The medieval era has been described as 'the 'Age of Chivalry' and 'the Age of Faith' but also as 'the Dark Ages'. Medieval women have often been viewed as subject to a punishing misogyny which limited their legal rights and economic activities, but some scholars have claimed they enjoyed a 'rough and ready equality' with men. The contrasting figures of Eve and the Virgin Mary loom over historians' interpretations of the period 1000-1500. Yet a wealth of recent historiography goes behind these conventional motifs, showing how medieval women's lives were shaped by status, age, life-stage,...

A Cultural History of Women in Antiquity explores women's history in the West from 500 BCE to 1000CE. This time period includes women's participation in Greek and Roman civilization, and the Christianization of the Roman Empire up to Late Antiquity. Key issues include the impact of changing cultural forces and discourses on female autonomy and agency, women's relationship to public and religious circles of power, and women's status in domestic and public space.

A Cultural History of Women in Antiquity presents an overview of the period with essays on female sexual...

This volume examines the varied ways in which the senses were perceived afresh during the Enlightenment. In addition to introducing new philosophical and scientific models which sometimes upended the classic hierarchy of the senses, this period witnessed major changes in living and working habits, including urbanization, travel and exploration, the invention of new sonic and visual media, and the rise of comfort and pleasure as values that cut across a range of social classes. As this volume shows, those developments inspired a wealth of sensorially stimulating styles of design, art,...