DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY
HI391
GENDER IN EUROPE 1350-1650
HANDBOOK 2008-09
www.warwick.ac.uk/go/genderineurope
CONTENTS
Module Details ........................................................................................... 1
Seminar 1: Gender history .......................................................................... 3
Seminar 2: Notions of man, notions of woman ............................................... 4
Seminar 3: Educating boys and girls............................................................. 5
Seminar 4: Gender and sexual culture .......................................................... 7
Seminar 5: Gender and honour .................................................................. 10
Seminar 6: Husbands and wives ................................................................ 13
Seminar 7: Fathers and mothers ................................................................ 16
Seminar 8: Widows and widowers .............................................................. 18
Seminar 9: The geography of gender.......................................................... 20
Seminar 10: Men’s work, women’s work ..................................................... 22
Seminar 11: Gender and crime .................................................................. 24
Seminar 12: Violence against men, violence against women .......................... 26
Seminar 13: Gender and religion................................................................ 30
Seminar 14: Gender and the state ............................................................. 34
1
MODULE DETAILS
Learning Outcomes
By the end of this module students should be able to:

demonstrate knowledge and understanding of the role of gender in Europe
between 1350 and 1650

have gained a further development of study, writing, and communication skills

assess critically a wide range of secondary material and a selection of primary
sources

formulate and test concepts and hypotheses

demonstrate the ability to access and use the wealth of information and resources
on the World Wide Web.
Workload
Single Honours
3 x 1,500-2,000 word non-assessed assignments +
EITHER 1 three-hour exam + 1 x 4,500 word assessed assignment
OR 1 two-hour exam + 2 x 4,500 word assessed assignments
OR 1 two-hour exam + 1 x 8,000 word assessed assignment
Joint Honours/Historical Studies/2+2
2 x 1,500-2,000 word non-assessed assignments +
EITHER 1 three-hour exam
OR 1 two-hour exam AND 1 x 4,500 word assessed assignment
Deadlines
Short essays: noon, Friday, Week 10, Term 1; noon, Friday, Week 10, Term 2; noon,
Friday, Week 5, Term 3.
Long essays: noon, Wednesday, Week 3, Term 3.
Please check student handbooks for the university regulations on late submission.
Key Texts

Brown, Judith C., and Robert C. Davis, eds., Gender and Society in Renaissance
Italy (Harlow: Longman, 1998)

Chojnacka, Monica, and Merry E. Wiesner Hanks, eds., Ages of Woman, Ages of
Man (Harlow: Longman, 2002)

Downs, Laura Lee, Writing Gender History (London: Hodder Arnold, 2004)

Fairchilds, Cissie, Women in Early Modern Europe, 1500-1700 (Harlow: Longman,
2007)

Shepard, Alexandra, Meanings of Manhood in Early Modern England (Oxford:
OUP, 2003)
2

Wiesner-Hanks, Merry E., Women and Gender in Early Modern Europe, 3rd ed.
(Cambridge: CUP, 2008)
Seminar Preparation
All students are expected to read the key texts (documents and selected secondary
sources) for each seminar. In consultation with the tutor, each student is also expected
to prepare one of the questions for each seminar. Notes (about one side of A4) should
be posted on the module forum at least one day before the seminar. Students will be
expected to refer to examples across Europe and across the period 1350 to 1650.
3
SEMINAR 1: GENDER HISTORY
Questions
For this seminar all students are expected to prepare all three questions.
1.
How has the writing of the history of men and women changed since the arrival of
gender history?
2.
What are the challenges for the study of men and masculinities?
3.
What are the forms of female agency?
Key Texts

Arnold, John, 'Is the rise of gender history "hiding" women from history once
again?', History in Focus 8 (Spring 2005).

Bailey, Joanne, 'Is the rise of gender history "hiding" women from history once
again?', History in Focus 8 (Spring 2005).

Downs, Laura Lee, Writing Gender History (London, 2004)

Shoemaker, Robert B., and Mary Vincent, ‘Gender History: The Evolution of a
Concept’ in Robert B. Shoemaker, and Mary Vincent, eds, Gender and History in
Western Europe (London, 1998), pp. 1-24.
Further Reading
Beynon, John, Masculinities and Culture (Buckingham, 2002)
Bock, Gisela, ‘Women’s History and Gender History: Aspects of an International Debate’,
Gender and History 1 (1989), 7-30.
Brown, Kathleen M., ‘Brave New Worlds: Women’s and Gender History’, William and
Mary Quarterly, 3rd ser., 50/2 (1993), 311-28.
Davis, Natalie Zemon, ‘“Women’s History” in Transition: The European Case’, in Joan W.
Scott, ed., Feminism and History (Oxford, 1996), pp. 79-104.
Ditz, T., ‘The New Men’s History and the Peculiar Absence of Gendered Power: Some
Remedies from Early American Gender History’, Gender and History 16/1 (2004), 1-35.
Shoemaker, Robert B., and Mary Vincent, eds, Gender and History in Western Europe
(London, 1998)
Sinha, Mrinalini, ‘Giving Masculinity a History’, Gender and History 11.3 (1999), 445-60.
4
SEMINAR 2: NOTIONS OF MAN, NOTIONS OF WOMAN
Questions
1.
Why do medical views of men and women change between 1350 and 1650?
2.
How far were notions of men and women shaped by religion in this period?
3.
How restrictive in practice were legal views of men and women between 1350 and
1650?
Key Texts

A History of the Male and Female Genitalia

Fletcher, Anthony, Gender, Sex and Subordination in England 1500-1800 (New
Haven, 1995) [Chapters 2, 3, and 4]

Wiesner, Merry E., Women and Gender in Early Modern Europe, 2nd ed.
(Cambridge, 2000) [Chapter 1]
Further Reading
Brundage, J.A., Law, Sex and Christian Society in Medieval Europe (Chicago, 1987)
Cadden, Joan, Meanings of Sex Difference in the Middle Ages (Cambridge, 1993)
Klein, Joan Larsen, ed., Daughters, Wives, and Widows: Writings by Men about Women
and Marriage in England, 1500-1640 (Urbana, 1992)
Kuehn, Thomas, ‘Person and Gender in the Laws’, in Judith C. Brown and Robert C.
Davis, eds, Gender and Society in Renaissance Italy (Harlow, 1998), pp. 87-106.
Kuehn, Thomas, Law, Family, and Women: Toward a Legal Anthropology of Renaissance
Italy (Chicago, 1991)
Maclean, Ian, The Renaissance Notion of Woman (Cambridge, 1980)
Malcolmson, Cristina, and Mihoko Suzuki, eds, Debating Gender in Early Modern
England, 1500-1700 (Basingstoke, 2002)
Shepard, Alexandra, Meanings of Manhood in Early Modern England (Oxford, 2003)
[Chapters 1, 2, and 3]
Stretton Tim, Women Waging Law in Elizabethan England (Cambridge, 1998)
Tuana, Nancy, The Less Noble Sex: Scientific, Religious, and Philosophical Conceptions of
Woman’s Nature (Bloomington, 1993)
5
SEMINAR 3: EDUCATING BOYS AND GIRLS
Questions
1.
Did adolescence exist in the pre-modern period?
2.
How and why were boys educated?
3.
How and why were girls educated?
Key Texts

Chojnacka, Monica, and Merry E. Wiesner, eds, Ages of Woman, Ages of Man:
Sources in European Social History, 1400-1750 (Harlow, 2002), pp. 6-8, 19-26,
42-49.

Bell, Rudolph M., How to Do It: Guides to Good Living for Renaissance Italians
(Chicago, 1999) [Chapters 4 and 5]

