Further Reading
Introduction
Many of the recent works on the Middle Ages contain chapters on women or integrate their discussion of women and men. Works specifically on women cover either the whole of Europe or particular areas or themes. Women and gender are discussed by J.M. Bennett and R.M. Karras (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Women and Gender in Medieval Europe (Oxford, 2013); M. Schaus (ed.), Women and Gender in Medieval Europe. An Encyclopedia (London, 2006); and P. Stafford and A.B. Mulder-Bakker (eds), Gendering the Middle Ages (Oxford, 2001). Masculinity is analysed in D.M. Hadley (ed.), Masculinity in Medieval Europe (London, 1999). G. Duby and M. Perrot (eds), A History of Women in the West, 5 vols (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1992–4), cover women’s history from ancient to modern times; volume II, C. Klapisch-Zuber (ed.), Silences of the Middle Ages, discusses the medieval period; S. Shahar, The Fourth Estate. A History of Women in the Middle Ages, (trans.) C. Galai (London, 1983), covers the period from the early twelfth to the early fifteenth century. J.M. Bennett and A.M. Froide (eds), Singlewomen in the European Past 1250-1800 (Philadelphia, 1999), take the history of women on their own, as does C. Beattie, Medieval Single Women. The Politics of Social Classification in Late Medieval England (Oxford, 2007). J.M. Bennett, Medieval Women in Modern Perspective (American Historical Association, Washington, 2000), examines concepts of continuity and change.
There are a number of recent histories of medieval women in England, such as H. Leyser, Medieval Women. A Social History of Women in England 450-1500 (London, 1995) and H.M. Jewell, Women in Medieval England (Manchester, 1996); M.E. Mate, Women in Medieval English Society (Cambridge, 1999); and J. Ward, Women in England in the Middle Ages (London, 2006). P.J.P. Goldberg (ed.), Women in Medieval English Society (Stroud, 1997), contains essays on the social aspects of women’s lives. The archaeological dimension is considered by R. Gilchrist, Medieval Life. Archaeology and the Life Course (Woodbridge, 2012).
Volumes of essays, covering a wide range of women’s experiences, incorporate recent views and research. Among the most important are M. Erler and M. Kowaleski (eds), Women and Power in the Middle Ages (Athens, Georgia, 1988), and M. Erler and M. Kowaleski (eds), Gendering the Master Narrative. Women and Power in the Middle Ages (Ithaca and London, 2003).
A number of collections of sources has been published and these include G. Brucker (ed.), The Society of Renaissance Florence. A Documentary Study (New York, 1971); E. Amt (ed.), Womenʾs Lives in Medieval Europe. A Sourcebook (New York and London, 1993); P.J.P. Goldberg (ed. and trans.), Women in England c. 1275–1525 (Manchester, 1995); and P. Skinner and E. Van Houts (trans. and eds), Medieval Writings on Secular Women (London, 2011).
Laywomen
Women, patriarchy and gender are analysed in Bennett and Karras (eds), Women and Gender in Medieval Europe. A wide selection of sources on how women were viewed in the Middle Ages is given in A. Blamires (ed.), Woman Defamed and Woman Defended (Oxford, 1992). Medical ideas are discussed in C. Rawcliffe, Medicine and Society in Later Medieval England (Stroud, 1995). Ways in which ideas changed over the twelfth century are examined in P.S. Gold, The Lady and the Virgin. Image, Attitude and Experience in Twelfth-Century France (Chicago, 1985). Rape is discussed by K. Gravdal, Ravishing Maidens. Writing Rape in Medieval French Literature and Law (Philadelphia, 1991); G. Ruggiero, The Boundaries of Eros. Sex, Crime and Sexuality in Renaissance Venice (Oxford, 1985); and C. Dunn, Stolen Women in Medieval England: Rape, Abduction and Adultery, 1100–1500 (Cambridge, 2013).
