Edited, with an Introduction, by Susan Mosher Stuard.
Published in 1976. Fifth printing 1989.
Early medieval women exercised public roles, rights, and responsibilities. Women contributed through their labor to the welfare of the community. Women played an important part in public affairs. They practiced birth control through abortion and infanticide. Women committed crimes and were indicted. They owned property and administered estates. The drive toward economic growth and expansion abroad rested on the capacity of women to staff and manage economic endeavors at home. In the later Middle Ages, the social position of women altered significantly, and the reasons why the role of women in society tended to become more restrictive are examined in these essays.
Author(s): Susan Mosher Stuard (ed.)
Series: The Middle Ages
Edition: Reprint
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
Year: 1989
Language: English
Pages: 228
City: Philadelphia
Introduction / Susan Mosher Stuard 1
Land, Family, and Women in Continental Europe, 701-1200 / David Herlihy 13
Infanticide in the Early Middle Ages / Emily Coleman 47
Women in Reconquest Castile: The Fueros of Sepúlveda and Cuenca / Heath Dillard 71
Marriage and Divorce in the Frankish Kingdom / Jo-Ann McNamara and Suzanne F. Wemple 95
The Female Felon in Fourteenth-Century England / Barbara A. Hanawalt 125
Mulieres Sanctae / Brenda M. Bolton 141
Widow and Ward: The Feudal Law of Child Custody in Medieval England / Sue Sheridan Walker 159
Dowries and Kinsmen in Early Renaissance Venice / Stanley Chojnacki 173
Women in Charter and Statute Law: Medieval Ragusa/Dubrovnik / Susan Mosher Stuard 199
Selected Bibliography 209
Contributors 213
Index 21
