Glossary
A
abjure
swear to leave a place or to cease a practice
antiphon
specific short text sung at a certain point during a church service, often before or after a psalm
apprentice
someone, often an adolescent, who is legally bound over to another person in order to learn a craft or trade
assize
law; regulatory law
attached
legally seized, arrested
Augustuses
Roman emperors. In the Sicilian laws, it refers to the medieval Holy Roman Emperors.
B
banns
public notice of intended marriage
benedicite
(Latin) “say a blessing”; a common monastic greeting
bondwoman
unfree woman
boon
-workers peasants carrying out the work they are legally obligated to do for their lord
bovate
measure of land, based on what one ox could plow in a season; roughly 10 to 20 acres
budge
fur made from lambskin
burnet
high-quality brown cloth
bursar
monastic official in charge of finances
C
cantor
person who leads the chant; or the monastic official responsible for music
carucate
measure of land, based on what a team of eight oxen could plow in one season; roughly 120 acres
censor
server in church who carries a censer in which incense is burned
chapter
in monastic life, the daily meeting of the nuns or monks to conduct the business of the house; or the room where the meeting took place
chattels
movable possessions (as opposed to land). The chattels of a convicted felon were forfeited.
chevage
payment by unfree peasant for privilege of living elsewhere
choir
part of church building where nuns or monks sat, between nave and altar
church living
position or sinecure in the church to support a clerk, usually as a parish priest
churl
a free peasant
cinctured
belted. Sleeping cinctured, or belted, was correct monastic practice, but having chemises (linen undergarments) was not.
civey
a sauce made of wine, vinegar, herbs and spices
cloister
colonnaded open space at the center of a monastery; also, by extension, the monastery or the monastic life
commune
the urban community, or the formal organization of its citizens
companage
accompaniment
compline
one of the daily monastic services (hours or offices), held just before bedtime
compter
local London prison confiteor (Latin) “I confess”
conjugal debt
sexual intercourse owed to one’s spouse
convert
to take up the monastic life; or a person who has so converted
cony
rabbit
coster
hanging
cotter
peasant whose main holding is a cottage
covercle
lid
craft guild
organization of everyone in a given town involved in a particular craft or trade
croft
small holding of land
cumal
nominally the value of a bondmaid; more often the value of three to ten cows
curtilage
land pertaining to something; land within boundaries
D
deacon
a clergyman, ranking lower than a priest, with administrative and charitable duties
defamed
accused by rumor
discreets
advisers to the abbess
dispenser
household official similar to a butler
domestics
household servants
dorsal
an ornamental hanging for a chair or altar
dorter
dormitory, sleeping room
dower
the portion of his goods or land (often one-third) which a man was required to assign to his wife at the time of their marriage. This European-wide custom provided for the widow’s support: a woman had a life interest in her dower, but it reverted to her late husband’s heirs upon her death.
dowry
the property brought by a woman into her marriage
drage
mixed grain
draper
dealer in cloth, usually in woolen cloth
drawn
(as punishment) disemboweled
E
ell
measure of length, equal to 45 inches in England
ember day
one of twelve days of fasting and prayer, coming in four groups of three throughout the liturgical year
F
fardel
bundle
fast
to abstain from food; or to abstain from certain foods, usually meat
fine for entry
fee paid to the lord to obtain one’s inheritance
flawns
flat cakes or pies
frater
monastic dining hall
fulling
a step in the cloth-making process, involving the cleaning and thickening of the cloth
G
gallery
passageway
girdle
belt
grange
collection of farm-buildings; barn
guild
organization, usually urban
H
hall
large room used for gathering
heriot
payment owed to one’s lord upon one’s death; or payment due to a peasant’s lord when the peasant died leaving an inheritance
hesmel
collar
hide
fiscal measurement of land, roughly 80 to 120 acres
host
(communion host) bread used in the mass or communion
hours
(same as offices) prayer or worship at designated intervals throughout the day, carried out privately (as with a book of hours) or as part of the monastic life
huckster
pedlar, traveling merchant
hue
public notice of a crime or sudden death
hukster
pedlar, traveling merchant
I
incontinence
lack of chastity
infirmary
department of monastery caring for sick nuns or monks
J
journeywoman
female day laborer in a craft
K
N/A
L
lauds
one of the daily monastic services (hours or offices), held in the morning
leyr, leyrwite
fine for illicit sexual activity or for bearing an illegitimate child
lire di piccoli
Venetian pounds in old (small) money, so called after a recent issue of new (great) money
Lombards
people from Lombardy, known for being money-lenders
M
madder
a red dye
maid
virgin, or previously unmarried woman
mancus
Anglo-Saxon gold coin, or its equivalent in other gold
maravedf
Spanish coin, or monetary unit
master
man who is expert in his craft or trade
matins
one of the daily monastic services (hours or offices), held during the night
mazer
a hardwood, or a cup made of such wood
mea culpa (Latin)
“my fault,” i.e. the words of confession
medlar
apple-like fruit of the medlar tree, eaten after it begins to decay
mercer
dealer in textiles
merchet
payment due to a peasant woman’s lord when she married
messuage
residence and the land pertaining to it miserere (Latin) “have mercy,” i.e. a prayer for forgiveness
mistress
woman who is expert in her craft or trade
musterdevillers
a type of grey woolen cloth
mysteries
regulated crafts
N
nave
main body of a church building, where the congregation stands
noble
(as unit of money) a gold coin worth 6s. 8d.