Fletcher, Anthony, Gender, Sex and Subordination in England 1500-1800 (New
Haven, 1995) [Chapters 15 and 18]
E-Resource
Gouge, William, Of Domesticall Duties. Eight Treatises (London, 1622) [Treatise V]
[Available via Early English Books Online]
Further Reading
Ariès, Philippe, Centuries of Childhood: A Social History of Family Life, trans. Robert
Baldick (New York, 1962)
Ashley, Kathleen, and Robert L.A. Clark, eds, Medieval Conduct (Minneapolis, 2001)
Ben-Amos, Ilana Krausman, Adolescence and Youth in Early Modern England (New
Haven, 1994)
Ben-Amos, Ilana Krausman, ‘Reciprocal Bonding: Parents and their Offspring in Early
Modern England’, Journal of Family History 25/3 (2000), 291-312.
Charlton, Kenneth, Women, Religion and Education in Early Modern England (London,
1999)
Chojnacki, Stanley, ‘Measuring Adulthood: Adolescence and Gender’, in Stanley
Chojnacki, Women and Men in Renaissance Venice (Baltimore, 2000), pp. 185-205, 31319.
Eisenbichler, Konrad, ed., The Premodern Teenager: Youth in Society, 1150-1650
(Toronto, 2002)
Grendler, Paul, Schooling in Renaissance Italy: Literacy and Learning, 1300-1600
(Baltimore, 1989) [Especially Chapter 4]
Griffiths, Paul, Youth and Authority: Formative Experiences in England 1560-1640
(Oxford, 1996)
Haas, Louis, The Renaissance Man and His Children: Childbirth and Early Childhood in
Florence, 1300- 1600 (New York, 1998)
6
Hackel, Heidi Brayman, Reading Material in Early Modern England: Print, Gender, and
Literacy (Cambridge, 2005)
Hanawalt, Barbara A., ‘Childrearing among the Lower Classes of Late Medieval England’,
Journal of Interdisciplinary History 8 (1977), 1-22.
Hanawalt, Barbara A., Growing Up in Medieval London: The Experience of Childhood in
History (Oxford, 1993)
Karras, Ruth Mazo, ‘Masculinities, Youth, and the Late Middle Ages’, in Ruth Mazo Karras,
From Boys to Men: Formations of Masculinity in Late Medieval Europe (Philadelphia,
2003), pp. 1-19, 169-72.
Karras, Ruth Mazo, ‘Separating the Men from the Beasts: Medieval Universities and
Masculine Formation’, in Ruth Mazo Karras, From Boys to Men: Formations of Masculinity
in Late Medieval Europe (Philadelphia, 2003), pp. 67-108, 181-94.
Lewis, Katherine J., et al., eds, Young Medieval Women (New York, 1999)
Orme, Nicholas, From Childhood to Chivalry: The Education of the English Kings and
Aristocracy 1066-1530 (London, 1984)
Orme, Nicholas, Medieval Children (New Haven, 2001)
Ozment, Steven, Flesh and Spirit: Private
(Harmondsworth, 2001) [Chapters 2 and 4]
Life
in
Early
Modern
Germany
Phillips, Kim M., Medieval Maidens: Young Women and Gender in England, 1270-1540
(Manchester, 2003) [Introduction and Chapter 2]
Shahar, Shulamith, Childhood in the Middle Ages (London, 1990)
Snook, Edith, Women, Reading, and the Cultural Politics of Early Modern England
(Aldershot, 2005)
Thomas, Keith, Rule and Misrule in the Schools of Early Modern England (Reading, 1976)
Whitehead, Barbara J., ed., Women’s Education in Early Modern Europe: A History,
1500-1800 (New York, 1999)
7
SEMINAR 4: GENDER AND SEXUAL CULTURE
Questions
1.
What were the main features of sexual culture between 1350 and 1650?
2.
In what ways was sexual behaviour controlled?
3.
'In the pre-modern period there was no such thing as the homosexual; there
were only homosexual acts'. Discuss.
Key Texts

Chojnacka, Monica, and Merry E. Wiesner, eds, Ages of Woman, Ages of Man:
Sources in European Social History, 1400-1750 (Harlow, 2002), pp. 54-59, 6162, 64-66.

Bray, Alan, ‘Homosexuality and the Signs of Male Friendship in Elizabethan
England’, History Workshop Journal 29 (1990), 1-19.

Karras, Ruth Mazo, ‘Prostitution and the Question of Sexual Identity in Medieval
Europe’, Journal of Women’s History 11/2 (1999), 159-77.

Rocke, Michael, ‘Gender and Sexual Culture in Renaissance Italy’, in Judith C.
Brown and Robert C. Davis, eds, Gender and Society in Renaissance Italy
(Harlow, 1998), pp. 150-70.
E-Resource
Pietro Aretino, The Sixteen Positions
Further Reading
Bell, Rudolph M., How to Do It: Guides to Good Living for Renaissance Italians (Chicago,
1999) [Chapter 2 online]
Berco, Cristian, 'Social Control and Its Limits: Sodomy, Local Sexual Economies, and
Inquisitors during Spain's Golden Age', Sixteenth Century Journal 36 (2005), 331-58.
Betteridge, Tom, ed., Sodomy in Early Modern Europe (Manchester, 2002)
Brackett, J.K., ‘The Florentine Onestà and the Control of Prostitution, 1403-1680’,
Sixteenth Century Journal 24 (1993), 273-300.
Bray, Alan, Homosexuality in Renaissance England (London, 1988)
Brundage, J.A., Law, Sex and Christian Society in Medieval Europe (Chicago, 1987)
Bullough, Vern L., and James A. Brundage, eds, Handbook of Medieval Sexuality (New
York, 1996)
Cattelona, G., 'Control and Collaboration: The Role of Women in Regulating Female
Sexual Behaviour in Early Modern Marseille', French Historical Studies 18 (1993), 13-33.
Cohen, Thomas V., Love and Death in Renaissance Italy (Chicago, 2004)
Fernandez, Andre, ‘The Repression of Sexual Behaviour by the Aragonese Inquisition
between 1560 and 1700’, Journal of the History of Sexuality 7 (1997), 469-501.
8
Gowing, Laura, Domestic Dangers: Women, Words, and Sex in Early Modern London
(Oxford, 1996)
Griffiths, Paul, Youth and Authority: Formative Experiences in England 1560-1640
(Oxford, 1996) [Chapter 5 online]
Hacke, Daniela, Women, Sex, and Marriage in Early Modern Venice (Aldershot, 2004)
Karras, Ruth Mazo, ‘Sex and the Singlewoman’, in Judith M. Bennett and Amy M. Froide,
eds, Singlewomen in the European Past, 1250-1800 (Philadelphia, 1999), pp. 127-45.
Karras, Ruth Mazo, Common Women: Prostitution and Sexuality in Medieval England
(New York, 1996)
Karras, Ruth Mazo, Sexuality in Medieval Europe: Doing Unto Others (London, 2005)
Laven, Mary, ‘Sex and Celibacy in Early Modern Venice’, The Historical Journal 44
(2001), 865-88.
Merrick, Jeffrey, and Bryant T. Ragan Jr, eds, Homosexuality in Early Modern France: A
Documentary Collection (Oxford, 2000)
Moulton, Ian Frederick, Before Pornography: Erotic Writing in Early Modern England
(Oxford, 2000)
Naphy, William, Sex Crimes From Renaissance to Enlightenment (Stroud, 2002)
O'Donnell, Katherine, and Michael O'Rourke, eds, Love, Sex, Intimacy, and Friendship
Between Men, 1550–1800 (Basingstoke , 2003)
Perry, Mary Elizabeth, Gender and Disorder in Early Modern Seville (Princeton, NJ, 1990)
[Chapters 6 and 7]
Phillips, Kim M., Medieval Maidens: Young Women and Gender in England, 1270-1540
(Manchester, 2003) [Chapter 4]
Puff, Helmut, ‘Female Sodomy: The Trial of Katherine Hetzeldorfer (1477)’, Journal of
Medieval and Early Modern Studies 30 (2000), 41-61.
Puff, Helmut, 'Localizing Sodomy: The "Priest and Sodomite" in Pre-Reformation
Germany and Switzerland', Journal of the History of Sexuality 8 (1997), 165-95.
Puff, Helmut, Sodomy in Reformation Germany and Switzerland, 1400-1600 (Chicago,
2003)
Quaife, G.R., Wanton Wenches and Wayward Wives: Peasants and Illicit Sex in Early
Seventeenth-Century England (London, 1979)
Richards, J., Sex, Dissidence and Damnation: Minority Groups in the Middle Ages
(London, 1991)
Rocke, Michael, Forbidden Friendships: Homosexuality and Male Culture in Renaissance
Florence (New York, 1996)
Roper, Lyndal, Oedipus and the Devil: Witchcraft, Sexuality and Religion in Early Modern
Europe (London, 1994)
9
Roper, Lyndal, The Holy Household: Women and Morals in Reformation Augsburg
(Oxford, 1989)
Ruggiero, Guido, The Boundaries of Eros: Sex Crime and Sexuality in Renaissance Venice
(New York, 1985)
Shepard, Alexandra, Meanings of Manhood in Early Modern England (Oxford, 2003)
[Chapter 6]
Stone, Donald, Jr, ‘The Sexual Outlaw in France, 1605’, Journal of the History of
Sexuality 2 (1992), 511-26.
Talvacchia, Bette, Taking Positions: The Erotic in Renaissance Culture (Princeton, NJ,
1999)
Traub, Valerie, The Renaissance of Lesbianism in Early Modern England (Cambridge,
2002)
Turner, James Grantham, Schooling Sex: Libertine Literature and Erotic Education in
Italy, France, and England 1534-1685 (Oxford, 2003)
Vignali, Antonio, La Cazzaria (The Book of the Prick), ed. and trans. Ian Frederick
Moulton (London, 2003)
10
SEMINAR 5: GENDER AND HONOUR
Questions
1.
What did honour mean in the pre-modern period?
2.
How were insults shaped by gender?
3.
Were words more dangerous than physical violence?
Key Texts

Dean, Trevor, ‘Gender and Insult in an Italian City: Bologna in the Later Middle
Ages’, Social History 29/2 (2004), 217-31.

