"Common women" in medieval England were prostitutes, whose distinguishing feature was not that they took money for sex but that they belonged to all men in common. Common Women: Prostitution and Sexuality in Medieval England tells the stories of these women's lives: their entrance into the trade because of poor job and marriage prospects or because of seduction or rape; their experiences as streetwalkers, brothel workers or the medieval equivalent of call girls; their customers, from poor apprentices to priests to wealthy foreign merchants; and their relations with those among whom...
"Common women" in medieval England were prostitutes, whose distinguishing feature was not that they took money for sex but that they belonged to all m...
From Boys to Men Formations of Masculinity in Late Medieval Europe Ruth Mazo Karras "A founding document in the field of men's history."--Jo Ann McNamara, author of Sisters in Arms "The book, well written and accessible, will find a broad audience. It would work well in the classroom, either as a source of lecture material or as assigned reading. Effectively combating the nonspecialist's view of the Middle Ages as a monolithic and static society, it will encourage more subtle thinking about gender identities in the past and in the present. The book also sets a research agenda for...
From Boys to Men Formations of Masculinity in Late Medieval Europe Ruth Mazo Karras "A founding document in the field of men's history."--Jo Ann McNam...
In the popular imagination, the Middle Ages are often associated with lawlessness. As historians have long recognized, however, medieval culture was characterized by an enormous respect for law, legal procedure, and the ideals of justice and equity. Many of our most important modern institutions and legal conceptions grew out of medieval law in its myriad forms (Roman, canon, common, customary, and feudal).
Institutional structures represent only a small portion of the wider cultural field affected by--and affecting--law. In Law and the Illicit in Medieval Europe such...
In the popular imagination, the Middle Ages are often associated with lawlessness. As historians have long recognized, however, medieval culture wa...
The Middle Ages are often viewed as a repository of tradition, yet what we think of as traditional marriage was far from the only available alternative to the single state in medieval Europe. Many people lived together in long-term, quasimarital heterosexual relationships, unable to marry if one was in holy orders or if the partners were of different religions. Social norms militated against the marriage of master to slave or between individuals of very different classes, or when the couple was so poor that they could not establish an independent household. Such unions, where the...
The Middle Ages are often viewed as a repository of tradition, yet what we think of as traditional marriage was far from the only available alterna...
Elisheva Baumgarten Ruth Mazo Karras Katelyn Mesler
From Halakhic innovation to blood libels, from the establishment of new mendicant orders to the institutionalization of Islamicate bureaucracy, and from the development of the inquisitorial process to the rise of yeshivas, universities, and madrasas, the long thirteenth century saw a profusion of political, cultural, and intellectual changes in Europe and the Mediterranean basin. These were informed by, and in turn informed, the religious communities from which they arose. In city streets and government buildings, Jews, Christians, and Muslims lived, worked, and disputed with one another,...
From Halakhic innovation to blood libels, from the establishment of new mendicant orders to the institutionalization of Islamicate bureaucracy, and...
The Oxford Handbook of Women and Gender in Medieval Europe provides a comprehensive overview of the gender rules encountered in Europe in the period between approximately 500 and 1500 C.E. The essays collected in this volume speak to interpretative challenges common to all fields of women's and gender history - that is, how best to uncover the experiences of ordinary people from archives formed mainly by and about elite males, and how to combine social histories of lived experiences with cultural histories of gendered discourses and identities. The collection focuses on Western...
The Oxford Handbook of Women and Gender in Medieval Europe provides a comprehensive overview of the gender rules encountered in Europe in the...
