Women in Medieval Western European Culture

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First published 1999 by Garland Publishing. Women's history is a fairly new field; most of the major works have been written within the last twenty years. The sources for such history, however, have existed in various forms for hundreds of years. Sometimes it is hard to find female voices in the documents and literatures of past eras. Sometimes the voices are overlaid with male voices or hemmed in by the structures of male discourse. But those voices exist and they can be heard. The authors of this volume of essays have unearthed, uncovered, and revealed the voices of medieval women from the wilds of northern England to the luxuries of medieval Constantinople. They have articulated the activities and ambitions of women from all walks of life — queen, noblewoman, urban matron, and peasant. They have also revealed the ways in which male authors and masculine social systems subtly (and not so subtly) limited and restricted female expression during the Middle Ages. This pressure to remain silent and private has led some historians of the medieval world to claim that women are invisible in the records of European culture. The authors of this volume show that women were far from invisible as long as one knows where to look.

Author(s): Linda E. Mitchell (ed.)
Series: Garland Reference Library of the Humanities, 2007
Edition: Reprint
Publisher: Routledge
Year: 2011

Language: English
Pages: XIV+408

Introduction: Sources for the History of Medieval Women / Linda E. Mitchell ix
Part I. Women in Medieval Society: Introduction
Chapter 1: Powerful Allies and Dangerous Adversaries: Noblewomen in Medieval Society / Amy Livingstone 1
Chapter 2: Women in Medieval Urban Society / Barbara A. Hanawalt and Anna Dronzek 31
Chapter 3: 'So Strategize': The Demands in the Day of the Peasant Woman in Medieval Europe / Madonna J. Hettinger 47
Chapter 4: Medieval Jewish Women / Judith R. Baskin 65
Chapter 5: Women in Byzantine Society / Angeliki E. Laiou 81
Chapter 6: Women in Medieval Islamic Society / Jonathan Berkey 95
Part II. Women and Law in the Middle Ages: Introduction
Chapter 7: Common Law for Margery: Separate But Not Equal / Janet S. Loengard 111
Chapter 8: Women and Law in France and Italy / Kathryn Reyerson and Thomas Kuehn 131
Chapter 9: Women and Medieval Canon Law / Linda E. Mitchell 143
Part III. Women and the Medieval Political World: Introduction
Chapter 10: Women and Politics in the Byzantine Empire: Imperial Women / Liz James and Barbara Hill 157
Chapter 11: Medieval Queenship / Janet L. Nelson 179
Chapter 12: Noblewomen and Political Activity / Christine Owens 209
Chapter 13: Women and Politics in the Urban Milieu / Louis Haas 221
Part IV. Economics and Work in the Urban World: Introduction
Chapter 14: Working Women in the Medieval City / Benjamin R. McRee and Trisha K. Dent 241
Chapter 15: Urban Women, Investment, and the Commercial Revolution of the Middle Ages / Mark Angelos 257
Part V. Women and Medieval Christianity: Introduction
Chapter 16: Nuns and Other Religious: Women and Christianity in the Middle Ages / Janice Racine Norris 277
Chapter 17: Witches, Saints, and Other "Others": Women and Deviance in Medieval Culture / Elspeth Whitney 295
Part VI. Women and Medieval Culture: Literature and Art: Introduction
Chapter 18: Women's Representation in Male-Authored Works of the Middle Ages / Louise Mirrer 315
Chapter 19: Sounding Trumpets, Chords of Light, and Little Knives: Medieval Women Writers / Katharina M. Wilson and Glenda McLeod 331
Chapter 20: Approaching Medieval Women Through Medieval Art / Christine Havice 345
Appendix 387
Bibliography 391
Contributors 403
Index 405