1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910457381703321

Titolo

Aristocratic women in medieval France [[electronic resource] /] / edited by Theodore Evergates

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Philadelphia [Pa.], : University of Pennsylvania Press, c1999

ISBN

1-283-21108-4

9786613211088

0-8122-0061-6

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (288 p.)

Collana

The Middle Ages series

Altri autori (Persone)

EvergatesTheodore

Disciplina

305.48/9621

Soggetti

Upper class women - France - History

Upper class women - France - Social conditions

Women - History - Middle Ages, 500-1500

Electronic books.

France History Medieval period, 987-1515

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Description based upon print version of record.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references (p. [235]-256) and index.

Nota di contenuto

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Maps and Genealogical Tables -- Preface -- Introduction / LoPrete, Kimberly A. / Evergates, Theodore -- 1. Adela of Blois: Familial Alliances and Female Lordship / LoPrete, Kimberly A. -- 2. Aristocratic Women in the Chartrain / Livingstone, Amy -- 3. Aristocratic Women in the County of Champagne / Evergantes, Theodore -- 4. Countesses as Rulers in Flanders / Nicholas, Karen S. -- 5. Women, Poets, and Politics in Occitania / Cheyette, Fredric L. -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Contributors -- Index

Sommario/riassunto

Were aristocratic women in medieval France little more than appendages to patrilineal families, valued as objects of exchange and necessary only for the production of male heirs? Such was the view proposed by the great French historian Georges Duby more than three decades ago and still widely accepted. In Aristocratic Women in Medieval France another model is put forth: women of the landholding elite-from countesses down to the wives of ordinary knights-had considerable rights, and exercised surprising power.The authors of the volume offer five case studies of women from the mid-eleventh



through the thirteenth centuries, and from regions as diverse as Blois-Chartres, Champagne, Flanders, and Occitania. They show not only the diversity of life experiences these women enjoyed but the range of social and political roles open to them. The ecclesiastical and secular sources they mine confirm that women were regarded as full members of both their natal and affinal families, were never excluded from inheriting and controlling property, and did not have their share of family property limited to dowries. Women across France exchanged oaths for fiefs and assumed responsibilities for enfeoffed knights. As feudal lords, they settled disputes involving vassals, fortified castles, and even led troops into battle.Aristocratic Women in Medieval France clearly shows that it is no longer possible to depict well-born women as powerless in medieval society. Demonstrating the importance of aristocratic women in a period during which they have been too long assumed to have lacked influence, it forces us to reframe our understanding of the high Middle Ages.