The Case for Women in Medieval CultureMisogyny is of course not the whole story of medieval discourse on women: medieval culture also envisaged a case for women. But hitherto studies of profeminine attitudes in that periods culture have tended to concentrate on courtly literature or on female visionary writings or on attempts to transcend misogyny by major authors such as Christine de Pizan and Chaucer. This book sets out to demonstrate something different: that there existed from early in the Middle Ages a corpus of substantial traditions in defence of women, on which the more familiar authors drew, and that this corpus itself consolidated strands of profeminine thought that had been present as far back as the patristic literature of the fourth century. The Case for Women surveys extant writings formally defending women in the Middle Ages; breaks new ground by identifying a source for profeminine argument in biblical apocrypha; offers a series of explorations of the background and circulation of central arguments on behalf of women; and seeks to situate relevant texts by Christine de Pizan, Chaucer, Abelard, and Hrotsvitha in relation to these arguments. Topics covered range from the privileges of women, and pro-Eve polemic, to the social and moral strengths attributed to women, and to the powerful modelsfrequently disruptive of patriarchal complacencypresented by Old and New Testament women. The contribution made by these emphases (which are not to be confused with feminism in a modern sense) to medieval constructions of gender is throughout critically assessed, and the book concludes by asking how far defenders were controlled by, or able to query, assumptions about what was natural (and therefore imagined inflexible) in gender theory. |
Contents
1 | |
19 | |
Origins Procedures | 50 |
3 Honouring Mothers | 70 |
4 Eve and the Privileges of Women | 96 |
5 The Stable Sex | 126 |
6 Exemplifying Feminine Stability | 153 |
7 Profeminine RoleModels | 171 |
8 The Formal Case in Abelard Chaucer Christine de Pizan | 199 |
Conclusion | 231 |
Bibliography | 245 |
Index | 269 |
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Common terms and phrases
Abelard and Heloise Abelard's First Reply Adam Albertanus alleged Ambrose argument assertion Augustine Blamires Boccaccio Bozon Cambridge Chaucer Chrétien de Troyes Christ Christine de Pizan Christine's Cité des dames Clerk's Tale constancy culture Curnow Deborah Defamed and Woman defence of women Deschamps discourse discussion Dulcitius Epistre Esdras Esther Eve's example exempla female feminine Feminism Feminist femmes Fèvre gender Geoffrey Chaucer Heloise on Religious Hildegard of Bingen honour Hrotsvitha's husbands Jerome John Laudine Le Fèvre Legend Letter of Heloise Literature Livre de Leësce London male Marbod Marbod of Rennes marriage Mary Magdalene masculine medieval Middle Ages Middle English Miroir de mariage misogyny mother Muckle mulier narrative Newman Peter Abelard poem preaching privileges profeminine rhetorical Richards role Romance saints Scott Moncrieff sermon sexual strength Studies Tale tion topos tradition twelfth century vols wives Woman Defamed Woman Defended writing York Yvain þat
Popular passages
Page 187 - Let your women keep silence in the churches : for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they are commanded to be under obedience, as also saith the law. 35 And if they will learn any thing, let them ask their husbands at home : for it is a shame for women to speak in the church.
Page 53 - By this also ye must know that women have dominion over you: do ye not labour and toil, and give and bring all to the woman?
Page 46 - Therfore no womman of no clerk is preysed. The clerk, whan he is oold and may noght do Of Venus werkes worth his olde sho, Thanne sit he doun, and writ in his dotage That wommen kan nat kepe hir mariage.
Page 53 - And yet for all this the king gaped and gazed upon her with open mouth; if she laughed upon him, he laughed also; but if she took any displeasure at him, the king was fain to flatter, that she might be reconciled to him again. "O ye men, how can it be but women should be strong, seeing they do thus?
Page 95 - In women there is always more or less of the mother who makes everything all right, who nourishes, and who stands up against separation; a force that will not be cut off but will knock the wind out of the codes.
Page 85 - In like manner, also, let wives be subject to their husbands; that if any believe not the word, they may be won without the word, by the conversation of the wives...
Page 54 - O ye men, it is not the great king, nor the multitude of men, neither is it wine that excelleth: who is it then that ruleth them, or hath the lordship over them? are they not women?
Page 5 - The first item, temperament, involves the formation of human personality along stereotyped lines of sex category ("masculine" and "feminine"), based on the needs and values of the dominant group and dictated by what its members cherish in themselves and find convenient in subordinates; aggression, intelligence, force, and efficacy in the male; passivity, ignorance, docility, "virtue," and ineffectuality in the female.
Page 72 - Hear, my son, the words of my mouth, and lay them as a foundation in thy heart : when God shall take my soul, thou shalt bury my body : and thou shalt honour thy mother all the days of her life : for thou must be mindful what and how great perils she suffered for thee in her womb.
Page 53 - ... and looketh upon a lion and goeth in the darkness; and when he hath stolen, spoiled, and robbed, he bringeth it to his love.