none, nones
one of the daily monastic services (hours or offices), held in the afternoon
O
offices
(same as hours) the eight prayer services said or sung daily in monasteries; also used in other churches and by individuals
oratory
place of prayer; church
P
parlor
room in the monastery for nuns or monks to gather and talk
patronage of a church
the right to “present,” or appoint, a priest for the church
perch
measure of land, roughly five yards
pillory
a wooden apparatus for punishing wrongdoers by exposing them to public shame. It had holes for the neck and arms.
pittance
in a monastic context, food items that were of better quality than usual, given to the nuns or monks as a commemorative gift
pledge
someone who guaranteed one’s appearance in court, payment of debt, etc.
portifory
breviary, type of liturgical book
pottage
soup or stew
pound
place where stray animals were enclosed after being rounded up
presbytery
eastern part of church building, containing the altar; sanctuary
prime
one of the daily monastic services (hours or offices), held in the morning
priory
a daughter house, presided over by its own prioress, but ruled by the abbess of the mother house
procurator
representative of a party in a legal case
put herself upon the country
ask for a jury trial
Q
quire
(choir) part of church building where nuns or monks sat, between nave and altar
quitclaim
give up all legal claim to a thing
R
raise the hue
notify others about a crime or sudden death
ray
striped cloth
refectory
monastic dining hall
rere dorter
latrine
reverse
reverse side of fabric, used to make clothing more elaborate
rood
one quarter acre
S
sacrist
monastic official responsible for church vessels, vestments, and books
sacristy
room next to the church where sacred items such as church vessels, vestments, and liturgical books are kept
sanies
thin discharge
Saracen
Muslim
seized of
in possession of
set
a fraction of a cumal, sometimes worth one cow
sext
one of the daily monastic services (hours or offices), held at mid-day
simony
the buying and selling of positions in the church, forbidden by canon law
solar, sollar
“sun room,” used as a sitting room
soldi di grossi
Venetian shillings in new (great) money, so called after a recent revision of the coinage
stews
bathhouses
strapples
coverings for the lower leg, made of bands wrapped around the leg
strumpet
prostitute
sureties
guarantees, or people to serve as guarantors
syndic
representative of a party in a legal case
T
take the veil
become a nun
tallage
a type of land tax
tapicer
upholsterer or tapestry-worker
teazles
prickly plant heads, dried and used to raise a nap on cloth
terce
one of the daily monastic services (hours or offices), held in the morning
thewe
pillory for women. It was different in design from the men’s pillory, and may have been chair-shaped.
thraldom
bondage
thrall
slave
thurifer
server in church who carries a thurible, a censer in which incense is burned
tourn
session of a court
tun
a London prison
U
undercroft
lower story
V
vair
two-toned squirrel fur
verjuice
bitter juice from green or unripe fruit
vermilion
a red dye
vespers
one of the daily monastic services (hours or offices), held in the evening
vill
village
villein
serf, unfree peasant
villeinage
unfree peasant status
virgate
measure of land, equal to one-fourth of a carucate; roughly 30 acres
W
ward
(geography) division of a city
ward
(person) minor in the custody of a guardian
wardmote
local court of the (city) ward
wardship
guardianship
warming house
room where the nuns or monks could warm themselves; in earlier periods, one of the few heated rooms in the monastery
wergeld
in Germanic law, the amount of money which a killer was required to pay to the victim’s family. A person’s wergeld varied according to rank, sex and age.
Whitsun, Whitsuntide
the Christian feast of Pentecost
woad
a blue dye
X
N/A
Y
yeoman
in the Late Middle Ages, a free, small landholder, of peasant stock
Z
N/A
Further Reading
Since the first edition of this book appeared, there has been a vast output of scholarship in the field of medieval women’s history, so that any short bibliography like this one must be a somewhat arbitrary selection. The following list is of necessity restricted by space, and I have further limited it to books. Readers are urged to go further in specific fields, and also to seek out the valuable material that is available in the form of journal articles and, increasingly, in internet-based projects.
General works on medieval women
Primary sources
Dronke, Peter. Women Writers of the Middle Ages: A Critical Study of Texts from Perpetua (†203) to Marguerite Porete (†1310). Cambridge, 1984.
Goldberg, P. J. P., ed. and tr. Women in England, c. 1275-1525. Manchester and New York, 1995.
Larrington, Carolyne, ed. Women and Writing in Medieval Europe: A Sourcebook. London and New York, 1995. O’Faolain, Julia and Lauro Martines, eds. Not in God’s Image: Women in History from the Greeks to the Victorians. New York, 1973.
Petroff, Elizabeth Alvilda, ed. Medieval Women’s Visionary Literature. Oxford, 1986.
Thiebaux, Marcelle, ed. and tr. The Writings of Medieval Women. New York, 1987.
Watt, Diane. Medieval Women’s Writing: Works by and for Women in England, 1000-1500. Cambridge, 2007. Wiesner, Merry and Lisa Di Caprio, eds. Lives and Voices: A Sourcebook on European Women. Boston, 2001. Wilson, Katharina M., ed. Medieval Women Writers. Athens, GA, 1984.
