Finally, an investigation of Bosch's 1505 triptych The Temptation of St. Anthony reveals that Bosch remains consistent in his use of the pilgrimage theme. Bosch worked within the context of the visual and textual culture of the Netherlandish city of ‘s-Hertogenbosch, and despite his creative style, was understood among his contemporaries as a messenger of positive piety.