Fletcher, Anthony, Gender, Sex and Subordination in England 1500-1800 (New
Haven, 1995) [Chapters 6 and 7]

Strocchia, Sharon T., ‘Gender and the Rites of Honour in Italian Renaissance
Cities’, in Judith C. Brown and Robert C. Davis, eds, Gender and Society in
Renaissance Italy (Harlow, 1998), pp. 39-60.
Further Reading
Barahona, Renato, Sex Crimes, Honour, and the Law in Early Modern Spain: Vizcaya,
1528-1735 (Toronto, 2003)
Burke, Peter, ‘The Art of Insult in Early Modern Italy’, Culture and History 2 (1987), 6879.
Capp, Bernard, ‘The Double Standard Revisited: Plebeian Women and Male Sexual
Reputation in Early Modern England’, Past and Present 162 (1999), 70-100.
Capp, Bernard, When Gossips Meet. Women, Family and Neighbourhood in Early Modern
England (Oxford, 2003)
Cohen, Elizabeth, ‘“Courtesans” and “Whores”: Words and Behavior in Roman Streets’,
Women’s Studies 19 (1991), 201-8.
Cohen, Elizabeth, ‘Honor and Gender in the Streets of Early Modern Rome’, Journal of
Interdisciplinary History 22/4 (1992), 597-625.
Cohen, Thomas V., ‘The Lay Liturgy of Affront in Sixteenth-Century Italy’, Journal of
Social History 25 (1992), 857-77.
Cohen, Thomas V., and Elizabeth S. Cohen, Words and Deeds in Renaissance Rome:
Trials Before the Papal Magistrates (Toronto, 1993)
Cohen, Thomas V., Love and Death in Renaissance Italy (Chicago, 2004)
Cust, R., ‘Honour and Politics in Early Stuart England: the Case of Beaumont v. Hastings’
, Past and Present 149 (1995), 57-94.
Farr, James R., Hands of Honor: Artisans and their World in Dijon, 1550-1650 (Ithaca,
1988)
Ferrante, Lucia, ‘Honor Regained: Women in the Casa del Soccorso di San Paolo in
Sixteenth-Century Bologna’, in Edward Muir and Guido Ruggiero, eds, Sex and Gender in
Historical Perspective (Baltimore, 1990), pp. 73-109.
11
Fletcher, Anthony, ‘Honour, Reputation and Local Officeholding in Elizabethan and Stuart
England’, in A. Fletcher and J. Stevenson, eds, Order and Disorder in Early Modern
England (Cambridge, 1987), pp. 92-115.
Foyster, E., ‘Male Honour, Social Control, and Wife Beating in Late Stuart England’,
Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 6th ser., 6 (1996)
Foyster, E., Manhood in Early Modern England: Honour, Sex and Marriage (London,
1999)
Frevert, Ute, ‘The Taming of the Noble Ruffian: Male Violence and Dueling in Early
Modern and Modern Germany’, in Pieter Spierenburg, ed., Men and Violence: Gender,
Honor, and Rituals in Modern Europe and America (Columbus, OH, 1998), pp. 37-63.
Gowing, Laura, ‘Gender and the Language of Insult in Early Modern London’, History
Workshop Journal 35 (1993), 1-21.
Gowing, Laura, Domestic Dangers: Women, Words, and Sex in Early Modern London
(Oxford, 1996)
Heal, F., ‘Reputation and Honour in Court and Country: Lady Elizabeth Russell and Sir
Thomas Hoby’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 6th ser. (6 (1996), 161-78.
Hindle, Steve, ‘The Shaming of Margaret Knowsley: Gossip, Gender and the Experience
of Authority in Early Modern England’, Continuity and Change, 9 (1994), 391-419.
James, Mervyn, ‘English Politics and the Concept of Honour 1485-1642’, in M. James,
Society, Politics and Culture in Early Modern England (Cambridge, 1996), pp. 308-415.
Kiernan, V.G., The Duel in European History: Honour and the Reign of Aristocracy
(Oxford, 1988)
Kollmann, Nancy Shields, By Honor Bound: State and Society in Early Modern Russia
(Ithaca, NY, 1999)
Peltonen, Markku, The Duel in Early Modern England: Civility, Politeness and Honour
(Cambridge, 2003)
Ruggiero, Guido, Violence in Early Renaissance Venice (New Brunswick, 1980)
Sharpe, J.A., Defamation and Sexual Slander in Early Modern England (Borthwick
Papers 58: York, 1980).
Shepard, Alexandra,
[Chapter 5]
Meanings of Manhood in Early Modern England (Oxford, 2003)
Spierenburg, Pieter, ‘Knife Fighting and Popular Codes of Honor in Early Modern
Amsterdam’, in Pieter Spierenburg, ed., Men and Violence: Gender, Honor, and Rituals in
Modern Europe and America (Columbus, OH, 1998), pp. 103-27.
Spierenburg, Pieter, ‘Masculinity, Violence, and Honor: An Introduction’, in Pieter
Spierenburg, ed., Men and Violence: Gender, Honor, and Rituals in Modern Europe and
America (Columbus, OH, 1998), pp. 1-35.
Taylor, Scott K., 'Women, Honor, and Violence in a Castilian Town, 1600-1650', The
Sixteenth Century Journal 35/4 (2004), 1079-1100.
12
Thomas, Keith,
216
‘The Double Standard’, Journal of the History of Ideas 20 (1959), 195-
Walinski-Kiehl, Robert, ‘Males, “Masculine Honor,” and Witch Hunting in SeventeenthCentury Germany’, Men and Masculinities 6/3 (2004), 254-71.
Walker, Garthine, ‘Expanding the Boundaries of Female Honour in Early Modern England’
, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 6th. ser. 6 (1996), 235-45.
Weinstein, Donald, ‘Fighting or Flyting? Verbal Duelling in Mid-Sixteenth Century Italy’,
in Trevor Dean and K.J.P. Lowe, eds, Crime, Society and the Law in Renaissance Italy
(Cambridge, 1994), pp. 204-20.
Weinstein, Donald, The Captain’s Concubine: Love, Honor, and Violence in Renaissance
Tuscany (Baltimore, 2000)
13
SEMINAR 6: HUSBANDS AND WIVES
Questions
1.
What were the ideals of marriage in the pre-modern period?
2.
Was marriage an unequal partnership?
3.
What were the options in cases of marital discord?
Key Texts

Chojnacka, Monica, and Merry E. Wiesner, eds, Ages of Woman, Ages of Man:
Sources in European Social History, 1400-1750 (Harlow, 2002), pp. 72-87, 8889, 90-143.

Fletcher, Anthony, Gender, Sex and Subordination in England 1500-1800 (New
Haven, 1995) [Chapters 8 and 9]