Secondary works
Anderson, Bonnie S. and Judith P. Zinser. A History of Their Own: Women in Europe from Prehistory to the Present. New York, 1989. 2 vols.
Baker, Derek, ed. Medieval Women. Studies in Church History, Subsidia, I. Oxford, 1978.
Bechtold, Joan, Julia Bolton Holloway and Constance S. Wright, eds. Equally in God’s Image: Women in the Middle Ages. New York, 1990.
Bennett, Judith M., Elizabeth A. Clark, Jean F. O’Barr, B. Anne Vilen and Sarah Westphal-Wihl, eds.
Sisters and Workers in the Middle Ages. Chicago, 1990.
Bennett, Judith M. and Amy M. Froide, eds. Singlewomen in the European Past, 1250-1800. Philadelphia, 1999. Bitel, Lisa. Land of Women: Tales of Sex and Gender in Early Ireland. Ithaca, 1996.
Bridenthal, Renate and Claudia Koonz. Becoming Visible: Women in European History. Boston, 1977. Brown, Nancy Marie. The Far Traveler: Voyages of a Viking Woman. Orlando, 2008.
Bullough, Vern L., Brenda Shelton and Sarah Slavin. The Subordinated Sex: A History of Attitudes Toward Women. Rev. edn. Athens, GA, 1988.
Carpenter, Jennifer and Sally Beth MacLean, eds. Power of the Weak: Studies on Medieval Women. Urbana and Chicago, 1995.
Echols, Anne and Marty Williams, eds. Women in Medieval Times: An Annotated Index of Medieval Women. New York and Princeton, 1991.
Ennen, Edith. The Medieval Woman, tr. Edmund Jephcott. Oxford, 1990.
Erler, Mary and Maryanne Kowaleski, eds. Women and Power in the Middle Ages. Athens, GA, 1988.
Fell, Christine, with Cecily Clark and Elizabeth Williams. Women in Anglo-Saxon England and the Impact of 1066. Oxford, 1986.
Gies, Frances and Joseph. Women in the Middle Ages. New York, 1978.
Jesch, Judith. Women in the Viking Age. Woodbridge, Suffolk, 1991.
Jochens, Jenny. Women in Old Norse Society. Ithaca, 1995.
Kirshner, Julius and Suzanne F. Wemple, eds. Women of the Medieval World. Oxford, 1985.
Labalme, Patricia H., ed. Beyond Their Sex: Learned Women of the European Past. New York, 1984.
Labarge, Margaret Wade. A Small Sound of the Trumpet: Women in Medieval Life. Boston, 1986.
Levin, Carole and Jeanie Watson, eds. Ambiguous Realities: Women in the Middle Ages and Renaissance. Detroit, 1987.
Lewis, Katherine J., Noel James Menuge, and Kim M. Phillips, eds. Young Medieval Women. New York, 1999. Leyser, Henrietta. Medieval Women: A Social History of Women in England, 450-1500. London, 1995.
Lucas, Angela. Women in the Middle Ages: Religion, Marriage and Letters. New York, 1983.
Meek, Christine and Katharine Simms, eds. “The Fragility of Her Sex"?: Medieval Irishwomen in Their European Context. Dublin, 1996.
Morewedge, Rosemarie Thee, ed. The Role of Women in the Middle Ages. Albany, 1975.
Power, Eileen. Medieval Women, ed. M. M. Postan. Cambridge, 1975.
Rose, Mary Beth, ed. Women in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Syracuse, NY, 1986.
Rosenthal, Joel T., ed. Medieval Women and the Sources of Medieval History. Athens, GA, 1990.
Shahar, Shulamith. The Fourth Estate: A History of Women in the Middle Ages. New York, 1983.
Skinner, Patricia. Women in Medieval Italian Society, 500-1200. Harlow, 2001.
Stuard, Susan Mosher. Women in Medieval Society. Philadelphia, 1976.
Stuard, Susan Mosher. Women in Medieval History and Historiography. Philadelphia, 1987.
Uitz, Erica. The Legend of Good Women: Medieval Women in Towns and Cities, tr. Sheila Mamie. Mt. Kisco, NY, 1990. Ward, Jennifer. Women in Medieval Europe, 1200-1500. London, 2002.
Wemple, Suzanne Fonay. Women in Frankish Society: Marriage and the Cloister, 500 to 900. Philadelphia, 1985. Williams, Marty and Anne Echols. Between Pit and Pedestal: Women in the Middle Ages. Princeton, 1992.
I The heritage of ideas: Christian belief, Roman ideals, and Germanic custom
Primary sources
Ambrose, Bishop of Milan. On Virginity, tr. Daniel Callam. Toronto, 1980.
Augustine of Hippo. St. Augustin: Anti-Pelagian Writings, tr. Peter Holmes, Robert Ernest Wallace and Benjamin B. Warfield. Select Library of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, ser. 1, vol. V. Grand Rapids, MI, 1971.
Clark, Elizabeth and Herbert Richardson, eds. Women and Religion: A Feminist Sourcebook of Christian Thought. New York, 1977.
Drew, Katherine Fischer, tr. The Burgundian Code. Philadelphia, 1972.
