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Gender, Memory and Documentary Culture, c.900-1300
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Edited by:
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Language:
English
Published/Copyright:
2025
About this book
Considers the role gender played in the production, use and preservation of documents.
How was the world of medieval documentation and memory creation affected by gender? This question is central to the essays collected here, which bring together aspects of gender and documentary culture that are usually studied only in isolation. Covering the tenth to the thirteenth centuries, the volume offers a broad geographical reach - England, France, Flanders, Germany, Spain - and an array of sources, from charters, letters and court proceedings to seals, iconography, and illumination. There is a particular focus on lay female communities, including women's collective legal action in pre-Conquest England, documentary initiatives of Castilian peasant widows, and urban Flemish women's sealing practices. Re-examinations of noblewomen's centrality - and erasure - in charters focus on Ermengarde of Brittany, Mathilda of Boulogne and Berengaria of Navarre. Contributions on gender and historical writing explore their development in Ottonian courts, tenth-century English coronation portraits, Orderic Vitalis' Historia Ecclesiastica, and French chroniclers' rhetorical strategies for writing noblewomen's rage. Further chapters consider monastic spaces, including women's houses at Auxerre and Marcigny and at Holy Trinity, Caen, and explore women's memory preservation efforts, at Spanish houses - San Salvador de Oña and Santa María de Piasca - and a community at Bouxières. This volume demonstrates the new insights that can be gleaned by viewing various processes, such as legal disputes and monastic narratives and foundation, through a gendered lens.
How was the world of medieval documentation and memory creation affected by gender? This question is central to the essays collected here, which bring together aspects of gender and documentary culture that are usually studied only in isolation. Covering the tenth to the thirteenth centuries, the volume offers a broad geographical reach - England, France, Flanders, Germany, Spain - and an array of sources, from charters, letters and court proceedings to seals, iconography, and illumination. There is a particular focus on lay female communities, including women's collective legal action in pre-Conquest England, documentary initiatives of Castilian peasant widows, and urban Flemish women's sealing practices. Re-examinations of noblewomen's centrality - and erasure - in charters focus on Ermengarde of Brittany, Mathilda of Boulogne and Berengaria of Navarre. Contributions on gender and historical writing explore their development in Ottonian courts, tenth-century English coronation portraits, Orderic Vitalis' Historia Ecclesiastica, and French chroniclers' rhetorical strategies for writing noblewomen's rage. Further chapters consider monastic spaces, including women's houses at Auxerre and Marcigny and at Holy Trinity, Caen, and explore women's memory preservation efforts, at Spanish houses - San Salvador de Oña and Santa María de Piasca - and a community at Bouxières. This volume demonstrates the new insights that can be gleaned by viewing various processes, such as legal disputes and monastic narratives and foundation, through a gendered lens.
Author / Editor information
Contributor: Laura L Gathagan
LAURA L. GATHAGAN is an Associate Professor of History at the State University of New York, College at Cortland. She has published widely on medieval women's power. She is a Fellow of Antiquaries of London and a member of the Royal Society of Arts.
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Contributor: Charles Insley
CHARLES INSLEY is a Senior Lecturer in Medieval History at the University of Manchester.
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Contributor: Andrew Rabin
Andrew Rabin is a Professor in the English Department at the University of Louisville.
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Contributor: Charles Insley
CHARLES INSLEY is a Senior Lecturer in Medieval History at the University of Manchester.
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Contributor: Laura L Gathagan
LAURA L. GATHAGAN is an Associate Professor of History at the State University of New York, College at Cortland. She has published widely on medieval women's power. She is a Fellow of Antiquaries of London and a member of the Royal Society of Arts.
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Contributor: Steven Isaac
STEVEN ISAAC is the Simpson Professor of Medieval History, Longwood University.
Topics
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Frontmatter
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CONTENTS
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List of Illustrations
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List of Contributors
viii -
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Preface
xi -
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Introduction
1 - PART I: GENDER, DOCUMENTARY MEMORY AND LAY COMMUNITY
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1. Gender, Justice, and Community: Women’s Legal Networks in Early Medieval England
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2. The Peasant Widows of Early Medieval Castile
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3. Women, Seals, and Charters: Gendered Affirmation and Legitimation at the Hospital of St John Brussels
52 - PART II: GENDERED APPROACHES TO CHARTERS: MEMORY AND ERASURE
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4. Enough Facts to Forge a Memory: the charters of Queen Matilda III (1135‒52)
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5. Confronting the Void: Countess Ermengarde of Brittany (c. 1070–1147) and Medieval Charters
88 -
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6. Remembering Female Lordship: the Case of Queen Berengaria of Navarre, Lord of Le Mans (1204/05–1230)
105 - PART III: GENDER, DYNASTY AND HISTORICAL WRITING
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7. Ottonian Women, Textual Memory, and Dynastic Legitimacy
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8. Emma of Normandy and the Gendered Iconography of Crowns
163 -
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9. Not all chroniclers? Orderic Vitalis and Women in the Historia Ecclesiastica
182 -
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10. Anger, Violence, and the Exercise of Power in High Medieval French Chronicles
198 - PART IV: GENDER AND DOCUMENTARY CULTURE IN MONASTIC CONTEXTS
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11. Women, Memory and Benedictine reform: the monasteries of Santa María de Piasca and San Salvador de Oña
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12. Women and Memory in Burgundian Charters
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13. Memory and Documentary Culture at Holy Trinity Abbey, Caen in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries
254 -
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14. Encased in Silk. The Women of Bouxières and Their Archives
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Index
289
Publishing information
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
eBook published on:
January 10, 2025
eBook ISBN:
9781787447875
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
eBook ISBN:
9781787447875
Keywords for this book
Documentary Culture; c.900-1300; History; Gender Studies; Memory Studies; Literature; Medieval History
Audience(s) for this book
For an expert adult audience, including professional development and academic research