The overall legal position of women according to canon, civil and customary law is investigated in Recueils de la Société Jean Bodin 12 (1962), pp. 59–445. Aspects of the law as it affected women are considered in N.J. Menuge (ed.), Medieval Women and the Law (Woodbridge, 2000); T. Kuehn, Law, Family and Women: Towards a Legal Anthropology of Renaissance Italy (Chicago, 1991); and C. Beattie and M.F. Stevens (eds), Married Women and the Law in Premodern North-West Europe (Woodbridge, 2013). The evolution of the dowry is discussed by D.O. Hughes, ʿFrom brideprice to dowryʾ, JFH 3 (1978), pp. 262–96. The issues of dowry, property and inheritance are considered in a large number of works, including M.C. Gerbet, La noblesse dans le royaume de Castille. Etude sur ses structures sociales en Estrémadure, 1454–1516 (Paris, 1979); S.P. Bensch, Barcelona and its Rulers, 1096–1291 (Cambridge, 1995); M-T. Caron, La noblesse dans le Duché de Bourgogne 1315–1477 (Lille, 1987; T. Evergates, Feudal Society in the Bailliage of Troyes under the Counts of Champagne (Baltimore, 1975); P. Lock, The Franks in the Aegean (London, 1995); and J. Hudson, Land, Law and Lordship in Anglo-Norman England (Oxford, 1994).
Upbringing
Interest in the history of childhood was stimulated by P. Ariès, LʾEnfant et la vie familiale sous lʾAncien Régime (Paris, 1960). His views are disputed by S. Shahar, Childhood in the Middle Ages (London, 1990), and J.T. Rosenthal (ed.), Essays on Medieval Childhood (Donington, 2007). The life cycle is discussed by D. Youngs, The Life Cycle in Western Europe, c. 1300–c. 1500 (Manchester, 2006). Works on childhood include D. Alexandre-Bidon and Lett, Les enfants au moyen âge (Paris, 1997); C. Klapisch-Zuber, Women, Family and Ritual in Renaissance Italy, (trans.) L.G. Cochrane (Chicago, 1985); B. Hanawalt, Growing Up in Medieval London. The Experience of Childhood in History (Oxford, 1993); and K.J. Lewis, N.J. Menuge and K.M. Phillips (eds), Young Medieval Women (Stroud, 1999); N. Orme, From Childhood to Chivalry. The Education of the English Kings and Aristocracy 1066–1530 (London, 1984); N. Orme, Medieval Children (New Haven, Connecticut, 2001); K.M. Phillips, Medieval Maidens. Young Women and Gender in England, 1270–1540 (Manchester, 2003); and L.J. Wilkinson (ed.), A Cultural History of Childhood and Family in the Middle Ages (New York, 2010).
The relationship between mother and child is explored in C. Leyser and L. Smith (eds), Motherhood, Religion and Society, 400–1400. Essays presented to Henrietta Leyser (Farnham, 2011). The experience of adolescent service is discussed by P.J.P. Goldberg, Women, Work and Life Cycle in a Medieval Economy: Women in York and Yorkshire c. 1300–1520 (Oxford, 1992, and by K. Eisenbichler (ed.), The Premodern Teenager. Youth in Society 1150–1650 (Toronto, 2002). The experience of orphans is discussed by P. Gavitt, Charity and Children in Renaissance Florence. The Ospedale degli Innocenti 1410–1536 (Ann Arbor, Michigan, 1990).
Marriage
Overviews of medieval marriage are provided by G. Duby, The Knight, the Lady and the Priest. The Making of Modern Marriage in Medieval France, (trans.) B. Bray (Harmondsworth, 1983); J. Goody, The Development of the Family and Marriage in Europe (Cambridge, 1983); and C.N.L. Brooke, The Medieval Idea of Marriage (Oxford, 1989). Michael Sheehanʾs articles on the canon law of marriage have been published in Marriage, Family and Law in Medieval Europe (Toronto, 1996). Essays on migration are included in P. Horden (ed.), Freedom of Movement in the Middle Ages. Proceedings of the 2003 Harlaxton Symposium (Donington, 2007). Two collections of sources provide a comprehensive overview: C. McCarthy (ed.), Love, Sex and Marriage in the Middle Ages. A Sourcebook (London, 2004); and J. Murray (ed.), Love, Marriage and Family in the Middle Ages (Peterborough, Ontario, 2001).