Drew, Katherine Fischer, tr. The Lombard Laws. Philadelphia, 1973.
Jerome. Select Letters of St. Jerome, tr. F. A. Wright. Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge, MA, 1963. Jerome. St. Jerome: Letters and Select Works tr. W. H. Fremantle. Select Library of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, ser. 2, vol. VI. Edinburgh, 1892; repr. Grand Rapids, MI, 1989.
Lefkowitz, Mary R. and Maureen Fant, eds. Women’s Life in Greece and Rome. Baltimore, 1982.
Pharr, Clyde, tr. The Theodosian Code and Novels and the Sirmondian Constitutions. Princeton, 1952.
Rivers, Theodore John, tr. Laws of the Alamans and Bavarians. Philadelphia, 1977.
Rivers, Theodore John, tr. The Laws of the Salian and Ripuarian Franks. New York, 1986.
Schaff, Philip, ed. Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, ser. 1, vol. 3. Buffalo, NY, 1887.
Scott, S. P., tr. The Visigothic Code (Forum Judicum). Boston, 1910.
Scott, S. P., ed. The Civil Law. Cincinnati, 1932. Shelton, Jo-Ann. As the Romans Did: A Sourcebook in Roman Social History. 2nd edn. Oxford, 1998.
Secondary works
Bitel, Lisa. Women in Early Medieval Europe, 400-1100. Cambridge, 2002.
Cantarella, Eva. Pandora’s Daughters: The Role and Status of Women in Greek and Roman Society, tr. Maureen B. Fant. Baltimore, 1987.
Gardner, Jane F. Women in Roman Law and Society. Bloomington, IN, 1986.
Geary, Patrick J. Before France and Germany: The Creation and Tranformation of the Merovingian World. Oxford, 1988.
Pomeroy, Sarah B. Goddesses, Whores, Wives and Slaves: Women in Classical Antiquity. New York, 1975. Wemple, Suzanne Fonay. Women in Frankish Society: Marriage and the Cloister, 500 to 900. Philadelphia, 1985. Wiedemann, Thomas. Adults and Children in the Roman Empire. New Haven, 1989.
II Women and the law
Primary sources
Akehurst, F.R.P., tr. The Coutumes de Beauvaisis of Philippe de Beaumanoir. Philadelphia, 1992.
Burns, Robert I. Las Siete Partidas, tr. Samuel Parsons Scott. Philadelphia, 2001.
Hall, G.D.G., ed. and tr. Tractatus de legibus et consuetudinibus regni Anglie qui Glanvilla vocatur: The Treatise on the Laws and Customs of the Realm of England Commonly Called Glanvill, Nelson Medieval Texts. London, 1965.
Jenkins, Dafydd and Morfydd E. Owen, eds. The Welsh Law of Women. Cardiff, 1980.
Meyer, Kuno, ed. and tr. Cain Adamnain: An Old-Irish Treatise on the Law of Adamnan. Oxford, 1905.
Powell, James M., tr. The Liber Augustalis, or Constitutions of Melfi, Promulgated by the Emperor Frederick II for the Kingdom of Sicily in 1231. Syracuse, NY, 1971.
Schroeder, H.J. Disciplinary Decrees of the General Councils. St. Louis, MO and London: B. Herder Book Co., 1937.
Secondary works
Hanawalt, Barbara A. "Of Good and Ill Repute": Gender and Social Control in Medieval England. New York and Oxford, 1998.
Hanawalt, Barbara A. and David Wallace, eds. Medieval Crime and Social Control. Minneapolis, 1999.
Jones, Karen. Gender and Petty Crime in Late Medieval England: The Local Courts in Kent, 1460-1560. Wood- bridge, 2006.
Killerby, Catherine Kovesi. Sumptuary Law in Italy, 1200-1500. Oxford, 2002.
Menuge, Noël James, ed. Medieval Women and the Law. Woodbridge, 2003.
Stone, Marilyn. Marriage and Friendship in Medieval Spain: Social Relations According to the Fourth Partida of Alfonso X. New York, 1990.
Thompson, Augustine. Cities of God: The Religion of the Italian Communes, 1125-1325. University Park, PA, 2005.
III Marriage, sex, childbirth, and health
Primary sources
Bayard, Tania, tr. A Medieval Home Companion: Housekeeping in the Fourteenth Century New York, 1991. Berger, Margret, ed. and tr. Hildegard of Bingen. On Natural Philosophy and Medicine: Selections from Cause et Cure. Cambridge, 1999.
Greco, Gina L. and Christine M. Rose, tr. The Good Wife’s Guide (Le Ménagier de Paris): A Medieval Household Book. Ithaca, 2009.
Green, Monica H., ed. and tr. The Trotula: A Medieval Compendium of Women’s Medicine. Philadelphia, 2001. Lemay, Helen, tr. Women’s Secrets: A Translation of Pseudo-Albertus Magnus, “De secretis mulierum" with Commentaries. Albany, 1992.
McCarthy, Conor, ed. Love, Sex and Marriage in the Middle Ages: A Sourcebook. London and New York, 2004. McNeill, John T. and Helena M. Gamer, tr. and eds. Medieval Handbooks of Penance. New York, 1938.