Poska, Allyson M., ‘When Love Goes Wrong: Getting Out of Marriage in
Seventeenth-Century Spain’, Journal of Social History 29 (1996), 871-82.
E-Resources
Gouge, William, Of Domesticall Duties. Eight Treatises (London, 1622) [Treatises II, III,
and IV] [Available via Early English Books Online]
Lotto, Lorenzo, Messer Marsilio Cassotti and His Bride Faustina. For a more detailed
copy of this painting, click here.
Van Eyck, Jan, Giovanni Arnolfini and His Wife.
Further Reading
Bell, Rudolph M., How to Do It: Guides to Good Living for Renaissance Italians (Chicago,
1999) [Chapters 2, 3, and 6]
Chojnacki, Stanley, Women and Men in Renaissance Venice (Baltimore, 2000) [Chapters
2-7]
Cohen, Thomas V., Love and Death in Renaissance Italy (Chicago, 2004)
Cox, Virginia, ‘The Single Self: Feminist Thought and the Marriage Market in Early
Modern Venice’, Renaissance Quarterly 48/3 (1995), 513-81.
D’Elia, Anthony F., The Renaissance of Marriage in Fifteenth-Century Italy (Cambridge,
Mass., 2005)
Dean, Trevor, and K.J.P. Lowe, eds, Marriage in Italy, 1300-1650 (Cambridge, 1998)
Ferraro, Joanne M., Marriage Wars in Late Renaissance Venice (New York, 2002)
Fletcher, Anthony, ‘The Protestant Idea of Marriage in Early Modern England’, in Anthony
Fletcher and Peter Roberts, eds, Religion, Culture and Society in Early Modern Britain:
Essays in Honour of Patrick Collinson (Cambridge, 1994), pp. 161-81.
Foyster, E., ‘A Laughing Matter? Marital Discord and Gender Control in SeventeenthCentury England’, Rural History 4 (1993), 5-21.
Froide, Amy F., Never Married: Singlewomen in Early Modern England (Oxford, 2005)
14
Gowing, Laura, Domestic Dangers: Women, Words, and Sex in Early Modern London
(Oxford, 1996)
Hacke, Daniela, Women, Sex, and Marriage in Early Modern Venice (Aldershot, 2004)
Ingram, Martin, ‘Spousal Litigation in the English Ecclesiastical Courts, c.1350-c.1640’,
in R.B. Outhwaite ed., Marriage and Society: Studies in the Social History of Marriage
(London, 1981), pp. 35-57.
Ingram, Martin, Church Courts, Sex and Marriage in England, 1570-1640 (Cambridge,
1987)
Klapisch-Zuber, Christiane, ‘The Griselda Complex: Dowry and Marriage Gifts in the
Quattrocento’, in Christiane Klapisch-Zuber, Women, Family, and Ritual in Renaissance
Italy, trans. Lydia Cochrane (Chicago, 1985), pp. 213-46.
Klapisch-Zuber, Christiane, ‘Zacharias, or the Ousted Father: Nuptial Rites in Tuscany
between Giotto and the Council of Trent’, in Christiane Klapisch-Zuber, Women, Family,
and Ritual in Renaissance Italy, trans. Lydia Cochrane (Chicago, 1985), pp. 178-212.
Kuehn, Thomas, Law, Family, and Women: Toward a Legal Anthropology of Renaissance
Italy (Chicago, 1991)
Macfarlane, Alan, Marriage and Love in England, 1300-1800 (London, 1986)
McSheffrey, S., Love and Marriage in Late Medieval London (Kalamazoo, 1995)
Mendelson, Sara, and Patricia Crawford, Women in Early Modern England (Oxford, 1999)
O'Day, Rosemary, Women's Agency in Early Modern Britain and the American Colonies
(Harlow, 2007)
O’Hara, D., Courtship and Constraint: Rethinking the Making of Marriage in Tudor
England (Manchester, 2000)
Ozment. Steven, Flesh and Spirit: Private Life in Early Modern Germany (New York,
2001) [Chapter 1]
Ozment, Steven, When Fathers Ruled: Family Life in Reformation Europe (Cambridge,
Mass., 1983)
Perry, Mary Elizabeth, Gender and Disorder in Early Modern Seville (Princeton, NJ, 1990)
[Chapter 3]
Peters, Christine, ‘Gender, Sacrament, and Ritual: The Making and Meaning of Marriage
in Late Medieval and Early Modern England’, Past and Present 169 (2000), 63-96.
Queller, Donald E., and Thomas F. Madden, ‘Father of the Bride: Fathers, Daughters, and
Dowries in Late Medieval and Early Renaissance Venice’, Renaissance Quarterly 46
(1993), 685-711.
Roper, Lyndal, The Holy Household: Women and Morals in Reformation Augsburg
(Oxford, 1989)
Sharpe, J.A., ‘Plebeian Marriage in Stuart England: Some Evidence From Popular
Literature’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 5th series, 36 (1986), 69-90.
15
Stretton Tim, Women Waging Law in Elizabethan England (Cambridge, 1998)
16
SEMINAR 7: FATHERS AND MOTHERS
Questions
1.
What were the challenges of childrearing between 1350 and 1650?
2.
What were the characteristics of pre-modern fatherhood?
3.
How important were women in the raising of children?
Key Texts

Bell, Rudolph M., How to Do It: Guides to Good Living for Renaissance Italians
(Chicago, 1999) [Chapters 4 and 5]

Fletcher, Anthony, Gender, Sex and Subordination in England 1500-1800 (New
Haven, 1995) [Chapter 11]

Foyster, Elizabeth, 'Parenting Was for Life, Not Just for Childhood: The Role of
Parents in the Married Lives of their Children in Early Modern England', History 86
(2001), 313-27.

Woods, R., 'Did Montaigne Love His Children? Demography and the Hypothesis of
Parental Indifference', Journal of Interdisciplinary History 33 (2002), 421-42.
E-Resource
Gouge, William, Of Domesticall Duties. Eight Treatises (London, 1622) [Treatise VI]
[Available via Early English Books Online]
Further Reading
Ariès, Philippe, Centuries of Childhood: A Social History of Family Life, trans. Robert
Baldick (New York, 1962)
Ben-Amos, Ilana Krausman, ‘Reciprocal Bonding: Parents and their Offspring in Early
Modern England’, Journal of Family History 25 (2000), 291-312.
Chojnacki, Stanley, ‘“The Most Serious Duty”: Motherhood, Gender and Patrician
Culture’, in Stanley Chojnacki, Women and Men in Renaissance Venice (Baltimore,
2000), pp. 169-82, 307-13.
Doolittle, M., ‘“Close Relations”? Bringing Together Gender and Family in English History’
, Gender and History 11, (1999), pp. 542-54.
Fildes, Valerie, ed., Women as Mothers in Pre-Industrial England (London, 1990)
Gager, Kristin, Blood Ties and Fictive Ties: Adoption and Family Life in Early Modern
France (Princeton, NJ, 1996)
Haas, Louis, The Renaissance Man and His Children: Childbirth and Early Childhood in
Florence, 1300- 1600 (New York, 1998)
Hanawalt, Barbara A., ‘Childrearing among the Lower Classes of Late Medieval England’,
Journal of Interdisciplinary History 8 (1977), 1-22.
Hanawalt, Barbara A., Growing Up in Medieval London: The Experience of Childhood in
History (Oxford, 1993)
17
John, Judith Gero, 'I Have Been Dying to Tell You: Early Modern Advice Books for
Children', The Lion and the Unicorn 29 (2005), 52-64 .
Klapisch-Zuber, Christiane, ‘Blood Parents and Milk Parents: Wet Nursing in Florence,
1300-1500’, in Christiane Klapisch-Zuber, Women, Family, and Ritual in Renaissance
Italy, trans. Lydia Cochrane (Chicago, 1985), pp. 133-64.
Klapisch-Zuber, Christiane, ‘The “Cruel Mother”: Maternity, Widowhood, and Dowry in
Florence in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries’, in Christiane Klapisch-Zuber,
Women, Family, and Ritual in Renaissance Italy, trans. Lydia Cochrane (Chicago, 1985),
pp. 117-31.
McTavish, Lianne, Childbirth and the Display of Authority in Early Modern France
(Aldershot, 2005)
Orme, Nicholas, From Childhood to Chivalry: The Education of the English Kings and
Aristocracy 1066-1530 (London, 1984)
Orme, Nicholas, Medieval Children (New Haven, 2001)
Ozment. Steven, Flesh and Spirit: Private
(Harmondsworth, 2001) [Chapters 3 and 5]
Life
in
Early
Modern
Germany
Ozment, Steven, When Fathers Ruled: Family Life in Reformation Europe (Cambridge,
Mass., 1983)
Parson, John C., and Bonnie Wheeler, eds, Medieval Mothering (New York, 1999)
Pollock, L.A., Forgotten Children: Parent-Child Relations from 1500-1900 (Cambridge,
1983).
Queller, Donald E., and Thomas F. Madden, ‘Father of the Bride: Fathers, Daughters, and
Dowries in Late Medieval and Early Renaissance Venice’, Renaissance Quarterly 46
(1993), 685-711.
Shahar, Shulamith, Childhood in the Middle Ages (London, 1990)
Whitehead, Barbara J., ed., Women’s Education in Early Modern Europe: A History,
1500-1800 (New York, 1999)
18
SEMINAR 8: WIDOWS AND WIDOWERS
Questions
1.
How common was widowhood in the pre-modern period?
2.
Were women better-off as widows?
3.
What was the social importance of widowers?
Key Texts

Chojnacka, Monica, and Merry E. Wiesner, eds, Ages of Woman, Ages of Man:
Sources in European Social History, 1400-1750 (Harlow, 2002), pp. 251-74, 27682.

Baernstein, P. Renee, ‘In Widow’s Habit: Women between Convent and Family in
Sixteenth-Century Milan’, Sixteenth Century Journal 25 (1994), 787-807.

Hardwick, Julie, ‘Widowhood and Patriarchy in Seventeenth-Century France’,
Journal of Social History 26 (1992), 133-48.
Further Reading
Bell, Rudolph M., How to Do It: Guides to Good Living for Renaissance Italians (Chicago,
1999) [Chapter 6]
Blom, Ida, ‘The History of Widowhood: A Bibliographic Overview’, Journal of Family
History 16/2 (1991), 191-210.
Botelho, L., and P. Thane, Women and Ageing in Britain since 1500 (London, 1999)
Cavallo, Sandra, and Lyndan Warner, eds, Widowhood in Medieval and Early Modern
Europe (Harlow, 1999)
Diefendorf, B., 'Widowhood and Remarriage in Sixteenth-Century Paris', Journal of
Family History 7 (1982), 379-95.
Klapisch-Zuber, Christiane, ‘The “Cruel Mother”: Maternity, Widowhood, and Dowry in
Florence in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries’, in Christiane Klapisch-Zuber,
Women, Family, and Ritual in Renaissance Italy, trans. Lydia Cochrane (Chicago, 1985),
pp. 117-31.
Kuehn, Thomas, Law, Family, and Women: Toward a Legal Anthropology of Renaissance
Italy (Chicago, 1991)
Levy, Allison, ed., Widowhood and Visual Culture in Early Modern Europe (Aldershot,
2003)
Mendelson, Sara, and Patricia Crawford, Women in Early Modern England (Oxford, 1999)
Poska, Allyson M., ‘Gender, Property, and Retirement Strategies in Early Modern
Northwestern Spain’, Journal of Family History 25 (2000), 313-25.
Rosenthal, Joel T., Old Age in Late Medieval England (Philadelphia, 1996)
Shahar, Shulamith, Growing Old in the Middle Ages (London, 1997)
Shepard, Alexandra, Meanings of Manhood in Early Modern England (Oxford, 2003)
[Chapter 8]
19
Stretton Tim, Women Waging Law in Elizabethan England (Cambridge, 1998)
Thomas, Keith, ‘Age and Authority in Early Modern England’, Proceedings of the British
Academy, 62 (1976), 205-48
20
SEMINAR 9: THE GEOGRAPHY OF GENDER
Questions
1.
Was space gendered between 1350 and 1650?
2.
Did the public sphere exist in the pre-modern period?
3.
How far was the use of space influenced by social class?
Key Texts

Chojnacka, Monica, ‘Women, Men, and Residential Patterns in Early Modern
Venice’, Journal of Family History 25 (2000), 6-25.

