English Aristocratic Women, 1450-1550


Book Description

This work, based on archival research, combines a collective portrait of aristocratic women with an analysis of the particular, class-specific form of patriarchy and gender relations that flourished among the upper classes in Yorkist and early Tudor England.
















Women of the English Nobility and Gentry, 1066-1500


Book Description

Jennifer Ward's recent book on later medieval English noblewomen argued convincingly the importance of those women's roles in shaping and structuring their world. In the present volume, she adds new dimensions to her work. She goes back further in time, situating changes as well as continuities in noblewomen's lives against the nobility's social and political evolution over the centuries from the eleventh to the fifteenth, and, in line with the aims of the series, she opens up the evidence, some of it hitherto unpublished, and presents it accessibly to what will surely be a wide audience.




Noble Women of Our Time


Book Description




Noblewomen, Aristocracy and Power in the Twelfth-Century Anglo-Norman Realm


Book Description

This is the first study of noblewomen in 12th-century England and Normandy, and of the ways in which they exercised power. It draws on a rich mix of evidence to offer an important reconceptualization of women's role in aristocratic society, and in doing so suggests new ways of looking at lordship and the ruling elite in the high middle ages. The book considers a wide range of literary sources such as chronicles, charters, seals and governmental records to draw out a detailed picture of noblewomen in the 12th-century Anglo-Norman realm. It asserts the importance of the lifecycle in determining the power of these aristocratic women, thereby demonstrating that the influence of gender on lordship was profound, complex and varied.