McSheffrey, Shannon, ed. and tr. Love and Marriage in Medieval London. Kalamazoo, MI, 1995.
Murray, Jacqueline, ed. Love, Marriage, and Family in the Middle Ages: A Reader. Peterborough, Ontario, 2001. Palmquist, Mary and John Kulas, eds. Hildegard of Bingen: Holistic Healing, tr. Manfred Pawlik and Patrick Madigan. Collegeville, MN, 1994.
Payer, Pierre, tr. Raymond of Penyafort. Summa on Marriage. Toronto, 2005.
Radice, Betty, tr. The Letters of Abelard and Heloise. Harmondsworth, 1974.
Rowland, Beryl, tr. Medieval Woman’s Guide to Health: The First English Gynecological Handbook. Kent, OH, 1981.
Secondary works
Atkinson, Clarissa W. The Oldest Vocation: Christian Motherhood in the Middle Ages. Ithaca, NY, 1991. Boswell, John. Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality: Gay People in Western Europe from the Beginning of the Christian Era to the Fourteenth Century. Chicago, 1980.
Brooke, Christopher, ed. The Medieval Idea of Marriage. Oxford, 1989.
Brundage, James A. Law, Sex and Christian Society in Medieval Europe. Chicago, 1990.
Bullough, Vern L. and James A. Brundage, eds. Handbook of Medieval Sexuality. New York, 2000.
Cadden, Joan. Meanings of Sex Difference in the Middle Ages: Medicine, Science and Culture. Cambridge, 1993. Donahue, Charles, Jr. Law, Marriage, and Society in the Later Middle Ages: Arguments about Marriage in Five Courts. Cambridge, 2008.
Duby, Georges. The Knight, the Lady and the Priest: The Making of Modern Marriage in Medieval France, tr.
Barbara Bray. Harmondsworth, 1983.
Elliott, Dyan. Spiritual Marriage: Sexual Abstinence in Medieval Wedlock. Princeton, NJ, 1993.
Furst, Lilian R. Women Healers and Physicians: Climbing a Long Hill. Lexington, KY, 1997.
Gies, Frances and Joseph Gies. Marriage and the Family in the Middle Ages. New York, 1987.
Green, Monica H. Women’s Healthcare in the Medieval West. Aldershot, 2000.
Green, Monica H. Making Women’s Medicine Masculine: The Rise of Male Authority in Pre-Modern Gynaecology.
Oxford and New York, 2008.
Helmholz, R. H. Marriage Litigation in Medieval England. Cambridge, 1974.
Herlihy, David. Medieval Households. Cambridge, MA, 1985.
Karras, Ruth Mazo. Sexuality in Medieval Europe: Doing unto Others. New York, 2005.
Laiou, Angeliki E., ed. Consent and Coercion to Sex and Marriage in Ancient and Medieval Societies. Washington, DC. 1993. McCarthy, Conor. Marriage in Medieval England: Law, Literature, and Practice. Woodbridge, 2004.
Mews, Constant J. The Lost Love Letters of Abelard and Heloise. New York, 1999.
Neel, Carol, ed. Medieval Families: Perspectives on Marriage, Household, and Children. Toronto, 2004.
Parson, John Carmi and Bonnie Wheeler, eds. Medieval Mothering. New York, 1996.
Reynolds, Philip L. and John Witte, Jr., eds. To Have and To Hold: Marrying and Its Documentation in Western Christendom, 400-1600. Cambridge, 2007.
Riddle, John M. Contraception and Abortion from the Ancient World to the Renaissance. Cambridge, MA, 1992.
Riddle, John M. Eve’s Herbs: A History of Contraception and Abortion in the West. Cambridge, MA, 1997.
Sautman, Francesca Canade and Pamela Sheingorn, eds. Same Sex Love and Desire among Women in the Middle Ages. New York, 2001.
Shahar, Shulamith. Childhood in the Middle Ages. London and New York, 1990.
Sheehan, Michael M. Marriage, Family, and Law in Medieval Europe: Collected Papers, ed. James K. Farge. Toronto, 1996.
Sweet, Victoria. Rooted in the Earth, Rooted in the Sky: Hildegard of Bingen and Premodern Medicine. New York and London, 2006.
Walker, Sue Sheridan, ed. Wife and Widow in Medieval England. Ann Arbor, 1993.
IV Noblewomen’s lives
Primary sources
Barber, Richard. The Pastons: A Family in the Wars of the Roses. Harmondsworth, 1981.
Barnhouse, Rebecca. The Book of the Knight of the Tower: Manners for Young Medieval Women. New York, 2006. Benton, John F. ed. Self and Society in Medieval France: The Memoirs of Abbot Guibert of Nogent. New York, 1970. Brown, Andrew and Graeme Small, eds. and tr. Court and Civic Society in the Burgundian Low Countries, ca.1420-1530. Manchester, 2008.
Christine de Pisan. The Treasure of the City of Ladies, or, The Book of the Three Virtues, tr. Sarah Lawson.
Harmondsworth, 1985.
Christine de Pizan. The Book of the City of Ladies, tr. Earl Jeffrey Richards. London, 1983.
Christine de Pizan. A Medieval Woman’s Mirror of Honor: The Treasury of the City of Ladies, tr. Charity Canon Willard, ed. Madeleine Pelner Cosman. New York, 1989.