Davis, Robert C., ‘The Geography of Gender in the Renaissance’, in Judith C.
Brown and Robert C. Davis, eds, Gender and Society in Renaissance Italy
(Harlow, 1998), pp. 19-38.

Gowing, Laura, ‘“The Freedom of the Streets”: Women and Social Space, 15601640', in Paul Griffiths and Mark S.R. Jenner, eds, Londinopolis: Essays in the
Cultural and Social History of Early Modern London (Manchester, 2000), pp. 13051.

Willen, D., ‘Women in the Public Sphere in Early Modern England: the Case of the
Urban Working Poor’, Sixteenth Century Journal 19 (1988), 559-75.
E-Resources
Gender in Geography
Place and Space in Gender Studies, Feminism, Sexuality, and Queer Theory
Further Reading
Arnade, Peter, et al., 'Fertile Space: The Productivity of Urban Space in Northern Europe'
, Journal of Interdisciplinary History 32 (2002), 515-48.
Chartier, Roger, ed., A History of Private Life, vol. III: Passions of the Renaissance,
trans. by Arthur Goldhammer (Cambridge, Mass., 1989)
Chojnacka, Monica, Working Women of Early Modern Venice (Baltimore, 2001)
Cohen, Elizabeth, ‘“Courtesans” and “Whores”: Words and Behavior in Roman Streets’,
Women’s Studies 19 (1991), 201-8.
Cohen, Elizabeth, ‘Honor and Gender in the Streets of Early Modern Rome’, Journal of
Interdisciplinary History 22 (1992), 597-625.
Cohn, Samuel, ‘Women in the Streets, Women in the Courts in Early Renaissance
Florence’, in Samuel Cohn, Women in the Streets: Essays on Sex and Power in
Renaissance Italy (Baltimore, 1996), pp. 16-38.
Dolan, Frances E., 'Gender and the "Lost" Spaces of Catholicism', Journal of
Interdisciplinary History 32 (2002), 641-65.
Habermas, Jürgen , The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere, trans. by
Thomas Burger with the assistance of Frederick Lawrence (Cambridge, 1992)
Hanawalt, Barbara A.,
(Minneapolis, 2000)
and
Michal
Kobialka,
eds,
Medieval
Practices
of
Space
21
Lefebvre , Henri, The Production of Space, trans. Donald Nicholson-Smith (Oxford, 1991)
Mendelson, Sara, and Patricia Crawford, Women in Early Modern England (Oxford,
1999), pp. 205-12.
Orlin, Lena Corwen , Private Matters and Public Culture in Post-Reformation England
(Ithaca, 1994)
Romano, Dennis, ‘Gender and the Urban Geography of Renaissance Venice’, Journal of
Social History 23 (1989), 339-53.
Zaret, David, 'Religion, Science, and Printing in the Public Spheres in SeventeenthCentury England', in Craig Calhoun, ed., Habermas and the Public Sphere (Cambridge,
Mass., 1992), pp. 212-35.
22
SEMINAR 10: MEN’S WORK, WOMEN’S WORK
Questions
1.
In what ways was work gendered between 1350 and 1650?
2.
What contributions did women make to the economic life of the period?
3.
How important was work in the construction of masculinities?
Key Texts

Chojnacka, Monica, and Merry E. Wiesner, eds, Ages of Woman, Ages of Man:
Sources in European Social History, 1400-1750 (Harlow, 2002), pp. 144-80.

Abreu-Ferreira, Darlene, ‘Work and Identity in Early Modern Portugal: What Did
Gender Have to Do With It?’, Journal of Social History 35 (2002), 859-87.

Cohn, Samuel K., Jr., ‘Women and Work in Renaissance Italy’, in Judith C. Brown
and Robert C. Davis, eds, Gender and Society in Renaissance Italy (Harlow,
1998), pp. 107-26.

Fletcher, Anthony, Gender, Sex and Subordination in England 1500-1800 (New
Haven, 1995) [Chapter 12]
E-Resource
Gouge, William, Of Domesticall Duties. Eight Treatises (London, 1622) [Treatises VII
and VIII] [Available via Early English Books Online]
Further Reading
Bennett, Judith M., ‘Misogyny, Popular Culture and Women’s Work’, History Workshop 31
(1991), 166-88.
Bennett, Judith M., Ale, Beer, and Brewsters in England: Women’s Work in a Changing
World, 1300-1600 (New York, 1996)
Charles, L., and L. Duffin, Women and Work in Pre-Industrial England (London, 1985).
Chojnacka, Monica, Working Women of Early Modern Venice (Baltimore, 2001)
Clark, Alice, Working Life of Women in the Seventeenth Century (1919; rept. London,
1992)
Collins, J.B., 'The Economic Role of Women in Seventeenth-Century France', French
Historical Studies 16 (1989), 436-70.
Emigh, Rebecca J., ‘The Gender Division of Labour: The Case of Tuscan Smallholders’,
Continuity and Change 15 (2000), 117-37.
Farr, James R., Hands of Honor: Artisans and their World in Dijon, 1550-1650 (Ithaca,
1988)
Goldberg, P.J.P., ‘Masters and Men in Later Medieval England’, in D.M. Hadley, ed.,
Masculinity in Medieval Europe (Harlow, 1999), pp. 56-70.
Goldberg, P.J.P., ed. and trans., Women in England c. 1275-1525 (Manchester, 1995)
Hanawalt, Barbara, ed., Women and Work in Preindustrial Europe (Bloomington, 1986)
23
Karras, Ruth Mazo, ‘Masters and Men: Independence and Urban Craft Workers’, in Ruth
Mazo Karras, From Boys to Men: Formations of Masculinity in Late Medieval Europe
(Philadelphia, 2003), pp. 109-50, 195-206.
Loats, C., 'Gender, Guilds and Work Identity: Perspectives from Sixteenth-Century Paris'
, French Historical Studies 20 (1997), 15-30.
McIntosh, Marjorie, Working Women in English Society, 1300-1620 (Cambridge, 2005)
Marland, Hilary, ed., The Art of Midwifery: Early Modern Midwives in Europe (London,
1993)
Mendelson, Sara, and Patricia Crawford, Women in Early Modern England (Oxford, 1999)
Ogilvie, Sheilagh, A Bitter Living: Women, Markets, and Social Capital in Early Modern
Germany (Oxford, 2003)
Phillips, Kim M., Medieval Maidens: Young Women and Gender in England, 1270-1540
(Manchester, 2003) [Chapter 3: "Work".]
Roberts, M., ‘Sickles and Scythes: Women’s Work and Men’s Work at Harvest Time’,
History Workshop 7 (1979), 3-29.
Roberts, M., ‘Women and Work in Sixteenth-Century English Towns’, in P.J. Corfield and
D. Keene, eds, Work in Towns, 850-1850 (Leicester, 1990)
Romano, Dennis, Housecraft and Statecraft: Domestic Service in Renaissance Venice,
1400-1600 (Baltimore, 1996)
Rosser, Gervase, ‘Crafts, Guilds and the Negotiation of Work in the Medieval Town’, Past
and Present 154 (1997), 1-31.
Smith, Hilda L., '"Citizens of the same City... Brethren and Sisters": Gender and Early
Modern Guilds', in Hilda L. Smith, All Men and Both Sexes: Gender, Politics, and the
False Universal in England 1640-1832 (University Park, 2002), pp. 73-107.
Wiesner, Merry E., ‘Having Her Own Smoke: Employment and Independence for
Singlewomen in Germany, 1400-1750’, in Judith M. Bennett and Amy M. Froide, eds,
Singlewomen in the European Past, 1250-1800 (Philadelphia, 1999), pp. 192-216.
Wiesner, Merry E., Gender, Church and State in Early Modern Germany (Harlow, 1998)
Wiesner, Merry E., Working Women in Renaissance Germany (New Brunswick, NJ, 1986)
24
SEMINAR 11: GENDER AND CRIME
Questions
1.
In what ways was crime gendered in pre-modern Europe?
2.
Were crimes defined to oppress the poor?
3.
How were crimes punished?
Key Texts

Boes, Maria, ‘The Treatment of Juvenile Delinquents in Early Modern Germany: A
Case Study’, Continuity and Change 11 (1996), 43-60.

