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Department of History

The Medieval Family

Seminar and Essay Questions

  • How restricted was the role of women in medieval society?
  • How and why did attitudes towards marriage change in the middle ages?
  • Was there any place for affection in medieval family life?

Documents

Introductory Reading

Barber, The Two CitiesLink opens in a new window, 41-43

Bartlett, The Making of EuropeLink opens in a new window. No readings.

Herlihy, David, Women, Family and Society in Medieval EuropeLink opens in a new window (New York, 1995), Chapters 4, 7, and 11.

Power, The Central Middle AgesLink opens in a new window, 47-54

Waley and Denley, Later Medieval EuropeLink opens in a new window, 295-309

e-resources

Further Reading

Alberti, L. B., The Family in Renaissance Florence, trans. R.N. Watkins (Columbia, SC, 1969)

Ariès, Philippe, Centuries of Childhood, trans. Robert Baldick (London, 1962)

Atkinson, C. W., The Oldest Vocation: Christian Motherhood in the Middle AgesLink opens in a new window (Ithaca, NY, 1991)

Beattie, Cordelia, 'Gender and Femininity in Medieval England', in Writing Medieval
History, ed. Nancy Partner (London: Hodder Arnold, 2005), pp.153–70.

Bennett, H.S., The Pastons and their England, 2nd ed. (London, 1968)

Bennett, Judith M. and Shannon McSheffrey, 'Early, Erotic and Alien: Women Dressed
as Men in Late Medieval London' History Workshop Journal 77 (2014), pp. 1–25.

Bennett, Judith and Ruth Karras (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Women and Gender in Medieval Europe (Oxford University Press: Oxford, 2013)

Brooke, Christopher, The Medieval Idea of MarriageLink opens in a new window (Oxford, 1989)

Brown, Judith C., and Davis, Robert, (eds), Gender and Society in Renaissance Italy (Harlow, 1998)

Brucker, Gene, Giovanni and Lusanna: Love and Marriage in Renaissance Florence (Berkeley, 1986, 2nd ed 2005)

Brundage, James A., Law, Sex and Christian Society in Medieval Europe (1987).

Chojnacki, Stanley, Women and Men in Renaissance VeniceLink opens in a new window (Baltimore, 2000)

Cohn, Samuel K., Jr., Women in the Streets: Essays on Sex and Power in Renaissance Italy (Baltimore and London, 1996)

de Pizan, Christine, Selected Writings, ed. Renate Blumenfeld-Kosinski (New York, 1997) [A useful collection of primary sources]

Dean, Trevor, Crime in Medieval Europe, 1200-1550 (London, 2001)

Dronke, Peter, Women Writers of the Middle Ages: A Critical Study of Texts from Perpetua (d. 203) to Marguerite Porete (d. 1310)Link opens in a new window (Cambridge, 1984)

Duby, Georges, Love and Marriage in the Middle Ages, trans. Jane Dunnett (Cambridge, 1994)

Duby, Georges, The Knight, the Lady, and the Priest, trans. Barbara Bray (London, 1983)

Ennen, Edith, The Medieval WomanLink opens in a new window (Blackwell, 1989)

Goldberg, P.J.P. (ed. and trans.), Women in England c. 1275-1525Link opens in a new window (Manchester, 1995) [A useful collection of documents]

Hadley, D.M. (ed.), Masculinity in Medieval Europe (Harlow, 1999)

Hanawalt, Barbara, ‘Golden Ages for the History of Medieval English Women’,in Women in Medieval History and Historiography, ed. S. Mosher Stuart (Philadelphia, 1987), pp. 1–24.

Herlihy, David, and Klapisch-Zuber, Christiane, The Tuscans and their FamiliesLink opens in a new window (New Haven, 1985)

Irigaray, Luce, This Sex Which is Not One (Itaca, NY, 1985)

Karras, Ruth Mazo, and David Lorenzo Boyd, 'Ut Cum Muliere': A Male transvestite prostitute in fourteenth century London' in Kim M. Phillips and Barry Reay (eds), Sexualities in History: A reader (London,1996)

Karras, Ruth Mazo, Unmarriages: Women, Men and Sexual Unions in the Middle Ages (2012).

Karras, Ruth Mazo, Sexuality in Medieval Europe: Doing unto others (2005).

Karras, Ruth Mazo, Common Women: Prostitution and Sexuality in Medieval England (1998).

Karras, Ruth Mazo, 'Knighthood, Compulsory Heterosexuality, and Sodomy' in The Boswell Thesis: Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality, Mathew Kuefler (ed.), (University of California Press, 2005), pp.273-86.
Kent, F.W., Household and Lineage in Renaissance Florence (Princeton, 1977)

Kirshner, J., and S. Wemple (eds.), Women of the Medieval World (Oxford, 1985)

Klapisch-Zuber, Christiane, Women, Family, and Ritual in Renaissance Italy (Chicago, 1985)

Le Roy Ladurie, Emmanuel, Montaillou, trans. Barbara Bray (London, 1978)

Leyser, H., Medieval Women: A Social History of Women in England, 450-1500 (London, 1995)

McDougall, Sara, Royal Bastards: The Birth of Illegitimacy, 800-1230 (OUP, 2016)

Macfarlane, Alan, The Origins of English Individualism (Oxford, 1978)

Mate, Mavis E., Women in Medieval English society (Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 1999)

McCarthy, Conor, (ed. and trans.), Love, Sex and Marriage in the Middle AgesSex and Marriage in the Middle Ages: A Sourcebook (London, 2004)

Paterson, Linda, 'Gender Negotiations in France during the Central Middle Ages: The Literary Evidence', in P. Linehan and J. Nelson (eds), The Medieval World (London, 2001), pp. 246-66.

Rocke, Michael, Forbidden Friendships: Homosexuality and Male Culture in Renaissance FlorenceLink opens in a new window (New York, 1996)

Sauer, Michelle, Gender in Medieval Culture (London: Bloomsbury, 2015)

Shahar, Shulamith, Childhood in the Middle Ages (London, 1990)

Shahar, Shulamith, The Fourth Estate: A History of Women in the Middle Ages, rev. ed. (London, 2003)

Strozzi, Alessandra, Selected LettersLink opens in a new window, ed. and trans. Heather Gregory (Berkeley, 1997)

Ward, Jennifer C., English Noblewomen in the Later Middle Ages (London, 1992)