Europe: Ancient and Medieval
Diocese of Norwich, 1350-1540. (Studies in the History
of Medieval Religion, number 12.) Rochester, N.Y.:
Boydell. 1998. Pp. viii, 271. $90.00.
Recent years have seen the appearance of several
works that have begun to make up for the neglect of
the part played by women in the monastic and religious
life of medieval England. It is true to say, however,
that most of these have dealt with the founding era of
the English nunneries and that the later Middle Ages
have not yet been considered as fully as the twelfth and
thirteenth centuries. Marilyn Oliva's book is therefore
greatly to be welcomed. Taking as her subject the
eleven female monasteries in the two counties, Norfolk
and Suffolk, which were coterminous with the diocese
of Norwich, Oliva explores a variety of documentation
(far richer than historians have been willing to allow)
to investigate the role, and perceptions, of women
religious between 1350 and 1540.
As Oliva explains in her introduction, there were
factors that, from the very foundation of these nunneries, affected them throughout their history, the
status of the founder and geographical location among
them. Yet the possession of a wealthy, even aristocratic founder did not guarantee a generous initial
endowment, and Oliva sets out one of the theses of the
book: that poverty was an essential attribute of female
monasticism in this area. The source material is rich
enough to allow for a prosopographical study of the
Norwich nuns (the methodology of which is explained
in an appendix), and this, along with Oliva's study of
the patrons and benefactors of the women, challenges
assumptions about the class of women who became
nuns in the Middle Ages. In the diocese of Norwich,
the majority of identified nuns and patrons were drawn
from the class of the parish gentry rather than the
upper gentry and aristocracy.
Oliva's very thorough treatment of patterns of office
holding demonstrates not only that women were
(again, in contrast to all but recent historiography)
able to govern their own communities but that they did
so effectively and efficiently. There was a "career
pathway" for the medieval nuns of Norwich. The
picture that emerges makes two important statements.
One is that nunneries were not pale copies of monasteries. They were communities that, in many ways,
enjoyed distinctive patterns of patronage and a distinctive role in society: they were, in Oliva's words, "an
integral part of the local social landscape" (p. 139).
The second is a much more positive view of women in
the medieval church. Generally Oliva's study demonstrates the value of regional study, which can throw so
much light on questions of wider concern.
JANET BURTON
University of Wales,
Lampeter
MARTHA C. HOWELL. The Marriage Exchange: Property,
Social Place, and Gender in Cities of the Low Countries,
1300-1500. (Women in Culture and Society.) Chicago:
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623
University of Chicago Press. 1998. Pp. xv, 278. Cloth
$52.00, paper $19.00.
Solidly basing this work on thorough archival research,
Martha C. Howell effectively traces how residents of
Douai, formerly of the Low Countries and today a
French city, gradually moved from a regime of marital
property and inheritance based on unwritten customs
to one based on written contracts. According to medieval Douaisien customary law, husband and wife were
viewed as the common owners of all conjugal property,
and each was the heir of the other, if they had
produced offspring. As long as he lived, the husband
had absolute rights to property ownership and management. If the couple had children and the husband
died, however, these rights devolved entirely to the
widow. Husbands or widows could manage and alienate property as they saw fit, regardless of the wishes of
their children or other kin. If a widowed spouse died
intestate, children were treated as equal heirs, regardless of whether they were male or female or born of
first or subsequent marriages.
From the fourteenth to the sixteenth centuries,
Douaisiens of both elite and artisanal classes increasingly used written contracts-most notably marriage
contracts and wills-that modified customary law in
important ways. The contract system prescribed the
separation of the property that husbands and wives
brought into marriage, defended the property rights of
children and outside kin, and reduced women's rights
to manage property. Upon the death of her husband, a
widow generally received the property she had brought
to the marriage plus a previously agreed upon "increase." If she chose, the widow could decline this
payment of goods or property, "stay" in her late
husband's estate, and enjoy the usufruct of it; no
longer, however, could a widow claim ownership of
marital property. This new regime thus provided unprecedented protection for the property that women
brought into marriage at the same time that it eliminated widows' succession rights.
Howell convincingly shows that these legal changes
mirrored important transformations in attitudes toward gender. Customary law revealed that women
were deemed fully capable of managing and creating
property. By contrast, contract law implied that women
were incapable of being fully in charge of property: as
wives and widows, they could manage property only
under the supervision of their husbands, fathers, sons,
or some other males. Nonetheless, Howell is rightly
reluctant to describe the new regime as detrimental to
women: while some no doubt resented restraints imposed on them by children and male kin, others surely
appreciated the protection of their assets from irresponsible and reckless husbands.