Sexuality is discussed in J-L. Flandrin, Sex in the Western World. The Development of Attitudes and Behaviour, (trans.) S. Collins (Chur, 1991); J.A. Brundage, Law, Sex and Christian Society in Medieval Europe (Chicago, 1987); and V.L. Bullough and J.A. Brundage (eds), Handbook of Medieval Sexuality (New York, 1996). Marital problems which came before the Church courts are examined in R.H. Helmholz, Marriage Litigation in Medieval England (Cambridge, 1974).
There is a considerable literature on the formation of marriage in particular parts of Europe and only a selection can be given here. For England, see Goldberg, Women, Work and Life Cycle, and Z. Razi, Life, Marriage and Death in a Medieval Parish. Economy, Society and Demography in Halesowen 1270–1400 (Cambridge, 1980); and S. McSheffrey, Marriage, Sex and Civic Culture in Late Medieval London (Philadelphia, 2006). For Italy, Klapisch-Zuber, Women, Family and Ritual; and T. Dean and K.J.P. Lowe (eds), Marriage in Italy 1300–1650 (Cambridge, 1998). For Spain, Bensch, Barcelona and its Rulers; H. Dillard, Daughters of the Reconquest. Women in Castilian Town Society, 1100–1300 (Cambridge, 1984); and J. Guiral-Hadziiossif, Valence, port méditerranéen au quinzième siècle (Paris, 1986). For France, R. Boutruche, La crise dʾune société. Seigneurs et paysans du bordelais pendant la guerre de cent ans (Paris, 1947); and M-T. Lorcin, Vivre et mourir en Lyonnais à la fin du moyen âge (Paris, 1981). For the Low Countries, M.C. Howell, The Marriage Exchange. Property, Social Place and Gender in Cities of the Low Countries, 1300–1550 (Chicago, 1998). For the Balkans, S.M. Stuard, A State of Deference: Ragusa/ Dubrovnik in the Medieval Centuries (Philadelphia, 1992); and for Ireland, A. Cosgrove (ed.), Marriage in Ireland (Dublin, 1985).
Women and family; The house and household
An overview is provided by A. Burguière, C. Klapisch-Zuber, M. Segalen and F. Zonabend (eds), Histoire de la Famille, 2 vols (Paris, 1986). Two volumes of essays discuss family life: S. Roush and C.L. Baskins (eds), The Medieval Marriage Scene. Prudence, Passion, Policy (Tempe, Arizona, 2005); and I. Davis, M. Müller and S. Rees Jones (eds), Love, Marriage and Family Ties in the Later Middle Ages (Turnhout, 2003). A detailed analysis of late medieval Tuscany is found in D. Herlihy and C. Klapisch-Zuber, Tuscans and their Families. A Study of the Florentine Catasto of 1427 (New Haven, Connecticut, 1985). Peasant families are discussed in W. Rösener, Peasants in the Middle Ages, (trans.) A. Stützer (Cambridge, 1992); E. Le Roy Ladurie, The French Peasantry 1450–1660, (trans.) A. Sheridan (Aldershot, 1987); R. Fossier, Peasant Life in the Medieval West, (trans.) J. Vale (Oxford, 1988); and B.A. Hanawalt, The Ties that Bound. Peasant Families in Medieval England (Oxford, 1986). An in-depth village study is provided by E. Le Roy Ladurie, Montaillou. Cathars and Catholics in a French Village 1294–1324, (trans.) B. Bray (London, 1978) or by the revised French edition, Montaillou, Village Occitan de 1294 à 1324 (Paris, 1982). Urban families are discussed in B.A. Hanawalt, The Wealth of Wives. Women, Law and Economy in Late Medieval London (Oxford, 1997); Klapisch-Zuber, Women, Family and Ritual; D. Romano, Patricians and Popolani. The Social Foundations of the Venetian Renaissance State (Baltimore, 1987); and by D. Nicholas, The Domestic Life of a Medieval City: Women, Children and the Family in Fourteenth-Century Ghent (Lincoln, Nebraska, 1985).
The growing interest in household, housing and domesticity is shown in C. Beattie, A. Maslakovic and S. Rees Jones (eds), The Medieval Household in Christian Europe, c. 850-c. 1550 (Turnhout, 2013); J. Wogan-Browne, R. Voaden, A. Diamond, A. Hutchison, C. Meale and L. Johnson (eds), Medieval Women: Texts and Contexts in Late Medieval Britain. Essays for Felicity Riddy (Turnhout, 2000); and M. Kowaleski and P.J.P. Goldberg (eds), Medieval Domesticity. Home, Housing and Household in Medieval England (Cambridge, 2008).