Gaskill, Malcolm, ‘Reporting Murder: Fiction in the Archives in Early Modern
England’, Social History 23 (1998), 1-30.

Karras, Ruth Mazo, ‘Prostitution and the Question of Sexual Identity in Medieval
Europe’, Journal of Women’s History 11 (1999), 159-77.

Walker, Garthine, Crime, Gender and the Social Order in Early Modern England
(Cambridge, 2003) [Introduction. Available online here]
Further Reading
Barahona, Renato, Sex Crimes, Honour, and the Law in Early Modern Spain: Vizcaya,
1528-1735 (Toronto, 2003)
Brackett, J.K., ‘The Florentine Onestà and the Control of Prostitution, 1403-1680’,
Sixteenth Century Journal 24 (1993), 273-300.
Brackett, J.K., Criminal Justice and Crime in Late Renaissance Florence, 1537-1609
(Cambridge, 1992)
Cohen, Thomas V., and Elizabeth S. Cohen, Words and Deeds in Renaissance Rome:
Trials Before the Papal Magistrates (Toronto, 1993)
Cohn, Samuel, ‘Criminality and the State in Renaissance Florence, 1344-1466’, Journal
of Social History 14 (1980), 211-33.
Davis, Natalie Zemon, Fiction in the Archives: Pardon Tales and their Tellers in
Sixteenth-Century France (Stanford, 1987)
Dean, Trevor, and K.J.P. Lowe, eds, Crime, Society and the Law in Renaissance Italy
(Cambridge, 1994)
Dean, Trevor, Crime in Medieval Europe (Harlow, 2001)
Dean, Trevor, 'Theft and Gender in Late Medieval Bologna', Gender and History 20
(2008), 399-415.
Gaskill, Malcolm, Crime and Mentalities in Early Modern England (Cambridge, 2000)
Goldberg, P.J.P., ed. and trans., Women in England c. 1275-1525 (Manchester, 1995)
Hanawalt, Barbara A., and Wallace, D., Medieval Crime and Social Control (Minneapolis,
1999)
25
Karras, Ruth Mazo, Common Women: Prostitution and Sexuality in Medieval England
(New York, 1996)
Kent, Joan, The English Village Constable 1580-1642: A Social and Administrative Study
(Oxford, 1986)
Kermode, Jenny, and Garthine Walker, eds, Women, Crime and the Courts in Early
Modern England (London, 1994)
Lawson, P.G. ‘Patriarchy, Crime and the Courts: The Criminality of Women in Late
Tudor and Early Stuart England’, in Greg T. Smith, Allyson N. May and Simon Deveraux,
eds, Criminal Justice in the Old World and the New: Essays in Honour of J.M. Beattie
(Toronto, 1998), pp.16-57.
Perry, Mary Elizabeth, Crime and Society in Early Modern Seville (Hanover, 1980)
Available online here.
Rublack, Ulinka, The Crimes of Women in Early Modern Germany (Oxford, 2001)
Sharpe, J.A., Crime in Early Modern England, 1550-1750, 2nd ed. (London, 1999)
Sharpe, J.A.,
1983)
Crime in Seventeenth-Century England: A County Study (Cambridge,
Spierenburg, Pieter, The Prison Experience: Disciplinary Institutions and Their Inmates in
Early Modern Europe (New Brunswick, NJ, 1991)
Walker, Garthine, Crime, Gender and the Social Order in Early Modern England
(Cambridge, 2003)
Wiener, C.Z., ‘Sex Roles and Crime in Late Elizabethan Hertfordshire’, Journal of Social
History 8 (1974/5), 38-60.
26
SEMINAR 12: VIOLENCE AGAINST MEN, VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN
Questions
1.
How did violence manifest itself between 1350 and 1650?
2.
'The construction of masculinities in pre-modern Europe was largely based on
violence'. Discuss.
3.
What are the challenges for studying domestic violence in this period?
Key Texts

Dean, Trevor, ‘Domestic Violence in Late-Medieval Bologna’, Renaissance Studies
18 (2004), 527-43.

Karras, Ruth Mazo, ‘Mail Bonding: Knights, Ladies, and the Proving of Manhood’,
in Ruth Mazo Karras, From Boys to Men: Formations of Masculinity in Late
Medieval Europe (Philadelphia, 2003), pp. 20-66, 172-81.

Spierenburg, Pieter, ‘Masculinity, Violence, and Honor: An Introduction’, in Pieter
Spierenburg, ed., Men and Violence: Gender, Honor, and Rituals in Modern
Europe and America (Columbus, OH, 1998), pp. 1-35.

Walker, Garthine, ‘Rereading Rape and Sexual Violence in Early Modern England’,
Gender and History 10 (1998), 1-25.
Further Reading
Amussen, S.D., ‘“Being Stirred to Much Unquietness”: Violence and Domestic Violence in
Early Modern England’, Journal of Women’s History 6 (1994), 70-89.
Amussen, S.D., ‘Punishment, Discipline and Power: The Social Meanings of Violence in
Early Modern England’, Journal of British Studies 34 (1995), 1-34.
Barahona, Renato, Sex Crimes, Honour, and the Law in Early Modern Spain: Vizcaya,
1528-1735 (Toronto, 2003)
Cockburn, J.S., ‘Patterns of Violence in English Society: Homicide in Kent 1560-1985’,
Past and Present 130 (1991), 70-106.
Cohen, Elizabeth S., ‘The Trials of Artemisia Gentileschi: A Rape as History’, Sixteenth
Century Journal 31 (2000), 47-75.
Cohen, Thomas V., and Elizabeth S. Cohen, Words and Deeds in Renaissance Rome:
Trials Before the Papal Magistrates (Toronto, 1993)
Cohen, Thomas V., Love and Death in Renaissance Italy (Chicago, 2004)
Cohn, Samuel, ‘Sex and Violence on the Periphery: The Territorial State in Early
Renaissance Florence’, in Samuel Cohn, Women in the Streets: Essays on Sex and Power
in Renaissance Italy (Baltimore, 1996), pp. 98-136.
Davis, Robert C., The War of the Fists: Popular Culture and Public Violence in Late
Renaissance Venice (New York and Oxford, 1994)
Dean, Trevor, ‘Gender and Insult in an Italian City: Bologna in the later Middle Ages’,
Social History 29 (2004), 217-31.
27
Dean, Trevor, ‘Marriage and Mutilation: Vendetta in Late-Medieval Italy’, Past and
Present 157 (1997), 3-36.
Dean, Trevor, and K.J.P. Lowe, eds, Crime, Society and the Law in Renaissance Italy
(Cambridge, 1994)
Dean, Trevor, Crime in Medieval Europe (Harlow, 2001)
Dolan, Frances, Dangerous Familiars: Representations of Domestic Crime in England,
1550-1700 (Ithaca, 1994)
Ferraro, Joanne M., ‘The Power to Decide: Battered Wives in Early Modern Venice’,
Renaissance Quarterly 48 (1995), 492-512.
Ferraro, Joanne M., Marriage Wars in Late Renaissance Venice (New York, 2002)
Finch, Andrew, ‘The Nature of Violence in the Middle Ages: An Alternative Perspective’,
Historical Research 70 (1997), 249-68.
Finch, Andrew, ‘Women and Violence in the Later Middle Ages: the Evidence of the
Officiality of Cerisy’, Continuity and Change 7 (1992), 23-45.
Fletcher, Anthony, Gender, Sex and Subordination in England 1500-1800 (New Haven,
1995) [Chapter 10]
Foyster, E., ‘A Laughing Matter? Marital Discord and Gender Control in SeventeenthCentury England’, Rural History 4 (1993), 5-21.
Foyster, E., ‘Male Honour, Social Control, and Wife Beating in Late Stuart England’,
Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 6th ser., 6 (1996)
Frevert, Ute, ‘The Taming of the Noble Ruffian: Male Violence and Dueling in Early
Modern and Modern Germany’, in Pieter Spierenburg, ed., Men and Violence: Gender,
Honor, and Rituals in Modern Europe and America (Columbus, OH, 1998), pp. 37-63.
Gaskill, Malcolm, ‘Reporting Murder: Fiction in the Archives in Early Modern England’,
Social History 23 (1998), 1-30.
Gaskill, Malcolm, Crime and Mentalities in Early Modern England (Cambridge, 2000)
Gowing, Laura, ‘Secret Births and Infanticide in Seventeenth-Century England’, Past and
Present 156 (1997), 88-115.
Gowing, Laura, Domestic Dangers: Women, Words, and Sex in Early Modern London
(Oxford, 1996)
Greenshields, Malcolm, An Economy of Violence in Early Modern France: Crime and
Justice in the Haute Auvergne, 1587-1664 (University Park, 1994)
Heijden, Manon van der, ‘Women as Victims of Sexual and Domestic Violence in
Seventeenth-Century Holland: Criminal Cases of Rape, Incest, and Maltreatment in
Rotterdam and Delft’, Journal of Social History 33 (2000), 623-44.
Ingram, Martin, ‘Child Sexual Abuse in Early Modern England’ in M.J. Braddick and J.
Walter, eds, Negotiating Power in Early Modern Society: Order, Hierarchy and
Subordination in Britain and Ireland (Cambridge, 2001), pp. 63-84, 257-62.
28
Ingram, Martin, ‘Ridings, Rough Music and “the Reform of Popular Culture” in Early
Modern England’, Past and Present 105 (1984)
Ingram, Martin, Church Courts, Sex and Marriage in England, 1570-1640 (Cambridge,
1987)
Kaiser, Daniel H., ‘“He Said, She Said”: Rape and Gender Discourse in Early Modern
Russia,” Kritika 3/2 (2002), 197-216.
Karras, Ruth Mazo, From Boys to Men: Formations of Masculinity in Late Medieval Europe
(Philadelphia, 2003)
Kermode, Jenny, and Garthine Walker, eds, Women, Crime and the Courts in Early
Modern England (London, 1994)
Kiernan, V.G., The Duel in European History: Honour and the Reign of Aristocracy
(Oxford, 1988)
Naphy, William, Sex Crimes From Renaissance to Enlightenment (Stroud, 2002)
Peltonen, Markku, The Duel in Early Modern England: Civility, Politeness and Honour
(Cambridge, 2003)
Perry, Mary Elizabeth, Gender and Disorder in Early Modern Seville (Princeton, NJ, 1990)
Roper, Lyndal, ‘Will and Honour: Sex, Words and Power in Criminal Trials’, Radical
History Review 43 (1989), 45-71.
Rublack, Ulinka, The Crimes of Women in Early Modern Germany (Oxford, 2001)
Rudolph, J., ‘Rape and Resistance: Women and Consent in Seventeenth-Century English
Legal and Political Thought’, Journal of British Studies 39 (2000), 157-184.
Ruff, Julius R., Violence in Early Modern Europe, 1500-1800 (Cambridge, 2001)
Ruggiero, Guido, The Boundaries of Eros: Sex Crime and Sexuality in Renaissance Venice
(New York, 1985)
Ruggiero, Guido, Violence in Early Renaissance Venice (New Brunswick, 1980)
Sharpe, J.A., and Lawrence Stone, ‘Debate: The History of Violence in England, Some
Observations’, Past and Present 108 (1985), 206-24.
Sharpe, J.A., Crime in Early Modern England, 1550-1750, 2nd ed. (London, 1999)
Sharpe, J.A., Crime in Seventeenth-Century England: A County Study (Cambridge,
1983)
Sharpe, J.A. , ‘Domestic Homicide in Early Modern England’, Historical Journal 24
(1981), 29-48.
Shepard, Alexandra, Meanings of Manhood in Early Modern England (Oxford, 2003)
[Chapter 5: "The violence of manhood".]
Spierenburg, Pieter, ‘Knife Fighting and Popular Codes of Honor in Early Modern
Amsterdam’, in Pieter Spierenburg, ed., Men and Violence: Gender, Honor, and Rituals in
Modern Europe and America (Columbus, OH, 1998), pp. 103-27.
29
Stone, Lawrence, ‘Interpersonal Violence in English Society, 1300-1980’, Past and
Present 101 (1983), 22-33.
Taylor, Scott K., 'Women, Honor, and Violence in a Castilian Town, 1600-1650', The
Sixteenth Century Journal 35/4 (2004), 1079-1100.
Vigarello, Georges, A History of Rape: Sexual Violence in France from the 16th to the
20th Century, trans. Jean Birell (Cambridge, 2001)
Walker, Garthine, Crime, Gender and the Social Order in Early Modern England
(Cambridge, 2003).
Weinstein, Donald, The Captain’s Concubine: Love, Honor, and Violence in Renaissance
Tuscany (Baltimore, 2000)
30
SEMINAR 13: GENDER AND RELIGION
Questions
1.
What was the ideal and what was the reality of male religious practice in premodern Europe?
2.
'Warehouses of women'.
period?
3.
What was the role of gender in the persecution of witches?
Is this an accurate description of convents in this
Key Texts

