Women in Dark Age and Early Medieval Europe C.500-1200

ISBN-13: 9780333912591 / Angielski / Miękka / 2006 / 192 str.

Jewell

Opis

Recent books in the field have tended to dazzle the reader with the latest research. A lot is left unsaid, however, leaving dangerous holes for the newcomer. This clear textbook helps the reader to establish an idea of how the medieval world (from c.500-1200) fitted together and how women fitted into that world, without neglecting recent work.

Spis treści

Preface.- Introduction.- Contemporary Gender Theory and Society's Expectations of Women.- The Practical Situation: Women's Function in Rural Communities.- The Practical Situation: Women's Function in Urban Communities.- Women and Power: Royal and Landholding Women.- Women and Religion.- Women Who Exceeded Society's Expectations.- Conclusions.- Further Reading.- Index.

O autorze

HELEN M. JEWELL was formerly Senior Lecturer in the School of History at the University of Liverpool, UK. Her previous publications include Women in Medieval England (Manchester University Press, 1996).

Blurb

The period 1200-1550 opened in a time of population expansion but went on to suffer the demographically cataclysmic effects of the plague, beginning with the Black Death of 1347-51. The period dawned with a confident papacy and the Albigensian crusade against heretics and ended with the Catholic church torn apart by the Protestant Reformation. Huge challenges were affecting society in various ways, but they did not always affect men and women in the same ways.

Helen M. Jewell provides a lively survey of western European women's activities and experiences during this timeframe. The core chapters investigate:
- the function of women in the countryside and towns
- the role of women in the ruling and landholding classes
- women within the context of religion.
This practical centre of the book is embedded in an analysis of the gender theories inherited from the earlier Middle Ages which continued to underpin laws which restricted women's activity, an education system which offered them inferior institutional provision, and a church which denied them ministry. Three individuals who vastly exceeded these expectations, crashing through the 'glass ceilings' of their day, are brought together in a fascinating final chapter.

Combining a historiographical survey of trends over the last thirty years with more recent scholarship, this is as indispensable introduction for anyone with an interest in women's history from the late Medieval period through to the Reformation.