Download or read book Clean Maids True Wives Steadfast Widows written by Margaret Hallissy and published by Praeger. This book was released on 1993-02-28 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Chaucer was a keen observer of the lives of women with a remarkable ability to see beyond his culture's preconceptions concerning their proper roles. The lives of medieval women were divided into three estates--virginity, wifehood, and widowhood--each with complex rules extending to particulars of speech and dress, but all directed toward the single purpose of preserving female chastity, for which a woman was to be prepared to suffer or even die. Margaret Hallissy's lively and literate study traces Chaucer's female characterizations against a background of medieval rules and common assumptions governing women to determine where he adhered to or departed from the behavioral norms. She concludes that he discounted much of these codes of conduct as being detrimental to the development of a full human person. The Wife of Bath, Chaucer's most drastic deviation from the received wisdom about women of his day, could only have been developed by an author/narrator who turned from the prescribed written rules--which, sacred or secular, were all instruments of patriarchal power--to female discourse and action. Applying insights from the works of modern social historians of the Middle Ages and ranging widely in sources from the visual arts, civil and canon law, homiletics, theology, architecture, fashion history, and medicine, Hallissy illuminates the preconceptions with which Chaucer's original audience would have encountered his work and brings her findings to bear on a close analysis of literary characters in the text. The resulting study provides an original and essential dimension for reading Chaucer, while its feminist-historicist approach broadens the audience to those interested in medieval studies and women's studies in general.
Download or read book Medieval Single Women written by Cordelia Beattie and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2007-09-13 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The single woman is a troubling and disruptive category. Does it denote all unmarried women, therefore creating a group which every female was part of at some stage in her life? Or, were the categories 'maiden' and 'widow' so culturally significant in late medieval England that 'single woman' was a residual category for women seen as anomalous? Was the category 'single man' used in an equivalent way and, if not, why? This study offers a way into the complex process of social classification in late medieval England. All societies use classifications in order to understand and impose order. In this book, Cordelia Beattie views classification as a political act, an act of power: those classifying must make choices about which divisions are most important or about who falls into which category, and such choices have repercussions. Defining how a group or an individual should be labelled, means variables such as social status, gender, or age, are prioritized. Rather than isolate gender as a variable, this book examines how it relates to other social cleavages. Using a variety of approaches, from social and cultural history, to gender history, and medieval studies, its original methodology offers an innovative approach to a range of historical texts, from pastoral manuals to tax returns, and guild registers.
Download or read book The Profession of Widowhood written by Katherine Clark Walter and published by Catholic University of America Press. This book was released on 2018-09-21 with total page 447 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Profession of Widowhood explores how the idea of ‘true’ widowhood was central to pre-modern ideas concerning marriage and of female identity more generally. The medieval figure of the Christian vere vidua or “good” widow evolved from and reinforced ancient social and religious sensibilities of chastity, loyalty and grief as gendered ‘work.’ The ideal widow was a virtuous woman who mourned her dead husband in chastity, solitude, and most importantly, in perpetuity, marking her as “a widow indeed” (1 Tim 5:5). The widow who failed to display adequate grief fulfilled the stereotype of the ‘merry widow’ who forgot her departed spouse and abused her sexual and social freedom. Stereotypes of widows ‘good’ and ‘bad’ served highly-charged ideological functions in pre-modern culture, and have remained durable even in modern times, even as Western secular society now focuses more on a woman’s recovery from grief and possible re-coupling than the expectation that she remain forever widowed. The widow represented not only the powerful bond created by love and marriage, but also embodied the conventions of grief that ordered the response when those bonds were broken by premature death. This notion of the widow as both a passive memorial to her husband and as an active ‘rememberer’ was rooted in ancient traditions, and appropriated by early Christian and medieval authors who used “good” widowhood to describe the varieties of female celibacy and to define the social and gender order. A tradition of widowhood characterized by chastity, solitude, and permanent bereavement affirmed both the sexual mores and political agenda of the medieval Church. Medieval widows—both holy women recognized as saints and ‘ordinary women’ in medieval daily life—recognized this tradition of professed chastity in widowhood not only as a valuable strategy for avoiding remarriage and protecting their independence, but as a state with inherent dignity that afforded opportunities for spiritual development in this world and eternal merit in the next.
