Book description
Early medieval women exercised public roles, rights, and
responsibilities. Women contributed through their labor to the welfare
of the community. Women played an important part in public affairs.
They practiced birth control through abortion and infanticide. Women
committed crimes and were indicted. They owned property and
administered estates. The drive toward economic growth and expansion
abroad rested on the capacity of women to staff and manage economic
endeavors at home.
In the later Middle Ages, the social position of women altered
significantly, and the reasons why the role of women in society tended
to become more restrictive are examined in these essays.
"The book is a good example of the benefits to be derived
from the new interest in women's studies. . . . New information
emerges because new questions have been asked."-Signs
Susan Mosher Stuard is Professor of History Emeritus at Haverford
College. She is editor of Women in Medieval History and Historiography
and author of A State of Deference: Ragusa/Dubrovnik in the Medieval
Centuries and Gilding the Market: Luxury and Fashion in
Fourteenth-Century Italy, all published by the University of
Pennsylvania Press.
