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.

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.

Narratives of medieval women offer new insights into networks of female book ownership and exchange.

Looking at the responsibility of women in the household and their influence on the running of great estates, marriage and work and status, this volume looks at the role of women in medieval English society.

This is the first in-depth, comparative study of women's access to justice in medieval English towns. It compares the records of Nottingham, Chester and Winchester and a wide range of legal actions to highlight the variable nature of women's legal status in actions that arose from the complex, messy ties of everyday life.

Studies the roles and lives of different classes of women in medieval England. After a background chapter on women before 1100, coverage includes women in the countryside, women in urban communities, women of the landholding class, and women and religion, with details in areas such as education, crime, prostitution, marriage, and work. Distributed by St. Martin's Press. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

This detailed study offers an addition to research on women in late medieval England. Its starting point is evidence from the life of one particular woman, Alice de Bryene, a Suffolk heiress of the late-14th and and early-15th centuries. As a widow and owner of several large estates, she appears to have enjoyed greater status, influence and independence than most married women of the period.