Download or read book Venomous Tongues written by Sandy Bardsley and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2006-05-31 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The unique contribution of Venomous Tongues lies in its interdisciplinary approach and the way it situates scolding within a broader range of issues specific to the legal and social history of the period."—L. R. Poos, The Catholic University of America
Download or read book A Cultural History of Women in the Middle Ages written by Kim M. Phillips and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2015-04-02 with total page 345 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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, geography and religion as well as by gender. A Cultural History of Women in the Middle Ages presents essays on medieval women's life cycle, bodies and sexuality, religion and popular beliefs, medicine and disease, public and private realms, education and work, power, and artistic representation to illustrate the diversity of medieval women's lives and constructions of femininity.
Download or read book A Companion to Chaucer written by Peter Brown and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2008-04-15 with total page 536 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Designed as both a contribution to original research and as a stimulating and accessible text, this volume is a helpful, reliable, responsive and adaptable resource for students of Chaucer at all levels.
Download or read book News from the Raven written by Darci Hill and published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. This book was released on 2014-06-02 with total page 377 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume, edited from the proceedings of a unique conference held at Sam Houston State University, offers the reader an independent Texas-style celebration of Medieval and Renaissance culture and thought. In the opening article, Richard North reveals some ways in which medieval literature pioneered the modern novel. The following essays, drawing from philosophy, literature, music, art, architecture, history, and linguistics, include studies of the portrayal of women in medieval literature and art; discussions surrounding the hero of Paradise Lost; explorations into the thought of Thomas Aquinas; explications of linguistic puzzles in Beowulf; analyses of Shakespeare’s plays; considerations of renaissance architecture and instrumental music; and an investigation into the influence of rhetoric on musical composition.
Download or read book Boccaccio Chaucer and Stories for an Uncertain World written by Robert W. Hanning and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2021-10-14 with total page 374 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Boccaccio, Chaucer, and Stories for an Uncertain World understands the Decameron and the Canterbury Tales to communicate a radical uncertainty haunting most human endeavors, one that challenges effective knowledge of the future, the past, or the distant present; accurate perception of both complex, equivocal signifying systems, including language, and the intentions hidden rather than revealed by the words and deeds of others; and successful strategy in dealing with the chronic excesses and arbitrariness of power. This comparative study of Decameron novelle and Canterbury pilgrim tales yields the insight that the key to coping with these challenges is pragmatic prudence: rational calculation issuing in an opportunistic, often amoral choice of ingenious deeds and/or eloquent words appropriate (though without guarantee) to mastering a specific crisis, and achieving the goal of agency in the here and now, not salvation in the Hereafter. An initial chapter explores the Aristotelian antecedents, contemporaneous cultural influences, and narrative techniques that intersect to shape the radically uncertain world of the Decameron and the Canterbury Tales, while succeeding chapters pair, and compare, stories from both collections that illustrate the quest for agency-its successes and its failures—through plots often brilliantly adapted from simpler antecedents, as well as eloquence by turns satiric and insightful. This is storytelling that exposes a culture's fears, as well as its aspirations for mastery over the circumstances that challenge its existence; reading these tales should be a labor of love and the goal of this study is to help assure that the reader's labor shall not be lost.