Christine de Pizan. Christine’s Vision, tr. Glenda K. McLeod. New York, 1993.
Christine de Pizan. The Writings of Christine de Pizan, ed. Charity Cannon Willard. New York, 1993. Christine de Pizan. The Selected Writings of Christine de Pizan, tr. Renate Blumenfeld-Kosinski (ed.) and Kevin Brownlee. New York and London, 1997.
Christine de Pizan. The Vision of Christine de Pizan, tr. Glenda McLeod and Charity Cannon Willard. Cambridge, 2005.
Dhuoda. Handbook for William: A Carolingian Woman’s Counsel for Her Son, tr. Carol Neel. Lincoln, NB, and London, 1991.
Gregory of Tours. The History of the Franks, tr. Lewis Thorpe. Harmondsworth, 1974.
Nicolas, Harris Nicholas, ed. Testamenta Vetusta: Being Illustrations from Wills, of Manners, Customs, etc., 2 vols. London, 1826.
Redstone, Vincent B., ed. The Household Book of Dame Alice de Bryene, tr. M. K. Dale. Ipswich, 1931.
Ross, Barbara, ed. and tr. Accounts of the Stewards of the Talbot Household at Blakmere, 1392-1425. Keele, 2003. Walmsley, John, ed. and tr. Widows, Heirs, and Heiresses in the Late Twelfth Century: The Rotuli de Dominabus et Pueris et Puellis. Tempe, AZ, 2006.
Ward, Jennifer C. Women of the English Nobility and Gentry, 1066-1500. Manchester, 1996.
Whitelock, Dorothy, ed. and tr. Anglo-Saxon Wills. Cambridge, 1930.
Secondary Works
Bogin, Meg. The Women Troubadours. New York, 1980.
Coss, Peter. The Lady in Medieval England, 1000-1500. Stroud, 1998.
Evergates, Theodore, ed. Aristocratic Women in Medieval France. Philadelphia, 1999.
Gies, Joseph and Frances Gies. Life in a Medieval Castle. New York, 1974.
Harris, BarbaraJ. English Aristocratic Women, 1450-1550: Marriage and Family, Properly and Careers. Oxford, 2002. Labarge, Margaret Wade. A Baronial Household of the Thirteenth Century. Totowa, NJ, 1980.
Mirrer, Louise. Upon My Husband’s Death: Widows in the Literature and Histories of Medieval Europe. Ann Arbor, MI, 1991.
Rosenthal, Joel T. Patriarchy and Families of Privilege in Fifteenth-Century England. Philadelphia, 1991. Stenton, Doris Mary. The English Woman in History. London, 1957.
Ward, Jennifer C. English Noblewomen in the Later Middle Ages. London, 1992.
Willard, Charity Cannon. Christine de Pizan, Her Life and Works. New York, 1990.
Woolgar, C. M. The Great Household in Late Medieval England. New Haven, 1999.
V Peasant women’s lives
Primary sources
Bailey, Mark, ed. and tr. The English Manor, c. 1200-1500: Selected Sources. Manchester, 2002. Humphreys, Arthur L., ed. Materials for the History of the Town and Parish of Wellington in the County of Somerset. London, 1910.
Hunnisett, R.F., ed. Bedfordshire Coroners’ Rolls. Bedfordshire Historical Record Society, 1961. Massingberd, W.O., tr. Court Rolls of the Manor of Ingoldmells in the County of Lincolnshire. London, 1902.
Secondary works
Balestracci, Duccio. The Renaissance in the Fields: Family Memoirs of a Fifteenth-Century Tuscan Peasant, tr.
Paolo Squatriti and Betsy Merideth. University Park, PA, 1999.
Bennett, Judith M. Women in the Medieval English Countryside. Oxford, 1989.
Bennett, Judith M. A Medieval Life: Cecilia Penifader of Brigstock, c. 1295-1344. Boston, 1999.
Charles, Lindsey and Lorna Duffin. Women and Work in Preindustrial England. London, 1985.
Dyer, Christopher. Everyday Life in Medieval England. London and New York, 1994.
Gies, Joseph and Frances Gies. Life in a Medieval Village. New York, 1990.
Hanawalt, Barbara. The Ties that Bound: Peasant Families in Medieval England. New York, 1986.
Hanawalt, Barbara, ed. Women and Work in Preindustrial Europe. Bloomington, IN, 1986.
VI Townswomen’s lives
Primary sources
Bateson, M., ed. Borough Customs. London, 1966.
Dean, Trevor, ed. The Towns of Italy in the Later Middle Ages. Manchester, 2000.
Hanham, Alison, ed. The Cely Letters, 1472-1488. London, 1975.
Kingsford, Charles Lethbridge, ed. The Stonor Letters and Papers, 1290-1483, 2 vols. London, 1919.
Riley, H.T., ed. Memorials of London and London Life, 2 vols. London, 1868.
Rogers, Mary, ed. Women in Italy, 1350-1650. Manchester, 2000.
Secondary works
Barron, Caroline M. and Anne F. Sutton, eds. Medieval London Widows, 1300-1500. London, 1994. Bennett, Judith M. Ale, Beer, and Brewsters in England: Women’s Work in a Changing World, 1300-1600. New York and Oxford, 1996.
