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Carolyne Larrington has gathered together a uniquely comprehensive collection of writing by, for and about medieval women, spanning one thousand years and Europe from Iceland to Byzantiu. The extracts are arranged thematically, dealing with the central areas of medieval women's lives and their relation to social and cultural institutions. Each section is contextualised with a brief historical introduction, and the materials span literary, historical, theological and other narrative and imaginative writing. The writings here uncover and confound the stereotype of the medieval woman as lady or virgin by demonstrating the different roles and meanings that the sign of woman occupied in the imaginative space of the medieval period.
Larrington's clear and accessible editorial material and the modern English translations of all the extracts mean this work is ideally suited for students. Women and Writing in Early Europe: A Sourcebook also contains an extensive and fully up-to-date bibliography, making it not only essential reading for undergraduates and post graduates but also a valuable tool for scholars.
| List of illustrations | ||
| Acknowledgements | ||
| Introduction | 1 | |
| 1 | Marriage | |
| The good wives | 19 | |
| The malmariee | 20 | |
| Marriages in romance | 23 | |
| A rash wooing: unusual events at a wedding feast | 25 | |
| The disobedient wife | 28 | |
| A forward young woman | 30 | |
| Duties of the bourgeois housewife | 31 | |
| Caring for a sick husband | 34 | |
| A clandestine marriage | 36 | |
| 2 | Love, Sex and Friendship | |
| An early woman's song | 53 | |
| Sexual passion recalled | 54 | |
| Two later love-lyrics | 55 | |
| The Trobairitz | 56 | |
| About love | 59 | |
| The writing of love letters | 61 | |
| Love between women | 63 | |
| The Archpriest of Hita | 65 | |
| Il Dolce Stil Nuovo | 67 | |
| An alba (dawn-song) | 69 | |
| A woman poet celebrates the female genitals | 71 | |
| The dangers of courtly love | 72 | |
| A thwarted affair | 74 | |
| A Valentine letter | 75 | |
| A Spanish woman poet | 76 | |
| 3 | Motherhood and Work | |
| Fredegund and Rigunth | 90 | |
| Old English pregnancy charms | 90 | |
| Taking in an orphan child | 92 | |
| Trobairitz lyric on child-bearing | 95 | |
| Mothers in Montaillou | 95 | |
| The horrors of motherhood | 96 | |
| Margery and her children | 98 | |
| On the motherhood of Christ | 101 | |
| Freydis's trading venture | 103 | |
| Women in retail | 105 | |
| Margery's business ventures | 107 | |
| The division of labour | 108 | |
| 4 | Women and Christianity | |
| The life and death of Abbess Hild | 126 | |
| The Nun of Watton | 128 | |
| Hildegard's vision of Ecclesia, the Church | 134 | |
| Rannveig's vision | 138 | |
| The women of Helfta | 141 | |
| Letters of St Clare of Assisi | 149 | |
| 5 | Women and Power | |
| Fredegund | 164 | |
| Sigrid the Strong-minded | 169 | |
| Anna Dalassena and imperial power | 173 | |
| Alvild the Pirate | 175 | |
| Queen Philippa and the burghers of Calais | 177 | |
| A noble lady known to Christine de Pizan | 178 | |
| The way of life of the wise princess | 179 | |
| Joan of Arc | 181 | |
| 6 | Education and Knowledge | |
| The learning of Anglo-Saxon nuns | 194 | |
| The teaching of girls | 197 | |
| A wise woman prophesies | 198 | |
| Women's physiology | 200 | |
| Heloise and Abelard | 204 | |
| Women's education and Christine's own experience | 207 | |
| The foolishness of fashion | 208 | |
| Selling one's soul for knowledge | 210 | |
| 7 | Women and the Arts | |
| The first western dramatist: Hrotsvit's Dulcitius | 231 | |
| Some Norse women poets | 234 | |
| Hildegard and music | 236 | |
| Marie de France | 240 | |
| The poetry of Hadewijch | 242 | |
| Isolde and her music-making | 248 | |
| An embroidered praise-song | 250 | |
| Christine and the problem of representation | 251 | |
| Becoming textual: how Margery got her book written | 254 | |
| Bibliography | 256 | |
| Index | 269 |
Overview
Carolyne Larrington has gathered together a uniquely comprehensive collection of writing by, for and about medieval women, spanning one thousand years and Europe from Iceland to Byzantiu. The extracts are arranged thematically, dealing with the central areas of medieval women's lives and their relation to social and cultural institutions. Each section is contextualised with a brief historical introduction, and the materials span literary, historical, theological and other narrative and imaginative writing. The ...