Author : John Carmi Parsons
Publisher : Taylor & Francis
Page : 430 pages
File Size : 30,88 MB
Release : 1999
Category : History
ISBN : 9780815336655
First published in 1996. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.
Author : Bonnie Wheeler
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 403 pages
File Size : 22,22 MB
Release : 2014-04-23
Category : Family & Relationships
ISBN : 1134822782
First published in 1996. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.
Author : Marian Bleeke
Publisher : Boydell & Brewer
Page : 218 pages
File Size : 14,18 MB
Release : 2017
Category : Motherhood
ISBN : 1783272503
An examination of women as mothers in medieval French sculpture.
Author : Lesley Smith
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 388 pages
File Size : 46,50 MB
Release : 2016-04-22
Category : History
ISBN : 1317093976
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 remained a blind spot for medieval historians. Whatever the reasons, the result is that the historiography of the medieval period is largely motherless. The aim of this book is to insist that this picture is intolerably one-dimensional, and to begin to change it. The volume is focussed on the paradox of motherhood in the European Middle Ages: to be a mother is at once to hold great power, and by the same token to be acutely vulnerable. The essays look to analyse the powers and the dangers of motherhood within the warp and weft of social history, beginning with the premise that religious discourse or practice served as a medium in which mothers (and others) could assess their situation, defend claims, and make accusations. Within this frame, three main themes emerge: survival, agency, and institutionalization. The volume spans the length and breadth of the Middle Ages, from late Roman North Africa through ninth-century Byzantium to late medieval Somerset, drawing in a range of types of historian, including textual scholars, literary critics, students of religion and economic historians. The unity of the volume arises from the very diversity of approaches within it, all addressed to the central topic.
Author : Clarissa W. Atkinson
Publisher : Cornell University Press
Page : 289 pages
File Size : 25,1 MB
Release : 2019-03-15
Category : History
ISBN : 150174089X
According to an old story, a woman concealed her sex and ruled as pope for a few years in the ninth century. Pope Joan was not betrayed by a lover or discovered by an enemy; her downfall came when she went into labor during a papal procession through the streets of Rome. From the myth of Joan to the experiences of saints, nuns, and ordinary women, The Oldest Vocation brings to life both the richness and the troubling contradictions of Christian motherhood in medieval Europe. After tracing the roots of medieval ideologies of motherhood in early Christianity, Clarissa W. Atkinson reconstructs the physiological assumptions underlying medieval notions about women's bodies and reproduction; inherited from Greek science and popularized through the practice of midwifery, these assumptions helped shape common beliefs about what mothers were. She then describes the development of "spiritual motherhood" both as a concept emerging out of monastic ideologies in the early Middle Ages and as a reality in the lives of certain remarkable women. Atkinson explores the theological dimensions of medieval motherhood by discussing the cult of the Virgin Mary in twelfth-century art, story, and religious expression. She also offers a fascinating new perspective on the women saints of the later Middle Ages, many of whom were mothers; their lives and cults forged new relationships between maternity and holiness. The Oldest Vocation concludes where most histories of motherhood begin—in early modern Europe, when the family was institutionalized as a center of religious and social organization. Anyone interested in the status of motherhood, or in women's history, the cultural history of the Middle Ages, or the history of religion will want to read this book.
Author : M. Dockray-Miller
Publisher : Springer
Page : 168 pages
File Size : 18,69 MB
Release : 2000-03-15
Category : History
ISBN : 031229963X
Motherhood and Mothering in Anglo-Saxon England sifts through the historical evidence to describe and analyze a world of violence and intrigue, where mothers needed to devise their own systems to protect, nurture, and teach their children. Mary Dockray-Miller casts a maternal eye on Bede, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, and Beowulf to reveal mothers who created rituals, genealogies, and institutions for their children and themselves. Little-known historical figures - queens, abbesses, and other noblewomen - used their power in court and convent to provide education, medical care, and safety for their children, showing us that mothers of a thousand years ago and mothers of today had many of the same goals and aspirations.
Author : F. Tolhurst
Publisher : Springer
Page : 350 pages
File Size : 48,29 MB
Release : 2013-02-12
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 1137329262
Geoffrey of Monmouth and the Translation of Female Kingship provides the first feminist analysis of the part of The History of the Kings of Britain that most readers overlook: the reigns before and after Arthur's.
