Medieval widowhood was a strongly gendered concept. Only in the 14th century was a parallel term applied to men whose wives had died. The legal status and protections for female widows differed from those for male widowers. Widows occupied an ambiguous status as a sexualized, but uncontrolled, woman, and as an independent legal/social entity who had “paid her dues” to earn that status. Widows were entitled to 1/3-1/2 of their late husband’s estate and in many cases could continue his business, guild membership, and other economic functions.
England
Covering topics relating specifically to England or generally to the region equivalent to the modern United Kingdom. Sometimes lazily and inaccurately used generally for the British Isles, especially when articles don’t specifically identify the nationality of authors.
LHMP entry
Comic drama traditionally relies on and enforces the stereotypes and norms of heterosexual marriage. Most Elizabethan comedies do not present female singlehood and independence as a viable option, even when used as a transitional motif in the plot. Comedic resolutions overwhelmingly require the pairing off of single women into heterosexual marriages. Female resistance raises the questions: Must women marry? And must women marry men? Rarely are those questions answered in the negative. John Lyly stands out in offering a negative response.
This is a fairly extensive research paper in two parts. The first looks at the demographics of singlewomen in Late Tudor and Stuart England, along with some of the social forces that affected women’s inclination and ability to avoid marriage. The second part looks specifically at the occupation of money-lender as an option for women to support themselves or to supplement other forms of income.
This paper begins by looking at the function of single men in chivalric literature as being free to pursue courtly love and service to all women only by not being bound to a specific woman. But the single woman--the one who requires rescuing because she has no man to act for her--is what makes the male character’s reputation possible.
The legend of the virgin martyr Katherine of Alexandria became immensely popular in the 14-15th century. It presents the fairly standard story of the Christian daughter of a pagan ruler who resists marriage and supports the Christian community despite increasingly violent threats and punishments. With her increased popularity in the later middle ages, there is a shift from the tone of the earlier texts as “passio” (focused on suffering and martyrdom) to a more detailed “life story” (focusing on the details and context of the subject’s life).
This paper looks at three female Anglo-Saxon saints, as depicted in Anglo-Norman hagiography: Osith, Etheldreda, and Modwenna. The women are doubly “other” within the texts: Anglo-Saxon lives being portrayed for a readership of Norman churchmen, and women being portrayed by and for men.
As usual, the introduction to this collection includes laying out the basic concepts of the topic, a review of the existing literature, and then summaries of the papers that discuss how they relate to each other.
This book is a study of inheritance patterns for women as their parent's daughters (as opposed to inheriting from more distant relations or unrelated persons), based on a collection of London wills dating to 1300-1500. Within this historic context (i.e., 14-15th century London), 15% of women never married.
This article is taken from a more extensive study and edition of Caxton's 15th century English translation of the Vitas Patrum (biographies of early saints) that Lowerre was working on. This paper looks specifically at four "transvestite" saints and one other female saint with similar themes. The author's conclusions are that rather than representing a proto-feminist sentiment, the biographies of the cross-dressing saints reflect an acceptance of the misogyny of the times.
Blud's book is focused primarily on philosophy and literary criticism, and employs a lot of theory jargon. This is not a book about historic substance and data, but an analysis that plays with ideas, using Old and Middle English texts as a unifying theme.
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