Howell also makes a strong case that these legal
alterations reflected important changes in marriage
and the family. Although the nuclear family was the
norm throughout these two and a half centuries,
toward the end of this period, the household was
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Reviews of Books
viewed less and less as a unit of production, a concept
which had been the principal reason for upholding the
conjugal emphasis of customary law. As contract law
increased the property rights of outside kin, goods and
property were viewed less as the means of production
for the household. Howell is somewhat less persuasive
in arguing that, by the sixteenth century, Douaisiens
sought greater emotional fulfillment through marriage
at the same time that its productive importance declined. Although the largely formulaic legal documents
contain expressions of affection and conjugal love, the
crucial role played by property in choosing mates
shows that emotion was still subordinate to mundane
concerns in the formation of marriages.
Wisely eschewing monocausal explanations, Howell
successfully demonstrates that socioeconomic developments were largely responsible for these changes.
Traditionally Douai's most important industry, the
manufacture of drapery endured a serious crisis in the
late Middle Ages. Its decline caused many Douaisiens,
both merchants and artisans, to emphasize preserving
the wealth and social standing they already enjoyed
rather than pursuing the accumulation of new wealth.
Viewed broadly, the new matrimonial regime was part
of a major reordering of society: marriages were
arranged within trades, as men passed their professions on to their sons and sons-in-law; contract law not
only ensured the property rights of children but also
limited the degree of social mobility, be it upward or
downward. Referring to marriage and inheritance patterns elsewhere, Howell effectively shows that these
changes in the matrimonial regime were not unique to
DouaL
All told, this is a fine work that effectively examines
the evolution of marriage, property, and gender in a
period of significant socioeconomic change.
JEFFREY R. WATT
University of Mississippi
JAMES B. GIVEN. Inquisition in Medieval Society: Power,
Discipline, and Resistance in Languedoc. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. 1997. Pp. xiii, 255. $39.95.
One of the most serious defects of the majority of
recent studies on the medieval and early modern
Inquisitions is that they base themselves squarely on
the available documentation. It is true that the documents are often of enormous interest and offer us
fascinating insight into the past. But it is difficult to
understand why discerning scholars, well aware that
preindustrial societies relied much more on the spoken
word than the written, should treat written Inquisition
records as though they were a unique guide to the
situations they purport to describe. The documentation is of course crucial, as James B. Given recognizes
in the excellent fifty-page survey he gives of the
sources that relate to his theme. But his book goes
much further: it is no exaggeration to say that this is
the first serious attempt ever made by a historian to get
behind the documents and study the sociopolitical
AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW
context within which the Inquisition operated. Given
brings to bear not only his own deep knowledge of
medieval history but also extensive reading in modern
social history and sociology. With these insights, he has
produced a highly sophisticated and convincing analysis of the role of the medieval Inquisition within its
social context.
Given approaches the Inquisition in fourteenthcentury Languedoc as a problem in the exercise of
power, "power" being seen as the entire range of ways
in which people interact with each other. In the first
three chapters, he gives proper attention, based on the
judicial documents, to the activity and procedure of
the inquisitors. He emphasizes their possibly unprecedented efficiency in squeezing information out of
their prisoners. Given then moves, in the second
section of the book, to an analysis of how people
reacted to the pressures placed on their society by the
heresy-hunters. In order to do this, he has to penetrate
into the shadowy (and undocumented) world of the
non-elite classes. One chapter is devoted to forms of
individual resistance, a topic relatively easy to investigate since it can be pursued through case histories of
individuals such as Bernard Clergue, the famous official of Montaillou. Given devotes another chapter to
the theme of collective resistance, in which the problem is to identify not the act of resistance so much as
the group that is backing it. He offers much original
evidence of the way in which collectives such as
kinfolk, villages, and towns made common cause
against the intrusion of the inquisitors, without thereby
implying sympathy for heresy.
In a final section, Given surveys the broader social
factors that aggravated both the incidence of heresy
and its investigation. Using sociological categories, he
presents sociopolitical relationships in Languedoc in
terms of "stress and strain," which "helped the inquisitors to pry apart social organizations that might
otherwise have resisted" (p. 189). He then moves on to
look at the "structural constraints" that impeded collaboration between the various power structures (such
as the church and the crown) that exercised authority
in the region. In his conclusion, he expresses admiration for the efficiency of the mechanism used by the
inquisitors to discover information and stresses that
these techniques "allowed them to create their own,
tailor-made truth" (p. 213). Through a careful manipulation of the forces within society, they succeeded in
imposing a form of discipline congenial to the power
structure of the day.
This study is brilliant; it is superbly researched,
carefully constructed and lucidly written. Thanks to
Given, religious persecution ought no longer to be
seen as a simple scenario of hunted heretics on one
hand and vengeful inquisitors on the other. Here the
whole of Languedoc society has an integral part to play
in the drama, and the passions that haunted the village
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