Download or read book Bonoure and Buxum written by Sue Niebrzydowski and published by Peter Lang. This book was released on 2006 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: If married in church, medieval women vowed before God and their husbands to be 'bonoure and buxum', that is, meek and obedient in bed and at table. This book is a study of wives in a variety of fourteenth- and fifteenth-century romance, fabliaux, cycle drama, life-writing, lyrics and hagiography. The volume examines key moments that defined life as a married woman: her eligibility to become a wife, the wedding ceremony, her conjugal rights and duties, childbirth and her contribution to the family economy. The book explores the way in which the literary representation of wives is in dialogue with discourses that strove to construct and regulate the role of 'wife'; canon and secular law, marriage liturgy, medical treatises on the female body, sermons, manuals of spiritual instruction, biblical paradigms, conduct books and misogamous writings. Moreover, the volume examines the possibilities for subversion of these paradigms by listening to literary wives speak both within and against these discourses. Real women's attitudes, and strategies of subversion, are woven into the volume throughout, as recorded in church and manorial court records, in their wills and in their writing.
Download or read book Chaucer s Women Nuns Wives and Amazons written by P. Martin and published by Springer. This book was released on 1996-07-12 with total page 271 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this challenging study Priscilla Martin investigates the subjects of women, sex and gender in Chaucer's poetry. She argues convincingly that these are Chaucer's major subjects and that he presents them as an area of human experience fraught with problems. Women, instead of producing texts and meanings themselves, are trapped in the books and meanings of others, and so the Madonna and the courtly heroine, the nun and the wife, are familiar but questionable images of constructed femininity. '...an intelligent, sensitive, fresh and close reading which focuses upon Chaucer's women ... unconventional and subtle' - John J.McGavin, Times Higher Education Supplement
Download or read book The Virgin Mary in the Perceptions of Women written by Joelle Mellon and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2016-04-21 with total page 219 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Once, the Virgin Mary was a pivotal element of Christianity, a holy figure at the heart of most Christians’ spiritual lives. She was invoked at all major life passages—baptisms, weddings, childbirths, and funerals—and images of the Virgin Mary could be found virtually anywhere, from pub signs to sacred texts. Medieval women especially looked to Mary to answer their prayers, be their role model, and serve as their advocate in heaven. They prayed to her several times a day and sometimes devoted their entire lives to her service. This book investigates perceptions of the Virgin Mary through several centuries of literature. Focusing especially on the depictions of the Virgin Mary in medieval and Renaissance manuscripts, the author rediscovers a time when the Divine Female was very much in evidence, and good Christian women were taught to pray to a Holy Mother. Topics include the cyclical popularity of Virgin Mary; devotional objects such as Books of Hours, rosaries, and Marian gardens; the mystical qualities attributed to the Virgin Mary through centuries of reported divine visions; the historical relationships between the Virgin Mary and other religious figures, including the Devil; and Mary Magdalene as an alternative to the Virgin Mary as a feminine model.
Download or read book Women s Roles in the Middle Ages written by Sandy Bardsley and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2007-06-30 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Information about women in this truly fascinating period from 500 to 1500 is in great demand and has been a challenge for historians to uncover. Bardsley has mined a wide range of primary sources, from noblewomen's writing, court rolls, chivalric literature, laws and legal documents, to archeology and artwork. This fresh survey provides readers with an excellent understanding of how women high and low fared in terms of religion, work, family, law, culture, and politics and public life. Even though medieval women were divided by social class, religion, age, marital status, place and period, they were all subject to an overarching patriarchal structure and sometimes could transcend their inferior status. Numerous examples of these exceptional women and their words are included. Chapter 1 examines religion, focusing on women's roles in the early Christian church, the lives of nuns and other professional religious women such as anchoresses and Beguines, the participation of Christian laywomen, and the experiences of Jewish and Islamic women in Western Europe. The second chapter examines women's work, looking in turn at the kinds of work performed by peasant women, townswomen, and noblewomen. Women's roles within the family form the subject of the third chapter. This chapter follows women throughout the typical lifecycle - from girl to widow - examining the expectations and experiences of women at each stage. Chapter 4, Women and the Law, focuses on the ways in which laws both restricted and protected women. It also considers the crimes with which women were most often charged and surveys laws regarding marriage and widowhood. Women's roles in creative arts form the basis of the fifth chapter, Women and Culture. This chapter examines women's roles as artists, authors, composers, and patrons, as well as investigating the ways in which women were represented in works produced by men. Finally, chapter 6 discusses women's experiences in politics and public life. While women as a group were typically banned from holding positions of public authority, some found ways to get around this stricture, while others were able to exercise power behind the scenes. The final chapter thus encapsulates a major theme of this book: the interplay between broader patriarchal forces that limited women's status and autonomy and the role of individuals who were able to overcome or circumvent such forces. Medieval women were, as a group, subordinate to their husbands and fathers, but certain women, under certain circumstances, evaded subordination.
