English Noblewomen in the Later Middle Ages PDF Download

Author: Jennifer Ward
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317899148
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 192

View

Book Description
This vivid and pioneering study illuminates the different roles played in late medieval society by noblewomen - the most substantial group of women to survive as individuals in medieval documents. They emerge (despite limited political opportunities) as figures of consequence themselves in a landowning society through estate management in their husbands' frequent absences, and through hospitality, patronage and affinity.

Author: Jennifer Ward
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317899156
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 203

View

Book Description
This vivid and pioneering study illuminates the different roles played in late medieval society by noblewomen - the most substantial group of women to survive as individuals in medieval documents. They emerge (despite limited political opportunities) as figures of consequence themselves in a landowning society through estate management in their husbands' frequent absences, and through hospitality, patronage and affinity.

Author: W. Mark Ormrod
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030452204
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 156

View

Book Description
This Palgrave Pivot provides the first ever comprehensive consideration of the part played by women in the workings and business of the English Parliament in the later Middle Ages. Breaking new ground, this book considers all aspects of women’s access to the highest court of medieval England. Women were active supplicants to the Crown in Parliament, and sometimes appeared there in person to prosecute cases or make political demands. It explores the positions of women of varying rank, from queens to peasants, vis-à-vis this male institution, where they very occasionally appeared in person but were more usually represented by written petitions. A full analysis of these petitions and of the official records of parliament reveals that there were a number of issues on which women consistently pressed for changes in the law and its administration, and where the Commons and the Crown either championed or refused to support reform. Such is the concentration of petitions on the subjects of dower and rape that these may justifiably be termed ‘women’s issues’ in the medieval Parliament.

Author: Jennifer Ward
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317888596
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 331

View

Book Description
Women in Medieval Europe were expected to be submissive, but such a broad picture ignores great areas of female experience. Between the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries, women are found in the workplace as well as the home, and some women were numbered among the key rulers, saints and mystics of the medieval world. Opportunities and activities changed over time, and by 1500 the world of work was becoming increasingly restricted for women. Women of all social groups were primarily engaged with their families, looking after husband and children, and running the household. Patterns of work varied geographically. In the northern towns, women engaged in a wide range of crafts, with a small number becoming entrepreneurs. Many of the poor made a living as servants and labourers. Prostitution flourished in many medieval towns. Some women turned to the religious life, and here opportunities burgeoned in the thirteenth century. The Middle Ages are not remote from the twenty-first century; the lives of medieval women evoke a response today. The medieval mother faced similar problems to her modern counterpart. The sheer variety of women’s experience in the later Middle Ages is fully brought out in this book.

Author: Susan M. Johns
Publisher: Manchester University Press
ISBN: 9780719063053
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 292

View

Book Description
This is the first study of noblewomen in 12th-century England and Normandy, and of the ways in which they exercised power. It draws on a rich mix of evidence to offer an important reconceptualization of women's role in aristocratic society, and in doing so suggests new ways of looking at lordship and the ruling elite in the high middle ages. The book considers a wide range of literary sources such as chronicles, charters, seals and governmental records to draw out a detailed picture of noblewomen in the 12th-century Anglo-Norman realm. It asserts the importance of the lifecycle in determining the power of these aristocratic women, thereby demonstrating that the influence of gender on lordship was profound, complex and varied.

Author: Diane Watt
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
ISBN: 9780802081223
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 268

View

Book Description
Ten interdisciplinary essays provide detailed, small-scale studies of a variety of medieval female communities from Germany to Wales between 1200 and 1500, examining a range of social, economic, and cultural groups, both religious and secular.

Author: S.H. Rigby
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1349239690
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 416

View

Book Description
What was the social structure of England in the period 1200 to 1500? What were the basic forms of social inequality? To what extent did such divisions generate social conflict? How significantly did English society change during this period and what were the causes of social change? Is it useful to see medieval social structure in terms of the theories and concepts produced within the medieval period itself? What does modern social theory have to offer the historian seeking to understand English society in the later middle ages? These are the questions which this book seeks to answer. Beginning with an analysis of class structure of medieval England, Part One of this book asks to what extent class conflict was inherent within class relations and discusses the contrasting successes and outcomes of such conflict in town and country. Part Two of the book examines to what extent such class divisions interacted with other forms of social inequality, such as those between orders (nobility and clergy), between men and women, and those arising from membership of a status-group (the Jews). Dr Rigby's discussion of medieval English society is located within the context of recent historical and sociological debates about the nature of social stratification and, using the work of social theorists such as Parkin and Runciman, offers a synthesis of the Marxist and Weberian approaches to social structure. The book should be extremely useful to those undergraduates beginning their studies of medieval England whilst, in offering a new interpretative framework within which to examine social structure, also interesting those historians who are more familiar with this period.

Author: S. H. Rigby
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 0470998776
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 688

View

Book Description
This authoritative survey of Britain in the later Middle Ages comprises 28 chapters written by leading figures in the field. Covers social, economic, political, religious, and cultural history in England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales Provides a guide to the historical debates over the later Middle Ages Addresses questions at the leading edge of historical scholarship Each chapter includes suggestions for further reading

Author: Chris Given-Wilson
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134751419
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 248

View

Book Description
First Published in 2004. Four things dominated the life of the mediaeval noble: warfare, politics, land and family. It is with these central themes that this book is concerned. It encompasses the whole of the upper segment of the late medieval society; examines the relation of social status and political influence; describes the noble household and council; examines in detail the territorial and familial policies pursued by great landholders; emphasises the inter-relationship of local and national affairs; is arranged thematically, making it ideal for student use and has implications for the whole medieval period.

Author: Jennifer Ward
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 0826419852
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 302

View

Book Description
Medieval women faced many of the problems of their modern counterparts in bringing up their families, balancing family and work, and responding to the demands of their communities. Of many women in the period of a thousand years before 1500 we know little or nothing, though their typical ways of life, on farms or in the towns, can be reconstructed with accuracy from a variety of sources. We know more about a far smaller number of elite women, including queens such as Eleanor of Aquitaine and Margaret of Anjou; noblewomen, whose characters and attitudes can be sensed directly or indirectly; and a variety of religious women. Literary sources help flesh out real attitudes, such as those of Chaucer's Wife of Bath. Jennifer Ward shows the life-cycle of medieval women, from birth, via marriage and child-rearing, to widowhood and death. She also brings out the slow changes in the position of women over a millennium.