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Gender, Memory and Documentary Culture, c.900-1300

By Laura L Gathagan & Charles Insley &
Gender, Memory and Documentary Culture, c.900-1300 by Laura L Gathagan & Charles Insley &  digital book - Fable

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Publisher Description

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.

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About 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.

Charles Insley

CHARLES INSLEY is a Senior Lecturer in Medieval History at the University of Manchester.

Amy Livingstone

Other books by Amy Livingstone

Catherine Letouzey-Réty

Charles Insley

CHARLES INSLEY is a Senior Lecturer in Medieval History at the University of Manchester.

Constance B Bouchard

Florence H R Scott

Heather J Tanner

Laura E Wangerin

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.

Leticia Agúndez San Miguel

Richard Barton

Steven Isaac

STEVEN ISAAC is the Simpson Professor of Medieval History, Longwood University.

Tatum Tullis

Tiffany A Ziegler

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