Download or read book Women and Disability in Medieval Literature written by T. Pearman and published by Springer. This book was released on 2010-11-14 with total page 206 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is first in its field to analyze how disability and gender both thematically and formally operate within late medieval popular literature. Reading romance, conduct manuals, and spiritual autobiography, it proposes a 'gendered model' for exploring the processes by which differences like gender and disability get coded as deviant.
Download or read book Women dowries and agency written by Dana Wessell Lightfoot and published by Manchester University Press. This book was released on 2016-05-16 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines labouring-status women in late medieval Valencia as they negotiated the fundamentally defining experience of their lives: marriage. Through the use of notarial records and civil court cases, it argues that the socio-economic and immigrant status of these women greatly enhanced their ability to exercise agency not only in choosing a spouse and gathering dotal assets, but also in controlling this property after they wed. Although the prevailing legal code in Valencia appeared to give wives little authority over these assets, court records demonstrate that they were still able to negotiate a measure of control. In these actions, labouring-status wives exercised agency by protecting their marital goods from harm, using legal statutes to their own advantage. In looking at the experiences of labouring-status women, this monograph shifts the debate regarding women’s access to and control of property in the medieval period. Exploring a group previously unexamined by scholars, it argues that our understanding of women’s marital strategies changes, challenging the central role of blood and marital kin in these negotiations.
Download or read book Women Pilgrims in Late Medieval England written by Susan S. Morrison and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2002-11 with total page 207 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This thought-provoking book explores medieval perceptions of pilgrimage, gender and space. It examines real life evidence for the widespread presence of women pilgrims, as well as secular and literary texts concerning pilgrimage and women pilgrims represented in the visual arts. Women pilgrims were inextricably linked with sexuality and their presence on the pilgrimage trails was viewed as tainting sacred space.
Download or read book Traditions and Renewals written by Marie Borroff and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2003-01-01 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Marie Borroff is a literary critic, poet and philologist as well as mediaevalist, with a particular interest in the powers and effects of poetic language. In this collection of essays she explores problems of central importance in the poetry of Chaucer and his nameless contemporary, the Gawain - or Pearl - poet. The work should be useful in the study of late-Middle English literature.
Download or read book Conduct Books and the History of the Ideal Woman written by Tabitha Kenlon and published by Anthem Press. This book was released on 2020-03-31 with total page 220 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The longest-running war is the battle over how women should behave. “Conduct Books and the History of the Ideal Woman” examines six centuries of advice literature, analyzing the print origins of gendered expectations that continue to inform our thinking about women’s roles and abilities. Close readings of numerous conduct manuals from Britain and America, written by men and women, explain and contextualize the legacy of sexism as represented in prescriptive writing for women from 1372 to the present. While existing period-specific studies of conduct manuals consider advice literature within the society that wrote and read them, “Conduct Books and the History of the Ideal Woman” provides the only analysis of both the volumes themselves and the larger debates taking place within their pages across the centuries. Combining textual literary analysis with a social history sensibility while remaining accessible to expert and novice, this book will help readers understand the on-going debate about the often-contradictory guidelines for female behavior.