For childbirth and motherhood, see J.C. Parsons and B. Wheeler (eds), Medieval Mothering (New York, 1996); and J.M. Musacchio, The Art and Ritual of Childbirth in Renaissance Italy (New Haven, Connecticut, 1999). For medical care, see Rawcliffe, Medicine and Society. Conditions of daily life are discussed by C. Dyer, Standards of Living in the Later Middle Ages (Cambridge, 1989); M. Carlin and J.T. Rosenthal (eds), Food and Eating in Medieval Europe (London, 1998); and I. Origo, The Merchant of Prato. (Harmondsworth, 1992).
Women and work in rural areas; Townswomen and work
A number of books consider womenʾs work in the European context. There are several volumes of collected essays, such as Bennett and Froide (eds), Singlewomen in the European Past; Beattie and Stevens (eds), Married Women and the Law: B.A. Hanawalt (ed.), Women and Work in Preindustrial Europe (Bloomington, Indiana, 1986); C. Dolan (ed.), Travail et travailleurs en Europe au moyen âge et au début des temps modernes (Toronto, 1991); and C.M. Barron and A.F. Sutton (eds), Medieval London Widows 1300–1500 (London, 1994). Individually authored works include E. Uitz, Women in the Medieval Town, (trans.) S. Marnie (London, 1990); D. Herlihy, Opera Muliebria. Women and Work in Medieval Europe (New York, 1990); and M. Howell, Women, Production and Patriarchy in Late Medieval Cities (Chicago, 1986), which looks at Leiden and Cologne in their general context; Howell, The Marriage Exchange, analyses the situation at Douai.
For England, work in the countryside and in retailing is considered by R.H. Hilton, The English Peasantry in the Later Middle Ages (Oxford, 1975), and Class Conflict and the Crisis of Feudalism (London, 1985); J.M. Bennett, Women in the Medieval English Countryside. Gender and Household in Brigstock before the Plague (Oxford, 1987), and Ale, Beer and Brewsters in England (Oxford, 1996); and S. Bardsley, ʿWomenʾs work reconsidered: gender and wage differentiation in late medieval Englandʾ, PandP, no. 165 (1999), pp. 3–29, and ibid. no. 173 (2001), pp. 191–202. Urban work is discussed in Goldberg, Women, Work and Life Cycle; H. Swanson, Medieval Artisans. An Urban Class in Late Medieval England (Oxford, 1989); L. Charles and L. Duffin (eds), Women and Work in PreIndustrial England (London, 1985); and in M.K. McIntosh, Working Women in English Society, 1300–1620 (Cambridge, 2005).
The situation in Venice is examined by D. Romano in Patricians and Popolani and in Housecraft and Statecraft. Domestic Service in Renaissance Venice, 1400–1600 (Baltimore, 1996), and in Genoa by S.A. Epstein, Genoa and the Genoese, 958–1528 (Chapel Hill, North Carolina, 1996). Merry E. Wiesner, Working Women in Renaissance Germany (New Brunswick, New Jersey, 1986), covers the late medieval as well as the early modern period. The womenʾs guilds in Cologne are considered in detail by M. Wensky, Die Stellung der Frau in der stadtkölnischen Wirtschaft im Spätmittelalter (Cologne, 1980). The situation in Ghent is discussed by D. Nicholas, Domestic Life of a Medieval City. Several works discuss womenʾs work in Spain, such as LʾArtisan dans la Péninsule Ibérique (Nice, 1993); Dillard, Daughters of the Reconquest; Guiral-Hadziiossif, Valence; and C. Carrère, Barcelone, centre économique à lʾépoque des difficultés, 1380–1462, 2 vols (Paris, 1967).
