You may have to Search all our reviewed books and magazines, click the sign up button below to create a free account.
Medieval Women looks at a thousand years of English history, as it affected - and was made by - women. The book opens with the coming of the Anglo-Saxons to England in the fifth century and looks at the variety of sources that can throw light on the lives and contributions to their society of women in the Dark Ages. It moves into the Anglo-Norman period with an examination of what 1066 may have meant for women. The focus then moves to problems and attitudes fundamental to 'everywoman': medieval attitudes to sex, marriage and motherhood; and the world of work and the experience of widowhood for peasant, townswoman and aristocrat. The book closes with an exploration of the intellectual and spiritual worlds of medieval women. Each chapter is accompanied by substantial extracts from primary sources, which vividly illustrate medieval thought and assumptions.
Who can concentrate on thoughts of Scripture or philosophy and be able to endure babies crying ... ? Will he put up with the constant muddle and squalor which small children bring into the home? The wealthy can do so ... but philosophers lead a very different life ... So, according to Peter Abelard, did his wife Heloise state in characteristically stark terms the antithetical demands of family and scholarship. Heloise was not alone in making this assumption. Sources from Jerome onward never cease to remind us that the life of the mind stands at odds with life in the family. For all that we have moved in the past two generations beyond kings and battles, fiefs and barons, motherhood has remai...
Henrietta Leyser considers the problems and attitudes fundamental to every woman of the time: medieval views on sex, marriage and motherhood; the world of work and the experience of widowhood for peasant, townswoman and aristocrat. The intellectual and spiritual worlds of medieval women are also explored. MEDIEVAL WOMEN celebrates the diversity and vitality of English women's lives in the Middle Ages.
Medieval Women looks at a thousand years of English history, as it affected - and was made by - women.Henrietta Leyser considers the problems and attitudes fundamental to every woman of the time: medieval views on sex, marriage and motherhood; the world of work and the experience of widowhood for peasant, townswoman and aristocrat. The intellectual and spiritual worlds of medieval women are also explored.Based on an abundance of research from the last twenty-five years, Medieval Women celebrates the diversity and vitality of English women's lives in the Middle Ages. Medieval Women is the best history book I've read for years, full of stories and surprises and written with gentle elegance from enormous knowledge' Sue Gaisford, Independent
Spinsters and widows - Women and children - Women and marriage - Jezebels - Royal and holy women.
Beautifully illustrated, and drawing on research from a wide range of disciplines, this interdisciplinary study provides students with a fascinating and comprehensive collection that surveys the life of an extraordinary medieval woman.
"The Life of Christina of Markyate", a twelfth-century English recluse and later abbess of Markyate near St Albans, is a remarkable example of late medieval hagiography. Originally written at the time of or soon after Christina's death in the twelfth century, the Life is unusual both in its relative lack of miracles, and in the unknown author's decision to write Christina's life factually rather than gathering together stock elements from previously written saint's lives, as was the custom. First published in 1959, this edition contains the original Latin text with a facing-page English translation. It is accompanied by a comprehensive Introduction that discusses the codicological problems of the text, and provides other contextual and background material. 'One of the great virtues of this Life is its vivid revelations of Christina's personal circumstances, which must have been based on her own reminiscences. Although doubts have been cast on her veracity ... they do not affect the main lines of the extraordinary story she told the author.' From the General Editors' Note
List of Abbreviations -- Prologue -- The puzzle of the nuns' priest --Biblical models : women and men in the apostolic life -- Jerome and the noble women of Rome -- Brothers, sons, and uncles : nuns' priests and family ties -- Speaking to the bridegroom : women and the power of prayer -- Conclusion -- Appendix : Beati pauperes.
Written by the Oxford historian Henrietta Leyser, BEDA is a gazetteer to the remaining Anglo-Saxon ruins in England, many of them from the time of the Venerable Bede. For those who have bought Simon Jenkins' 100 Best Churches and now want something different, this is an invaluable window onto the world of the author of the Ecclesiastical History of the English People. Concentrating on Bede himself (our most valuable historical source on Anglo Saxon England, and author of books that played a key role in the development of English national identity), BEDA is an accessible history and a guidebook simultaneously. Since Sr Benedicta Ward's book on Bede, with its endorsement by Rowan Williams, general interest in Anglo-Saxon Britain has been growing. BEDA serves as a perfect introduction to the subject, and is the only book of its kind.
A thorough and well-illustrated history with eight long essays by leading scholars which cover the history and culture of England, rather than the British Isles, from the 5th to the 15th century. Contents: Medieval England - Identity, Politics and Society ( Nigel Saul ); Anglo-Saxon England ( Janet L Nelson ); Conquered England ( George Garnett ); Late Medieval England 1215-1485 ( Chris Given-Wilson ); Economy and Society ( Christopher Dyer ); Piety, Religion and the Church ( Henrietta Leyser ); The Visual Arts ( Nicola Coldstream ); Language and Literature ( Derek Pearsall ).