What was the status of women in the Middle Ages? How have women fared in the hands of historians? And, what is the current state of research about women in the Middle Ages? Susan Mosher Stuard addresses these questions in a collection of essays that delve in to the history and historiography of women in medieval England, France, Italy, and Germany. Contributors include Barbara Hanawalt, Diane Owen Hughes, Suzanne Wemple, Denise Kaiser, and Martha Howell. One of the most interesting observations made in Women in Medieval History and Historiography is the way in which the history of women in each country has followed a distinct course that is in rhythm with other concerns of national historical writing. Women in Medieval History and Historiography will interest historians, scholars of women's studies, and medievalists.

The authors of the essays in this volume examine the lives of medieval women through the study and review of how historians have described accounts of these women over time.

Early medieval women exercised public roles, rights, and responsibilities. Women contributed through their labor to the welfare of the community. Women played an important part in public affairs. They practiced birth control through abortion and infanticide. Women committed crimes and were indicted. They owned property and administered estates. The drive toward economic growth and expansion abroad rested on the capacity of women to staff and manage economic endeavors at home. In the later Middle Ages, the social position of women altered significantly, and the reasons why the role of women in society tended to become more restrictive are examined in these essays.

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.

Through a collection of essays by leading scholars on women's history and gender history, Gender and Change: Agency, Chronology and Periodisation questions conventional chronologies while reassessing the relationship between gender, agency, continuity and change. Celebrates 20 years of the publication of the journal Gender & History Reflects the extent to which gender analysis suggests alternatives to conventional periodisation. For example, whether the European Renaissance can be classified as the same period of great cultural advance when viewed from the perspective of women Offers innovative historiographical and theoretical reflection on approaches to gender, agency, and change

Building on over a century of scholarly achievements and advances, this book addresses the core problem of how to incorporate gender in the study of the history of medieval Europe, and why it is important to do so. Providing a succinct overview of the field, Patricia Skinner guides us through debates and innovations in the study of gender in medieval history. Comprehensive and accessible, this key text: includes a Glossary of technical terms and definitions in each chapter, enabling students to engage with secondary discussions and debates; features themed Source Hunts throughout, providing a starting point for further exploration; uses illustrative case studies to help students identify how their own approaches are a product of their social and political environment as well as their own personal preferences--back cover.

The chapters in this volume celebrate the work of Pauline Stafford, highlighting the ways in which it has advanced research in the fields of both Anglo-Saxon history and the history of medieval women and gender. Ranging across the period, and over much of the old Carolingian world as well as Anglo-Saxon England, they deal with such questions as the nature of kingship and queenship, fatherhood, elite gender relations, the transmission of property, the participation of women in lordship, slavery and warfare, and the nature of assemblies. Gender and historiography presents the fruits of groundbreaking research, inspired by Pauline Stafford's own interests over a long and influential career.