Chojnacka, Monica, and Merry E. Wiesner, eds, Ages of Woman, Ages of Man:
Sources in European Social History, 1400-1750 (Harlow, 2002), pp. 181-216.

Bornstein, Daniel, ‘Spiritual Kinship and Domestic Devotions’, in Judith C. Brown
and Robert C. Davis, eds, Gender and Society in Renaissance Italy (Harlow,
1998), pp. 173-92.

de Blecort, Willem, ‘The Making of the Female Witch: Reflections on Witchcraft
and Gender in the Early Modern Period’, Gender and History 12 (2000), 287-309.
Further Reading
General
Barzman, Karen-edis, ‘Gender, Religious Representation and Cultural Production in Early
Modern Italy’, in Judith C. Brown and Robert C. Davis, eds, Gender and Society in
Renaissance Italy (Harlow, 1998), pp. 213-33.
Bornstein, Daniel, and Roberto Rusconi, eds, Women and Religion in Medieval and
Renaissance Italy, trans. Margery J. Schneider (Chicago, 1996)
Botanaki, E., ‘Seventeenth-Century English Women’s Spiritual Diaries: Self-Examination,
Covenanting and Account-Keeping’, Sixteenth Century Journal 30 (1999), 3-21.
Crawford, P., Women and Religion in England, 1500-1720 (London, 1996)
Fletcher, Anthony, Gender, Sex and Subordination in England 1500-1800 (New Haven,
1995) [Chapter 17]
Goldberg, P.J.P., ed. and trans., Women in England c. 1275-1525 (Manchester, 1995)
Karant-Nunn, Susan, ‘Continuity and Change: Some Effects of the Reformation on the
Women of Zwickau’, Sixteenth Century Journal 13 (1982), 17-42.
Mack, Phyllis, Visionary Women: Ecstatic Prophecy in Seventeenth-Century England
(Berkeley, 1992)
Mendelson, Sara, and Patricia Crawford, Women in Early Modern England (Oxford, 1999)
Ozment, Steven, When Fathers Ruled: Family Life in Reformation Europe (Cambridge,
Mass., 1983)
Perry, Mary Elizabeth, Gender and Disorder in Early Modern Seville (Princeton, NJ, 1990)
[Chapters 4 and 5]
31
Peters, Christine, Patterns of Piety: Women, Gender and Religion in Late Medieval and
Reformation England (Cambridge, 2003)
Plummer, Marjorie Elizabeth, '"Partner in his Calamities": Pastors' Wives, Married Nuns
and the Experience of Clerical Marriage in the Early German Reformation', Gender and
History 20 (2008), 207-227.
Riches, Samantha J.E., and Sarah Salih, eds, Gender and Holiness: Men, Women and
Saints in Late Medieval Europe (London, 2002)
Roper, Lyndal, The Holy Household: Women and Morals in Reformation Augsburg
(Oxford, 1989)
Watt, Jeffrey R., ‘Women and the Consistory in Calvin’s Geneva’, Sixteenth Century
Journal 24 (1993), 429-39.
Terpstra, Nicholas, ‘Women in the Brotherhood: Gender, Class, and Politics in
Renaissance Bolognese Confraternities’, Renaissance and Reformation 26 (1990), 193212.
Wiesner, Merry E., Gender, Church and State in Early Modern Germany (Harlow, 1998),
pp. 31-78 [pp. 36-46 online]
Willen, D., ‘Godly Women in Early Modern England: Puritanism and Gender’, Journal of
Ecclesiastical History 43 (1992), 561-80.
Zarri, Gabriella, ‘Gender, Religious Institutions and Social Discipline: The Reform of the
Regulars’, in Judith C. Brown and Robert C. Davis, eds, Gender and Society in
Renaissance Italy (Harlow, 1998), pp. 193-212.
Male Religious Practice
Amussen, S.D., ‘“The Part of a Christian Man”: The Cultural Politics of Manhood in Early
Modern England’, in Susan Amussen and Mark A. Kishlansky, eds, Political Culture and
Cultural Politics in Early Modern Europe (Manchester, 1995), pp. 213-34.
Cullum, P.H., ‘Clergy, Masculinity and Transgression in Late Medieval England’, in D.M.
Hadley, ed., Masculinity in Medieval Europe (Harlow, 1999), pp. 178-96.
Cullum, P.H., and Katherine J. Lewis, eds, Holiness and Masculinity in the Middle Ages
(Cardiff, 2004)
Puff, Helmut, 'Localizing Sodomy: The "Priest and Sodomite" in Pre-Reformation
Germany and Switzerland', Journal of the History of Sexuality 8 (1997), 165-95.
Swanson, R.N., ‘Angels Incarnate: Clergy and Masculinity from Gregorian Reform to
Reformation’, in D.M. Hadley, ed., Masculinity in Medieval Europe (Harlow, 1999), pp.
160-77.
Convents
Blaisdell, C., 'Religion, Gender, and Class: Nuns and Authority in Early Modern France',
in M. Wolfe, ed., Changing Identities in Early Modern France (Durham, NC, 1997), pp.
147-68.
Lowe, K.J.P., Nuns' Chronicles and Convent Culture: Women and History Writing in
Renaissance and Counter-Reformation Italy (Cambridge, 2003)
32
Riccoboni, Sister Bartolomea, Life and Death in a Venetian Convent: The Chronicle and
Necrology of Corpus Domini, ed. and trans. Daniel Bornstein (Chicago, 2000)
Rublack, Ulinka, ‘Female Spirituality and the Infant Jesus in Late Medieval Dominican
Convents’, Gender and History 6 (1994), 37-57.
Sperling, Jutta, Convents and the Body Politic in Renaissance Venice (Chicago, 2000)
Strasser, Ulrike, 'The Cloister as Membrane: Recent Convent Histories and the
Circulation of People and Ideas' Gender and History 19 (2007), 369-375.
Tarabotti, Arcangela, Paternal Tyranny, ed. and trans. Letizia Panizza (Chicago, 2004)
Weaver, Elissa, Convent Theatre in Early Modern Italy: Spiritual Fun and Learning for
Women (Cambridge, 2002)
Wiesner-Hanks, Merry E., ed. and trans., Convents Confront the Reformation: Catholic
and Protestant Nuns in Germany (Milwaukee, 1996)
Winston-Allen, Anne, Convent Chronicles: Women Writing about Women and Reform in
the Late Middle Ages (University Park, 2004)
Witchcraft and the Witch-Hunts
Apps, Lara, and Andrew Gow, Male Witches in Early Modern Europe (Manchester, 2003)
Barry, Jonathan, and Owen Davies, eds, Palgrave Advances in Witchcraft Historiography
(Basingstoke, 2007)
Bever, Edward Watts Morton, ‘Witchcraft, Female Aggression, and Power in the Early
Modern Community’, Journal of Social History 35 (2002), 955-88.
Briggs, Robin, Witches and Neighbours : the Social and Cultural Context of European
Witchcraft (London, 1996)
Clark, Stuart, ed., Languages of Witchcraft: Narrative, Ideology, and Meaning in Early
Modern Culture (Basingstoke, 2001)
Clark, Stuart, Thinking with Demons: the Idea of Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe
(Oxford, 1997)
Ferber, Sarah, Demonic Possession and Exorcism in Early Modern France (London, 2004)
Jackson, Louise, ‘Witches, Wives and Mothers: Witchcraft Persecution and Women’s
Confessions in Seventeenth-Century England’, Women’s History Review 4 (1995), 63-83.
Kors, Alan Charles, and Edward Peters, eds, Witchcraft in Europe, 400-1700: A
Documentary History (Philadelphia, 2001)
Levack, Brian P., ed., New Perspectives on Witchcraft, Magic, and Demonology, 6 vols
(London, 2001)
Levack, Brian P., The Witch-Hunt in Early Modern Europe, 3rd ed. (London, 2006)
Oldridge, Darrem, ed., The Witchcraft Reader (London, 2002)
Purkiss, Diane, The Witch in
Representations (London, 1996)
History:
Early
Modern
and
Twentieth-Century
33
Purkiss, Diane, ‘Women’s Stories of Witchcraft in Early Modern England: The House, the
Body, the Child’, Gender and History 7 (1995), 408-32.
Walinski-Kiehl, Robert, ‘Males, “Masculine Honor,” and Witch Hunting in SeventeenthCentury Germany’, Men and Masculinities 6 (2004), 254-71.
Whitney, Elspeth, ‘International Trends: The Witch “She”/The Historian “He”: Gender
and the Historiography of the European Witch Hunts’, Journal of Women’s History 7
(1995), 77-101.
Willis, Deborah, Malevolent Nurture: Witch-Hunting and Maternal Power in Early Modern
England (Ithaca, 1995)
34
SEMINAR 14: GENDER AND THE STATE
Questions
1.
How important was gender in the formation of the early modern state?
2.
In what ways was monarchy influenced by contemporary views of gender and
sexuality in this period?
3.
Was gender a significant factor in popular rebellions in pre-modern Europe?
Key Texts

