Medieval Writings On Secular Women

by Elisabeth van Houts (Editor), Various, Patricia E. Skinner (Introduction)

The first collection to bring together the forgotten female voices of the Middle Ages.

Artfully arranged to follow the life stages of a medieval woman living a secular existence, this remarkable volume collects a host of writings from across different regions and cultures spanning the ninth to the fifteenth centuries. The writings-some by famous figures, but many anonymous-illuminate the life circumstances of their authors, from a woman abandoned as a baby in Italy to a female leader of a synagogue. Featuring many new translations, Medieval Writings on Secular Women is a valuable contribution to the fields of women's and medieval literature.

Genres: History, Classics, Medieval, Nonfiction, Reference, Medieval History, Anthologies

306 pages, Paperback

First published January 28, 2008

About the author

Elisabeth Maria Cornelia van Houts (born 1952) is a historian specializing in medieval European history. She is an Honorary Professor of Medieval European History in the Faculty of History and a Fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge.

Van Houts was elected a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society in 1983. She has published and lectured on Anglo-Norman history, medieval historiography and literature and the history of gender in the Middle Ages. She has been an expert panelist on In Our Time for "The 12th Century Renaissance" and "The Domesday Book".

Reviews

[Nick · Rating 4 out of 5]

This entry in the Penguin Classics takes aim at a great mystery--what did women experience in the past. With apologies to L.P. Hartley, the far past is very much more distant than any current foreign land: people believed different things, they cared about different things, they had limited access to writing and they used it as little as possible and only for that which they considered most important. So what we have are contracts, charters, lawsuits and wills, with some letters and a bit of history. Even the chronicles are mostly interested in women important mostly for their status as royalty. It is a small group, extending not much beyond Eleanor of Aquitaine and a few empresses and queens, whose personalities are manifest (leaving aside the hagiographies and records of religious experience, which are outside the scope of this book). The anthology starts out with as much of a bang as the medieval world could provide--a cleric's discussion of the Antichrist prior to the turn of the millennium, evidently sent to allay a queen's fear that she might give birth to him. That kind of excitement is hard to sustain, and much of what follows are primary documents, many of them translated from recent publications in other languages. The organization of the book follows from birth (hence the discussion of the Antichrist), followed by childhood, marriage, motherhood, widowhood, old age, death, and probate. The scope is wide: principally France, England, Germany, Italy and Spain, including a few Jews and Muslims. While many of these documents, as noted, address legal issues, still there are moments in which the actual lives peek through, as when a Marseilles widow signs a contract to enter into service (demonstrating her economic straits). Or when a court in Venetian Crete assesses the debts of a Jewish widow, which reveals the extent of her business dealings. Or when a lawsuit between an Italian church and the"lamp" fisherman of the town (evidently they fished at night) over water rights that reveals the power of old women as witnesses. (No medieval document brings me quite as much pleasure as a good lawsuit between the Church and a town over property). The resources for this kind of anthology are limited and fragmentary. Given what they have to work with, the editors of this anthology have achieved something remarkable, thought-provoking and very useful to anyone who, rather than watching some televised romanticization of medieval life, wants to think about what it was actually like.

[Heidi Snyder · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this for a university level Medieval literary history class. I loved it so much! It contained rich details of the faith and fears that noble and peasantry women dealt with in the middle and late medieval times. It contained first-hand accounts of births, life as a young girl, dowries, marriage contracts, and the last wishes/acts of those near death.
As I am writing on a piece in the high Middle Ages, this gave me insight of what it was like for a woman during that time period.

[Sharon · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've actually read this before and am abandoning a reread (for now) in favour of my huge TBR pile. If you're interested in the topic, this is a fantastic examination of the primary sources available. It gave me a much more nuanced take on medieval European society than pop culture or school history would have you believe. By its nature, its a little dry, but I found it fascinating and will definitely be coming back to it again.

[Anjali Viṣwanāthan · Rating 1 out of 5]

The blurb says it's about women across different cultures and regions but they're basically all European.

[Z · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.25

[Cara Lynn]

Read (most of) for school

[Azrael · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very educational and informative.

[Lulu · Rating 5 out of 5]

9-15th