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Motherhood and Mothering in Anglo-Saxon England sifts through the historical evidence to describe and analyze a world of violence and intrigue, where mothers needed to devise their own systems to protect, nurture, and teach their children. Mary Dockray-Miller casts a maternal eye on Bede, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, and Beowulf to reveal mothers who created rituals, genealogies, and institutions for their children and themselves. Little-known historical figures - queens, abbesses, and other noblewomen - used their power in court and convent to provide education, medical care, and safety for their children, showing us that mothers of a thousand years ago and mothers of today had many of the same goals and aspirations.
In the first full-length study of Judith of Flanders (c. 1032-1094), Mary Dockray-Miller provides a narrative of Judith’s life through analysis of the books and art objects she commissioned and collected. Organizing her book chronologically by Judith’s marriages and commissions, Dockray-Miller argues that Judith consciously and successfully deployed patronage to support her political and marital maneuverings in the eleventh-century European political theater. During her marriage to Tostig Godwinson, Earl of Northumbria, she commissioned at least four Gospel books for herself in addition to the numerous art objects that she gave to English churches as part of her devotional practices. The...
This study, part of growing interest in the study of nineteenth-century medievalism and Anglo-Saxonism, closely examines the intersections of race, class, and gender in the teaching of Anglo-Saxon in the American women’s colleges before World War I, interrogating the ways that the positioning of Anglo-Saxon as the historical core of the collegiate English curriculum also silently perpetuated mythologies about Manifest Destiny, male superiority, and the primacy of northern European ancestry in United States culture at large. Analysis of college curricula and biographies of female professors demonstrates the ways that women used Anglo-Saxon as a means to professional opportunity and political expression, especially in the suffrage movement, even as that legitimacy and respectability was freighted with largely unarticulated assumptions of racist and sexist privilege. The study concludes by connecting this historical analysis with current charged discussions about the intersections of race, class, and gender on college campuses and throughout US culture.
To Know Her Own History chronicles the evolution of writing programs at a landmark Southern women's college during the postwar period. Kelly Ritter finds that despite its conservative Southern culture and vocational roots, the Woman's College of the University of North Carolina was a unique setting where advanced writing programs and creativity flourished long before these trends emerged nationally. Ritter profiles the history of the Woman's College, first as a normal school, where women trained as teachers with an emphasis on composition and analytical writing, then as a liberal arts college. She compares the burgeoning writing program here to those of the Seven Sisters (Wellesley, Smith, R...
The story of the daughter of Alfred the Great, who fought against Viking invaders and ruled a kingdom in the tenth century. Alfred the Great’s daughter defied all expectations of a well-bred Saxon princess. The first Saxon woman ever to rule a kingdom, Aethelflaed, Lady of the Mercians, led her army in battle against Viking invaders. She further broke with convention by arranging for her daughter to succeed her on the throne of Mercia. To protect her people and enable her kingdom in the Midlands to prosper, Aethelflaed rebuilt Chester and Gloucester, and built seven entirely new English towns. In so doing she helped shape our world today. This book brings Aethelflaed’s world to life, from her childhood in time of war to her remarkable work as ruler of Mercia. The final chapter traces her legend, from medieval paintings to novels and contemporary art, illustrating the impact of a legacy that continues to be felt to this day.
Æthelflæd (c. 870–918), political leader, military strategist, and administrator of law, is one of the most important ruling women in English history. Despite her multifaceted roles and family legacy, however, her reign and relationship with other women in tenth-century England have never been the subject of a book-length study. This interdisciplinary collection of essays redresses a notable hiatus in scholarship of early medieval England. Æthelflæd, Lady of the Mercians, and Women in Tenth-Century England argues for a reassessment of women’s political, military, literary, and domestic agency. It invites deeper reflection on the female kinships, networks, and communities that give meaning to Æthelflæd’s life, and through this shows how medieval history can invite new engagements with the past.
Women's literary histories usually start in the later Middle Ages, but recent scholarship has shown that actually women were at the heart of the emergence of the English literary tradition. Women, Writing and Religion in England and Beyond, 650–1100 focuses on the period before the so-called 'Barking Renaissance' of women's writing in the 12th century. By examining the surviving evidence of women's authorship, as well as the evidence of women's engagement with literary culture more widely, Diane Watt argues that early women's writing was often lost, suppressed, or deliberately destroyed. In particular she considers the different forms of male 'overwriting', to which she ascribes the multip...
"Outstanding." - The Sunday Times "Beautifully written." The Times "Superbly adroit." The Spectator "Excellent." BBC History Magazine The Battle of Hastings and its aftermath nearly wiped out the leading families of Anglo-Saxon England – so what happened to the children this conflict left behind? Conquered offers a fresh take on the Norman Conquest by exploring the lives of those children, who found themselves uprooted by the dramatic events of 1066. Among them were the children of Harold Godwineson and his brothers, survivors of a family shattered by violence who were led by their courageous grandmother Gytha to start again elsewhere. Then there were the last remaining heirs of the Anglo-...
The Vercelli Book is one of the oldest surviving collections of Old English homilies and poems, compiled in England in the tenth century. Preaching the Converted provides a sustained literary analysis of the book's prose homilies and demonstrates that they employ rhetorical techniques commonly associated with vernacular verse. The study argues that the dazzling textual complexity of these homilies rivals the most accomplished examples of Old English poetry. Highlighting the use of word play, verbal and structural repetition, elaborate catalogues, and figurative language, Samantha Zacher's study of the Vercelli Book fills a gap in the history of English preaching by foregrounding the significance of these prose homilies as an intermediary form. Also analyzing the Latin and vernacular sources behind the Vercelli texts to reveal the theological and formal interests informing the collection as a whole, Preaching the Converted is a rigorous examination of Old English homiletic rhetoric and poetics.
Biblical Exegesis and Mystical Theology in the Venerable Bede brings together 17 essays by Arthur Holder exploring the theology and spirituality found in Bede’s biblical commentaries and homilies. The volume shows that Bede was both a masterful student of received tradition and a creative thinker concerned to address the needs and interests of his audience of Christian pastors and teachers in the eighth-century Northumbrian church. Although Bede is best known as the author of The Ecclesiastical History of the English People, the last half-century of scholarship has demonstrated the sophistication and vast influence of his work in the fields of grammar, biblical interpretation, hagiography,...