Crawford, Katherine B., ‘Love, Sodomy, and Scandal: Controlling the Sexual
Reputation of Henry III’, Journal of the History of Sexuality 12 (2003), 513-42.

Earenfight, Theresa, 'Without the Persona of the Prince: Kings, Queens and the
Idea of Monarchy in Late Medieval Europe', Gender and History 19 (2007), 1-21.

Hanley, Sarah, ‘Engendering the State: Family Formation and State Building in
Early Modern France’, French Historical Studies 16 (1989), 4-27.

Palmer, William, ‘Gender, Violence and Rebellion in Tudor and Early Stuart
Ireland’, Sixteenth Century Journal 23 (1992), 699-712.

Richards, Judith M., ‘Mary Tudor as “sole quene”?: Gendering Tudor Monarchy’,
The Historical Journal 40 (1997), 895-924.
E-resources
Portraits of Queen Elizabeth I
Further Reading
Bergeron, David Moore, King James and Letters of Homoerotic Desire (Iowa City, 1999)
Chojnacki, Stanley, Women and Men in Renaissance Venice (Baltimore, 2000)
Cohen, Sarah R., 'Rubens's France: Gender and Personification in the Marie de Médicis
Cycle', The Art Bulletin 85 (2003), 490-522.
Cohn, Samuel K., Jr., Popular Protest in Late Medieval Europe (Manchester, 2004)
Crawford, Katherine B., ‘The Politics of Promiscuity: Masculinity and Heroic
Representation at the Court of Henry IV’, French Historical Studies 26 (2003), 225-52.
Crawford, Katherine B., Perilous Performances: Gender and Regency in Early Modern
France (Cambridge, Mass., 2004)
Daybell, James, ed., Women and Politics in Early Modern England (Aldershot, 2004)
Fletcher, Anthony, and Diarmaid MacCulloch, Tudor Rebellions, 5th ed. (Harlow, 2004)
Fletcher, Christopher, 'Manhood and Politics in the Reign of Richard II', Past and Present
189 (2005), 3-39.
Freist, Dagmar, 'The King’s Crown is the Whore of Babylon: Politics, Gender, and
Communication in Mid-Seventeenth Century England’, Gender and History 7 (1995),
443-65.
35
Hardwick, Julie, The Practice of Patriarchy: Gender and the Politics of Household
Authority in Early Modern France (University Park, Pa., 1998)
Harris, Barbara, ‘Women and Politics in Early Tudor England’, Historical Journal 33
(1990), 259-81.
James, Mervyn, ‘English Politics and the Concept of Honour 1485-1642’, in M. James,
Society, Politics and Culture in Early Modern England (Cambridge, 1996), pp. 308-415.
Jansen, Sharon L., Dangerous Talk and Strange Behaviour: Women and Popular
Resistance to the Reforms of Henry VIII (Basingstoke, 1996)
Jansen, Sharon L., The Monstrous Regiment of Women: Female Rulers in Early Modern
Europe (Basingstoke, 2002)
King, J.N., 'Queen Elizabeth I: Representations of the Virgin Queen', Renaissance
Quarterly 43 (1990), 30-74.
Laynesmith, J.L., The Last Medieval Queens: English Queenship, 1445-1503 (Oxford,
2005)
Levin, Carole, 'The Heart and Stomach of a King': Elizabeth I and the Politics of Sex and
Power (Philadelphia, 1994)
Matchinske, Megan, Writing, Gender and State in Early Modern England: Identity
Formation and the Female Subject (Cambridge, 1998)
Montrose, Louis A., ‘Idols of the Queen: Policy, Gender, and the Picturing of Elizabeth I’,
Representations 68 (1999), 108-61.
Mueller, Janel, 'Virtue and Virtuality: Gender in the Self-Representations of Queen
Elizabeth I', Fathom Archive (2001). Available online here.
Richards, Judith M., ‘Love and a Female Monarch: The Case of Elizabeth Tudor’, Journal
of British Studies 38 (1999), 133-60.
Richards, Judith M., ‘The English Accession of James VI: “National” Identity, Gender and
the Personal Monarchy of England’, English Historical Review 117 (2002), 513-35.
Smith, Hilda L., '"Acting His Own Part": Gender, the Freeborn Englishman, and the
Execution of Charles I', in Hilda L. Smith, All Men and Both Sexes: Gender, Politics, and
the False Universal in England 1640-1832 (University Park, 2002), pp. 109-35.
Smith, Hilda L., Women Writers and the Early Modern British Political Tradition
(Cambridge, 1998)
Sperling, Jutta, Convents and the Body Politic in Renaissance Venice (Chicago, 2000)
Strasser, Ulrike, State of Virginity: Gender, Religion and Politics in Germany (Ann Arbor,
2004)
Tomas, Natalie, The Medici Women: Gender and Power in Renaissance Florence
(Aldershot, 2003)
Weissberger, Barbara F., Isabel Rules: Constructing Queenship, Wielding Power
(Minnesota, 2003)
36
Wiesner, Merry E., Women and Gender in Early Modern Europe, 2nd ed. (Cambridge,
2000) [Chapter 8]
Young, Michael B., King James and the History of Homosexuality (New York, 2000)