Dillard, Heath. Daughters of the Reconquest: Women in Castilian Town Society, 1100-1300. Cambridge, 1984. Farmer, Sharon. Surviving Poverty in Medieval Paris: Gender, Ideology, and the Daily Lives of the Poor. Ithaca, 2002.
Gies, Joseph and Frances Gies. Life in a Medieval City. New York, 1969.
Hanawalt, Barbara A., ed. Women and Work in Preindustrial Europe. Bloomington, IN, 1986.
Hanawalt, Barbara A.. The Wealth of Wives: Women, Law, and Economy in Late Medieval London. New York, 2007. Hanham, Alison. The Celys and Their World: An English Merchant Family of the Fifteenth Century. Cambridge, 1985. Herlihy, David. Opera Muliebria: Women and Work in Medieval Europe. Philadelphia, 1990.
Howell, Martha C. Women, Production and Patriarchy in Late Medieval Cities. Chicago, 1988.
Karras, Ruth Mazo. Common Women: Prostitution and Sexuality in Medieval England. Oxford, 1996. McIntosh, Marjorie Keniston. Working Women in English Society, 1300-1620. Cambridge, 2005.
Nicholas, David The Domestic Life of a Medieval City: Women, Children, and the Family in Fourteenth-Century Ghent. Lincoln, NB, 1988.
Origo, Iris. The Merchant of Prato: Francesco di Marco Datini, 1335-1410. Boston, 1957.
Otis, Leah Lydia. Prostitution in Medieval Society: The History of an Urban Institution in Languedoc. Chicago, 1985. Rossiaud, Jacques. Medieval Prostitution, tr. Lydia G. Cochrane. Oxford, 1988.
Thrupp, Sylvia. The Merchant Class of Medieval London, 1300-1500. Chicago, 1948.
VII Religious lives
Primary sources
Ackerman, Robert W. and Roger Dahood, tr. Ancrene Riwle: Introduction and Part I. Binghamton, NY, 1984. Armstrong, Regis J., ed. Clare of Assisi: Early Documents. Mahwah, NJ, 1988.
Augustine of Hippo. St. Augustine: Select Letters, tr. J.H. Baxter. Loeb Classical Library. London, 1930. Brunn, Emilie Zum and Georgette Epiney-Burgard, eds. Women Mystics in Medieval Europe. New York, 1989. Donatus of Besançon. The Ordeal of Community, and The Rule of Donatus of Besançon, tr. Jo Ann McNamara and John Halborg. Toronto, n.d.
Eudes of Rouen. The Register of Eudes of Rouen, tr. Sydney M. Brown, ed. Jeremiah F. O’Sullivan. New York and London, 1964.
Fox, Matthew, ed. Hildegard of Bingen’s Book of Divine Works, with Letters and Songs. Santa Fe, NM, 1987. Hallborg,John E.,Jo Ann McNamara and Gordon Whatley, eds. Sainted Women of the Dark Ages. Durham, NC, 1992.
Hildegard of Bingen. Illuminations, ed. Matthew Fox. Santa Fe, NM, 1985.
Hildegard of Bingen. Explanation of the Rule of Benedict, tr. Hugh Feiss. Toronto, 1990.
Hrotswitha of Gandersheim. The Plays of Hrotswitha of Gandersheim, tr. Larissa Bonfante with Alexandra Bonfante-Warren. Oak Park, IL, 1986.
Hrotswitha of Gandersheim. The Plays of Hrotsvit of Gandersheim, tr. Katharina M. Wilson. New York, 1989.
Jacques de Vitry. The Faces of Women in the Sermons of Jacques de Vitry, ed. and tr. Carolyn Muessig. Toronto, 1999.
Julian of Norwich. Revelations of Divine Love, ed. Halcyon Backhouse with Rhona Pipe. London, 1987. Kempe, Margery. The Book of Margery Kempe, tr. Barry Windeatt. Harmondsworth, 1985.
Millett, Bella and Jocelyn Wogan-Browne, eds. Medieval English Prose for Women: The Katherine Group and Ancrene Wisse. Oxford, 1990.
Morton, James, ed. The Nun’s Rule, Being the Ancren Riwle Modernised. London, 1905.
Riccaboni, Sister Bartolomea. Life and Death in a Venetian Convent: The Chronicle and Necrology of Corpus Domini, 1395-1436, ed. and tr. Daniel Bornstein. Chicago and London, 2000.
Talbot, C.H., tr. The Life of Christina of Markyate, A Twelfth-Century Recluse. Oxford, 1987.
Thomas de Cantimpré. The Life of Christina the Astonishing, tr. and ed. Margot King with David Wiljer. Toronto, 1986.
Secondary works
Atkinson, Clarissa. Mystic and Pilgrim: The Book and World of Margery Kempe. Ithaca, 1983.
Bynum, Caroline Walker. Holy Feast, Holy Fast: The Religious Significance of Food to Medieval Women. Berkeley, 1987. Cartwright, Jane. Feminine Sanctity and Spirituality in Medieval Wales. Cardiff, 2008.
Collis, Louise. Memoirs of a Medieval Woman: The Life and Times of Margery Kempe. New York, 1964.