Womenʾs role in medical care is examined by M. Green, ʾWomenʾs medical practice and health care in medieval Europeʾ, Signs 14 (1988–9), pp. 434–73; M. Green, Womenʾs Healthcare in the Medieval West (Aldershot, 2000); M. Green (ed. and trans.), The Trotula. A Medieval Compendium of Womenʾs Medicine (Philadelphia, 2001); M. Green, Making Womenʾs Medicine Masculine. The Rise of Male Authority in Premodern Gynaecology (Oxford, 2008); K. Park, Doctors and Medicine in Early Renaissance Florence (Princeton, 1985); D. Jacquart, Le milieu médical en France du douzième au quinzième siécle (Geneva, 1981); L. Granshaw and R. Porter (eds), The Hospital in History (London, 1989); and by Rawcliffe, Medicine and Society.
Considerable research has been done on later medieval prostitution, as in L.L. Otis, Prostitution in Medieval Society. The History of an Urban Institution in Languedoc (Chicago, 1985); B. Geremek, The Margins of Society in Late Medieval Paris, (trans.) J. Birrell (Cambridge, 1987); J. Rossiaud, Medieval Prostitution, (trans. L.G. Cochrane) (Oxford, 1988); R.M. Karras, Common Women. Prostitution and Sexuality in Medieval England (Oxford, 1996); P. Schuster, Das Frauenhaus. Städtische Bordelle in Deutschland, 1350–1600 (Paderborn, 1992); and R.C. Trexler, ʿLa prostitution florentine au quinzième siècleʾ, Annales ESC 36 (1981), pp.983–1015.
Note LʾArtisan dan la Péninsule Ibérique had no editor and has to be accessed by title.
Ethnic minorities: Jews, Muslims and slaves
Growing interest in this subject has sparked off a growth in publications. Jewish family life and work are discussed in J.R. Baskin (ed.), Jewish Women in Historical Perspective (2nd edition, Detroit, 1998); E. Baumgarten, Mothers and Children. Jewish Family Life in Medieval Europe (Princeton, 2004); C. Cluse (ed.), The Jews of Europe in the Middle Ages (Turnhout, 2004); A. Grossman, Pious and Rebellious. Jewish Women in Medieval Europe (Waltham, Mass., 2004); and P. Skinner (ed.), The Jews in Medieval Britain. Historical, Literary and Archaeological Perspectives (Woodbridge, 2003).
R.L. Winer, Women, Wealth and Community in Perpignan, c. 1250–1300 (Aldershot, 2006) examines gender in the context of the Jewish, Muslim and Christian religions in the town. Muslims are discussed in M.D. Meyerson, The Muslims of Valencia in the Age of Ferdinand and Isabel: Between Coexistence and Crusade (Berkeley, 1991); and D. Nirenberg, Communities of Violence. Persecution of Minorities in the Middle Ages (Princeton, 1996).
Slavery in medieval Europe is analysed in J. Heers, Esclaves et domestiques au moyen âge dans le monde méditerranéen (Paris, 1981); and S.A. Epstein, Genoa and the Genoese, 958–1528 (Chapel Hill, North Carolina, 1996).
Women and power: Noblewomen and queens
Several overall surveys have been published in the 1990s: J.C. Parsons (ed.), Medieval Queenship (Stroud, 1994); Parsons and Wheeler (eds), Medieval Mothering; A.J. Duggan (ed.), Queens and Queenship in Medieval Europe (Woodbridge, 1997); A.J. Duggan (ed.), Nobles and Nobility in Medieval Europe (Woodbridge, 2000); and J.C. Ward, English Noblewomen in the Later Middle Ages (London, 1992). English source material can be found in J.C. Ward, Women of the English Nobility and Gentry 1066–1500 (Manchester, 1995).
Biographies of noblewomen include J-M. Richard, Mahaut comtesse dʾArtois et de Bourgogne (Paris, 1887); D. Eichberger, A.M. Legaré and W. Hüsken (eds), Women at the Burgundian Court: Presence and Influence (Turnhout, 2010); C. Weightman, Margaret of York Duchess of Burgundy 1446–1503 (Stroud, 1989); and M.K. Jones and M.G. Underwood, The Kingʾs Mother. Lady Margaret Beaufort, Countess of Richmond and Derby (Cambridge, 1992).
