"The Fragility Of Her Sex?" Medieval Irishwomen In Their European Context

by Katharine Simms (Editor), Christine Meek (Editor)

By setting the experience of Irish women into a wider, European context, these papers shake off the image of isolation and idiosyncrasy that clings to many aspects of medieval Irish society, especially to the subjects of women and marriage. Within this approach, a number of the essays discuss sources for the history of women and use these sources to recover the experiences of medieval women and the ways these women were able to influence their societies.

208 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1996

Reviews

[M F]

The first couple of chapters of this were interesting, but then it drifted into later centuries and became less relevant to me. (Tbh by the time you get to 1480 I hardly think of it as medieval at all, and that's several centuries after it stopped being pertinent to my exam.) Plus, because I know less about this period, it was difficult to know if these chapters were telling me anything new. The earlier ones helped confirm and remind me of some key ideas, at least.