Author : Anneke Mulder-Bakker
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 365 pages
File Size : 27,13 MB
Release : 2013-05-13
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 1134819420
Increasingly, recent scholarship has focused on those married women and mothers in the Middle Ages who achieved holiness. The Merovingian Waldetrudis and Rictrudis; Ida, mother of the crusader king Godfrey of Bouillon; Elisabeth of Hungary and Bridget of Sweden are among them. Unlike Mary and her mother, Saint Anne (mother saints, whose sanctity was based on motherhood) these female parents were honored despite rather than because of their children. They were holy mothers, whose status as spouses and mothers gave them a public voice and opened for them the road to sanctification. They successfully combined marriage and motherhood with a religious life and functioned as holy women in their community. Despite increasing respect, tension between the roles of saint and wife persisted. Saintly women were not expected to be happily married: the ancient prejudice against sexual passion and physical ease mitigated the enjoyment of married life.The book's original essays focus on Northern Europe, where the cult of Saint Anne reached its climax around 1500. It does not explore Church doctrine and theology, as other studies do, but examines the religious experience of historical holy mothers and saints and how these women were perceived by their communities and their biographers.
Author : Andrea O'Reilly
Publisher : SAGE
Page : 1521 pages
File Size : 10,12 MB
Release : 2010-04-06
Category : Family & Relationships
ISBN : 1412968461
In the last decade, the topic of motherhood has emerged as a distinct and established field of scholarly inquiry. A cursory review of motherhood research reveals that hundreds of scholarly articles have been published on almost every motherhood theme imaginable. The Encyclopedia of Motherhood is a collection of approximately 700 articles in a three-volume, A-to-Z set exploring major topics related to motherhood, from geographical, historical and cultural entries to anthropological and psychological contributions. In human society, few institutions are as important as motherhood, and this unique encyclopedia captures the interdisciplinary foundation of the subject in one convenient reference. The Encyclopedia is a comprehensive resource designed to provide an understanding of the complexities of motherhood for academic and public libraries, and is written by academics and institutional experts in the social and behavioural sciences.
Author : Sandy Bardsley
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Page : 257 pages
File Size : 39,75 MB
Release : 2007-06-30
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 0313055858
Information about women in this truly fascinating period from 500 to 1500 is in great demand and has been a challenge for historians to uncover. Bardsley has mined a wide range of primary sources, from noblewomen's writing, court rolls, chivalric literature, laws and legal documents, to archeology and artwork. This fresh survey provides readers with an excellent understanding of how women high and low fared in terms of religion, work, family, law, culture, and politics and public life. Even though medieval women were divided by social class, religion, age, marital status, place and period, they were all subject to an overarching patriarchal structure and sometimes could transcend their inferior status. Numerous examples of these exceptional women and their words are included. Chapter 1 examines religion, focusing on women's roles in the early Christian church, the lives of nuns and other professional religious women such as anchoresses and Beguines, the participation of Christian laywomen, and the experiences of Jewish and Islamic women in Western Europe. The second chapter examines women's work, looking in turn at the kinds of work performed by peasant women, townswomen, and noblewomen. Women's roles within the family form the subject of the third chapter. This chapter follows women throughout the typical lifecycle - from girl to widow - examining the expectations and experiences of women at each stage. Chapter 4, Women and the Law, focuses on the ways in which laws both restricted and protected women. It also considers the crimes with which women were most often charged and surveys laws regarding marriage and widowhood. Women's roles in creative arts form the basis of the fifth chapter, Women and Culture. This chapter examines women's roles as artists, authors, composers, and patrons, as well as investigating the ways in which women were represented in works produced by men. Finally, chapter 6 discusses women's experiences in politics and public life. While women as a group were typically banned from holding positions of public authority, some found ways to get around this stricture, while others were able to exercise power behind the scenes. The final chapter thus encapsulates a major theme of this book: the interplay between broader patriarchal forces that limited women's status and autonomy and the role of individuals who were able to overcome or circumvent such forces. Medieval women were, as a group, subordinate to their husbands and fathers, but certain women, under certain circumstances, evaded subordination.