Biographies of queens include M. Howell, Eleanor of Provence. Queenship in Thirteenth-Century England (Oxford, 1998); J.C. Parsons, Eleanor of Castile. Queen and Society in Thirteenth-Century England (New York, 1995); M. Shadis, Berenguela of Castile (1180–1246) and Political Women in the High Middle Ages (Basingstoke and New York, 2009); J. Bianchini, The Queenʾs Hand. Power and Authority in the Reign of Berenguela of Castile (Philadelphia, 2012); T. Earenfight, The Kingʾs Other Body. Maria of Castile and the Crown of Aragon (Philadelphia, 2010); and P.K. Liss, Isabel the Queen. Life and Times (Oxford, 1992).
Laywomen and the arts
Most of the works in the previous section include chapters on patronage of the arts. A number of monographs focus on patronage, including J.H. McCash (ed.), The Cultural Patronage of Medieval Women (Athens, Georgia, 1995); C.E. King, Renaissance Women Patrons. Wives and Widows in Italy c. 1300–1550 (Manchester, 1998); J.M. Wood, Women, Art and Spirituality. The Poor Clares of Early Modern Italy (Cambridge, 1996); and A.M. Morganstern, Gothic Tombs of Kinship in France, the Low Countries and England (Philadelphia, 2000). The patronage of Isabella dʾEste is discussed in Julia Cartwright, Isabella dʾEste, Marchioness of Mantua, 1474–1539. A Study of the Renaissance, 2 vols (London, 1903).
Books and book ownership are discussed by S.G. Bell, ʿMedieval women book owners: arbiters of lay piety and ambassadors of cultureʾ, in Erler and Kowaleski (eds), Women and Power in the Middle Ages, (Athens, Georgia, 1987), pp. 149–87; J. Backhouse, Books of Hours (London, 1985); M.M. Manion and B.J. Muir (eds), The Art of the Book. Its Place in Medieval Worship (Exeter, 1998); C.M. Meale (ed.), Women and Literature in Britain, 1150–1500 (Cambridge, 1993); L. Smith and J.H.M. Taylor (eds), Women, the Book and the Worldly (Woodbridge, 1995); and L. Smith and J.H.M. Taylor (eds), Women, the Book and the Godly (Woodbridge, 1995).
Troubadours are discussed by L.M. Paterson, The World of the Troubadours. Medieval Occitan Society, c. 1100–c. 1300 (Cambridge, 1992); W.D. Paden (ed.),The Voice of the Trobairitz. Perspectives on the Women Troubadours (Philadelphia, 1989); and S. Gaunt and S. Kay (eds), The Troubadours. An Introduction(Cambridge, 1999).
Christine de Pizanʾs life and work are discussed by C.C. Willard, Christine de Pizan. Her Life and Works (New York, 1984), and a selection of her works in translation can be found in C.C. Willard (ed.), The Writings of Christine de Pizan (New York, 1994).
Religious women
Many of the works on religious women discuss nuns, beguines, penitents, mystics and saints, and only a selection can be given here: D. Bornstein and R. Rusconi (eds), Women and Religion in Medieval and Renaissance Italy (Chicago, 1996); La femme dans la vie religieuse du Languedoc (Toulouse, 1987); FJ. Griffiths and J. Hotchin (eds), Partners in Spirit. Women, Men and Religious Life in Germany, 1100–1500 (Turnhout, 2014); A. Minnis and R. Voaden (eds), Medieval Holy Women in the Christian Tradition c. 1100–c. 1500 (Turnhout, 2010); A.B. Mulder-Bakker (ed.), Sanctity and Motherhood. Essays on Holy Mothers in the Middle Ages (New York, 1995); M. Parisse (ed.), Les religieuses en France au treizième siècle (Nancy, 1985); J. Raitt (ed.), Christian Spirituality. High Middle Ages and Reformation (London, 1987); P. Ranft, Women and the Religious Life in Premodern Europe (Basingstoke, 1996); A. Vauchez, Les laïcs au moyen âge. Pratiques et expériences religieuses (Paris, 1987); and A. Vauchez, Saints, prophètes et visionnaires. Le pouvoir surnaturel au moyen âge (Paris, 1999).
