This thesis explores women’s access to and use of the religious literature circulating in England from c. 1350 to c. 1500.
The Sisters of King Æthelstan
July 24, 2014 By
King Edward the Elder, son and successor of Alfred the Great of England, had many children.
Ten Medieval Warrior Women
July 20, 2014 By
While Joan of Arc is well-known as a woman who was involved in medieval warfare, there are many more examples of women who took up arms or commanded armies during the Middle Ages.
Foreign dangers: Activities, responsibilities and the problem of women abroad
July 18, 2014 By
I consider a very important issue in dealing with the subject of Empires: the problematic position of women, and their contradictory witnesses not only in representations in early medieval sources but also those deriving from their gendered roles as they have been imagined
The influence of the Bible on Medieval Women’s Literacy
July 14, 2014 By
The image of Saint Anne, who teaches Virgin Mary to read, suggests the feminine culture of the medieval Christian tradition, in which mothers have the mission to educate their girls.
Women and Ships in the Viking World
July 13, 2014 By
Perhaps the most splendid, and certainly one of the best-known, burials of the Viking Age is that of the two women who were put to rest in the Oseberg ship.
Viking-Age Queens and the Formation of Identity
July 12, 2014 By
One may ask, then, not why there exists such a paucity of these women in the written record, but why any are mentioned at all, and for what purposes?
Man, woman or monster : some themes of female masculinity and transvestism in the Middle Ages and Renaissance
July 6, 2014 By
This dissertation discusses medieval and Renaissance clerical and cultural constructions of femininity and female masculinity, and it analyses the complex relationship between such conceptions and the literary representation of the transvestite woman.
Were Medieval Prostitutes Marginals? Evidence from Sluis, 1387-1440
July 4, 2014 By
How convincing is the idea that all prostitutes had common, inalienable characteristics? How convincing is the view that prostitutes formed a distinct and clearly identifiable group?
The use of animals in medicine of Latin tradition: Study of the Tresor de Beutat, a medieval treatise devoted to female cosmetics
July 2, 2014 By
The Tresor de Beutat is a medieval treatise written in the 14th century. It contains a set of medical and cosmetic recipes aimed exclusively at women.
Royal and Magnate Bastards in the Later Middle Ages: The View from Scotland
June 15, 2014 By
Theory and Practice in Scotland and Elsewhere Medieval Scotland’s law on bastardy is set out in the lawbook Regiam Majestatem (c.1320)…In England things were different, as Michael Hicks has demonstrated. Admittedly, English heraldic practice eventually followed the French, and the formula ‘X bastard of Y’ is occasionally found for magnates’ bastards.
Medieval Widowhood and Textual Guidance: The Corpus Revisions of Ancrene Wisse and the de Braose Anchoresses
June 3, 2014 By
In this article, I shall examine the lives of Loretta and her siblings as templates for the kind of audience imagined by the authors of the Ancrene Wisse Group and, in particular, by the author of Ancrene Wisse as he revised his original text.
‘Warrior-women’ in Viking Age Scandinavia? A preliminary archaeological study
June 3, 2014 By
This paper seeks to provide a new contribution to the debates on Viking Age women by focusing on a rather controversial notion of ‘female warriors’. The core of the article comprises a preliminary survey of archaeological evidence for female graves with weapons (axes, spears, swords and arrowheads) from Viking Age Scandinavia.
Making a difference in tenth-century politics: King Athelstan’s sisters and Frankish queenship
May 10, 2014 By
In the early years of the tenth century several Anglo-Saxon royal women, all daughters of King Edward the Elder of Wessex (899-924) and sisters (or half-sisters) of his son King Athelstan (924-39), were despatched across the Channel as brides for Frankish and Saxon rulers and aristocrats. This article addresses the fate of some of these women through an analysis of their political identities.
BOOK REVIEW: “Defending the City of God” : A Medieval Queen, the First Crusades, and the Quest for Peace in Jerusalem, by Sharan Newman
May 9, 2014 By
This is my review of Sharan Newman’s latest book, Defending the City of God: A Medieval Queen, the First Crusades, and the Quest for Peace in Jerusalem.
The Cross-dressing Women of Medieval London
May 3, 2014 By
Women going around dressed as men, wearing men’s hats, and even having their hair cut short, was not an acceptable practice in medieval society. However, in late medieval London there were at least 13 cases of women accused of doing just that.
Was a Woman the first editor of the Qur’an?
April 26, 2014 By
A new study suggests that Hafsa bint ‘Umar, one of the wives of the Prophet Muhammad, had a crucial role in editing and codifying the Qur’an and was likely the one of the first people to have kept a written version of the religious text.
Antoinette of Bourbon, Duchess of Guise
April 9, 2014 By
Antoinette of Bourbon was the formidable matriarch of the Guise family in sixteenth century France. She had many children who were instrumental in international politics as well as in religious life including her daughter Mary of Guise, Queen of Scotland.
She Shall Be Saved in Childbearing: Submission,Contemplation of Conception, and Annunciation Imagery in the Books of Hours of Two Late Medieval Noblewomen
April 9, 2014 By
In this piece, I suggest that such books were also constructed with the intention of instilling certain virtues within the young and newly-married woman—namely, submission and a humble desire for motherhood.
Call for Papers: Moving Women, Moving Objects (300-1500) (ICMA CAA 2015)
April 8, 2014 By
CFP: Moving Women, Moving Objects (300-1500) (ICMA CAA 2015)
Isabella of Bourbon, Countess of Charolais
April 3, 2014 By
She was the daughter of Charles I, Duke of Bourbon and Agnes, daughter of Duke John the Fearless of Burgundy and sister of Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy.
Childbirth Miracles in Swedish Medieval Miracle Collections
April 2, 2014 By
The chance of dying in pregnancy or childbirth was very real for medieval women, and still is in many Third World countries. In Medieval Catholic Western Europe, including Scandinavia, these risks, and the absence of medically schooled persons who could give efficient help, led many women to turn to the saints for intercession.
Queenship, Nunneries and Royal Widowhood in Carolingian Europe
March 30, 2014 By
Fulk‟s letter therefore introduces us to some central aspects of Carolingian thinking about the appropriate behaviour of laywomen especially, and serves as a way into the principal themes of this article. In particular, it is noticeable that the archbishop highlighted his expectations of Richildis in two roles: her supposed misdemeanour was concerned specifically with a failure to meet her obligations as a widow and as a queen.
Alice de Lacy and the Hazards and Possibilities of Medieval Widowhood, 1322-1348
March 25, 2014 By
The widow of Thomas, earl of Lancaster, Alice found herself in a precarious position after her husband’s execution for treason in 1322.
Herb-workers and Heretics: Beguines, Bakhtin and the Basques
March 22, 2014 By
During the Middle Ages and early Renaissance, the word beguine was used by women to identify themselves as members of a wide-spread and influential women’s movement. The same term was used by their detractors and overt opponents, with the highly charged negative meaning of “heretic.” The etymology of the term “beguine” and ultimate origins of the movement have never been satisfactorily explained.
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