Elkins, Sharon K. Holy Women of Twelfth-Century England. Chapel Hill, NC, 1988.
Finnegan, Mary Jeremy. The Women of Helfta: Scholars and Mystics. Athens, GA, 1991.
Flanagan, Sabina. Hildegard of Bingen: A Visionary Life. New York, 1989.
Haight, Anne Lyon, ed. Hroswitha of Gandersheim: Her Life, Times, and Works, and a Comprehensive Bibliography. New York, 1965.
Johnson, Penelope D. Equal in Monastic Profession: Religious Women in Medieval France. Chicago, 1991. McDonnell, Ernest W. The Beguines and Beghards in Medieval Culture with Special Emphasis on the Belgian Scene. New Brunswick, NJ, 1969.
McNamara, Jo Ann Kay. Sisters in Arms: Catholic Nuns through Two Millennia. Cambridge, MA, 1996. Newman, Barbara. Sister of Wisdom: St. Hildegard’s Theology of the Feminine. Berkeley, 1987.
Newman, Barbara, ed. Voice of the Living Light: Hildegard of Bingen and Her World. Berkeley, 1998.
Nichols, John A. and Lillian Thomas Shank, eds. Distant Echoes: Medieval Religious Women I. Kalamazoo, MI, 1984. Nichols,John A. and Lillian Thomas Shank, eds. Peace Weavers: Medieval Religious Women II. Kalamazoo, MI, 1987. Nichols, John A. and Lillian Thomas Shank, eds. Hidden Springs: Cistercian Monastic Women, I and II. Medieval Religious Women III. Kalamazoo, MI, 1995.
Power, Eileen. Medieval English Nunneries. Cambridge, 1922.
Ruether, Rosemary and Eleanor McLaughlin, eds. Women of Spirit: Female Leadership in the fewish and Christian Traditions. New York, 1979.
Salisbury, Joyce E. Church Fathers, Independent Virgins. New York, 1991.
Simons, Walter. Cities of Ladies: Beguine Communities in the Medieval Low Countries, 1200-1565. Philadelphia, 2001. Thurston, Bonnie Bowman. A Women’s Ministry in the Early Church. Minneapolis, 1989.
Venarde, Bruce L. Women’s Monasticism and Medieval Society: Nunneries in France and England, 890-1215.
Ithaca and New York, 1997.
Ward, Benedicta. Harlots of the Desert: A Study of Repentance in Early Monastic Sources. Kalamazoo, MI, 1987. Wheeler, Bonnie, ed. Listening to Heloise: The Voice of a Twelfth-Century Woman. New York, 2000.
Wilson, Katharina M. Hrotsvit of Gandersheim: Rara Avis in Saxonia? Ann Arbor, MI, 1987.
VIII Jewish, Muslim, and heretic women
Primary sources
Bos, Gerrit, ed and tr. Ibn al-Jazzâr on Sexual Diseases and Their Treatment. London, 1997.
Dawood, NJ., tr. The Koran. Harmondsworth, 1990.
Henry, Sondra and Emily Taitz. Written Out of History: A Hidden Legacy of Jewish Women Revealed Through Their Writings and Letters. New York, 1978.
Klein, Isaac, tr. The Code of Maimonides. Book Four: The Book of Women. New Haven and London, 1972. Lewis, Bernard, ed. and tr. Islam from the Prophet Muhammad to the Capture of Constantinople, 2 vols. New York, 1974.
Maitland, S. R., ed. Facts and Documents Illustrative of the History, Doctrine, and Rites of the Ancient Albigenses and Waldenses. London, 1832.
Marcus, Jacob R., ed. The Few in the Medieval World: A Sourcebook, 315-1791. Cincinnati, 1938. Maxwell-Stuart, P.G., tr. The Malleus Maleficarum. Manchester, 2007.
Smith, Colin, Charles Melville, and Ahmad Ubaydli, eds. Christian and Moors in Spain, 3 vols. Warminster, 1988-2001.
Secondary works
Barkai, Ron. A History of Jewish Gynaecological Texts in the Middle Ages. Leiden, 1998.
Baskin, Judith R. Jewish Women in Historical Perspective. Detroit, 1991.
Baumgarten, Elisheva. Mothers and Children: Jewish Family Life in Medieval Europe. Princeton, NJ, 2004. Deguilham, Randi and Manuela Marin, eds. Writing the Feminine: Women in Arab Sources. New York, 2002. Fine, Lawrence, ed. Judaism in Practice: From the Middle Ages through the Early Modern Period. Princeton and Oxford, 2001.
Hambly, Gavin R.G., ed. Women in the Medieval Islamic World. New York, 1999.
Ladurie, Emmanuel Le Roy. Montaillou: Cathars and Catholics in a French Village, 1294-1324. London, 1980. Lindsay, James E. Daily Life in the Medieval Islamic World. Westport, CT, 2005.
McSheffrey, Shannon. Gender and Heresy: Women and Men in Lollard Communities, 1420-1530. Philadelphia, 1995. Richards, Jeffrey. Sex, Dissidence, and Damnation: Minority Groups in the Middle Ages. New York, 1991. Winer, Rebecca Lynn. Women, Wealth, and Community in Perpignan, c. 1250-1300. Aldershot, 2006.