The attitudes of religious women to food are discussed by C.W. Bynum, Holy Feast and Holy Fast (Berkeley, California, 1987). The background to devotion to the Eucharist is discussed by M. Rubin, Corpus Christi. The Eucharist in Late Medieval Culture (Cambridge, 1991). A wide selection of source material is included in E.A. Petroff (ed.), Medieval Womenʾs Visionary Literature (Oxford, 1986).
Note La femme dans la vie religieuse du Languedoc has no editor and has to be accessed by title.
Religious life: Nuns and nunneries
An overview is found in M. Parisse, Les nonnes au moyen âge (Le Puy, 1983). Studies of nuns and nunneries in various parts of Europe include S. Thompson, Women Religious. The Founding of English Nunneries after the Norman Conquest (Oxford, 1991); M. Oliva, The Convent and the Community in Late Medieval England. Female Monasteries in the Diocese of Norwich, 1350–1540 (Woodbridge, 1998); P.D. Johnson, Equal in Monastic Profession. Religious Women in Medieval France (Chicago, 1991); P. Linehan, The Ladies of Zamora (Manchester, 1997); J.L. Meacham; A.I. Beach, C.R. Berman and L.M. Bitel (eds), Sacred Communities, Shared Devotions. Gender, Material Culture and Monasticism in Late Medieval Germany (Turnhout, 2014); and R. Trexler, ʿLe célibat à la fin du Moyen Age: les religieuses de Florenceʾ, Annales ESC 27 (1972), pp. 1329–50. The significance of the layout of nunneries is discussed by R. Gilchrist, Gender and Material Culture. The Archaeology of Religious Women (London, 1994).
Religious life: Beguines, penitents and recluses
Several monographs have been published on the beguines, including D. Phillips, Beguines in Medieval Strasburg. A Study of the Social Aspect of Beguine Life (Stanford, California, 1941); E.W. McDonnell, The Beguines and Beghards in Medieval Culture (New Brunswick, New York, 1954); J-C. Schmitt, Mort dʾune hérésie. LʾEglise et les clercs face aux béguines et aux béghards du Rhin supérieur du quatorzième au quinzième siècle (Paris, 1978); and W. Simons, Cities of Ladies. Beguine Communities in the Medieval Low Countries, 1200–1565 (Philadelphia, 2001). Recluses are discussed in A.K. Warren, Anchorites and their Patrons in Medieval England (Berkeley, California, 1985); A.B. Mulder-Bakker, The Rise of the Urban Recluse in Medieval Europe (Philadelphia, 2005); and L.H. McAvoy, Medieval Anchoritisms. Gender, Space and the Solitary Life (Woodbridge, 2011).
Mystics and saints
A useful work of reference is D.H. Farmer, Oxford Dictionary of Saints (Oxford, 1997). General surveys of the saints include A. Vauchez, Sainthood in the Middle Ages, (trans.) J. Birrell (Cambridge, 1997); D.M. Weinstein and R.M. Bell, Saints and Society. The Two Worlds of Western Christendom, 1000–1700 (Chicago, 1982); R.M. Bell, Holy Anorexia (Chicago, 1985); and R. Kieckhefer, Unquiet Souls. Fourteenth-Century Saints and their Religious Milieu (Chicago, 1984).
Medieval mysticism is discussed by C.W. Bynum, Jesus as Mother. Studies in the Spirituality of the High Middle Ages (Berkeley, California, 1982); F. Beer, Women and Mystical Experience in the Middle Ages (Woodbridge, 1992); C.M. Mooney (ed.), Gendered Voices. Medieval Saints and their Interpreters (Philadelphia, 1999); R. Voaden, God’s Words, Women’s Voices. The Discernment of Spirits in the Writing of Late-Medieval Women Visionaries (Woodbridge, 1999), and R. Voaden (ed.), Prophets Abroad. The Reception of Continental Holy Women in Late-Medieval England (Woodbridge, 1996); and D. Watt, Secretaries of God. Women Prophets in Late Medieval and Early Modern England (Woodbridge, 1997). Monographs on the women mystics include C.W. Atkinson, Mystic and Pilgrim. The Book and the World of Margery Kempe (Ithaca, New York, 1983); and Bridget Morris, St Birgitta of Sweden (Woodbridge, 1999).
Laywomen and charity; Lay beliefs and religious practice
Works on the poor include M. Mollat, The Poor in the Middle Ages. An Essay in Social History, (trans.) A. Goldhammer (New Haven, Connecticut, 1985); J. Henderson, Piety and Charity in Late Medieval Florence (Oxford, 1993); and S. Farmer, Surviving Poverty in Medieval Paris (Ithaca and London, 2002).
A background survey of medieval religion is provided by B. Hamilton, Religion in the Medieval West (London, 1986). The significance of the Mass is discussed by J. Bossy, ʿThe Mass as a social institution 1200–1700ʾ, PandP 100 (1983) pp. 29–61. Source material for England is given in R.N. Swanson (ed. and trans.), Catholic England. Faith, Religion and Observance before the Reformation (Manchester, 1993).
Studies of religious life within the parish can be found in E. Le Roy Ladurie, Montaillou; P. Adam, La vie paroissiale en France au quatorzième siècle (Paris, 1964); V. Bainbridge, Gilds in the Medieval Countryside. Social and Religious Change in Cambridgeshire c. 1350–1558 (Woodbridge, 1996); K.L. French, The Good Women of the Parish: Gender and Religion after the Black Death (Philadelphia, 2008); R.W. Scribner, Popular Culture and Popular Movements in Reformation Germany (London, 1987); Vauchez, Les laïcs au moyen âge; and Romano, Patricians and Populani. Guilds are discussed by Bainbridge, Gilds in the Medieval Countryside.
Pilgrimage is discussed by J. Sumption, Pilgrimage. An Image of Mediaeval Religion (London, 1975) and D. Webb, Pilgrimage in Medieval England (London, 2000).
Death and commemoration are discussed in a large number of works, including J. Chiffoleau, La comptabilité de lʾau-delà. Les hommes, la mort et la religion dans la région dʾAvignon à la fin du moyen âge (Rome, 1980); S.K. Cohn, Jr. Death and Property in Siena, 1205–1800 (Baltimore, 1988) and The Cult of Remembrance and the Black Death (Baltimore, 1992); J.R. Banker, Death in the Community. Memorialization and Confraternities in an Italian Commune in the Late Middle Ages (Athens, Georgia, 1988); and S. Epstein, Wills and Wealth in Medieval Genoa, 1150–1250 (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1984); Lorcin, Vivre et mourir en Lyonnais.
Women, heresy and witchcraft
Medieval heresies are surveyed by M. Lambert, Medieval Heresy. Popular Movements from Bogomil to Hus (London, 1977). The Waldenses are discussed by E. Cameron, The Reformation of the Heretics. The Waldenses of the Alps, 1480–1580 (Oxford, 1984); E. Cameron, Waldenses. Rejections of Holy Church in Medieval Europe (Oxford, 2001); and P. Biller, The Waldenses, 1170–1530. Between a Religious Order and a Church (Aldershot, 2001). Women and the Cathars are examined by E. Griffe, Le Languedoc cathare de 1190 à 1210 (Paris, 1971); E. Griffe, Le Languedoc cathare au temps de la croisade (Paris, 1973); R. Abels and E. Harrison, ̔The participation of women in Languedocian Catharismʾ, Medieval Studies 41 (1979), pp. 215–51; C. Lansing, Power and Purity. Cathar Heresy in Medieval Italy (Oxford, 1998); E. Le Roy Ladurie, Montaillou; C. Sparks, Heresy, Inquisition and Life Cycle in Medieval Languedoc (Woodbridge, 2014). Works on Lollardy include S. McSheffrey, Gender and Heresy. Women and Men in Lollard Communities, 1420–1530 (Philadelphia, 1995); M. Aston and C. Richmond (eds), Lollardy and the Gentry in the Later Middle Ages (Stroud, 1997); and R. Lutton, Lollardy and Orthodox Religion in Pre-Reformation England: Reconstructing Piety (Woodbridge, 2011).
Witchcraft is discussed in J.B. Russell, Witchcraft in the Middle Ages (Ithaca, New York, 1972); R. Kieckhefer, European Witch Trials. Their Foundations in Popular and Learned Culture, 1300–1500 (London, 1976); and R. Kieckhefer, Magic in the Middle Ages (Cambridge, 1989).