Abstract
AbstractThis article builds upon the work of the late Professor Sir Rees Davies and other scholars interested in the medieval March of Wales, and draws attention to the place, roles and experiences of the noblewomen in a region usually considered the preserve of the warrior lord. In focusing on the aristocratic widow, for whom records are relatively abundant, it examines the widows’ experience of dower assignment and of estate and castle management on a frontier district. It contends that, among other things, those who allocated dower to the widows of the region deliberately eschewed the frontier hotspots, and that the normative relationship between female lord and castle was at once improved and restricted by the warlike nature of the region. A final section examines the life and career of the often overlooked Isabel de Mortimer (daughter of Roger de Mortimer of Wigmore and sometime wife of John FitzAlan III), revealing her critical part in holding the Shropshire frontline on the eve of the final conquest of Wales (1282–3). The case is made that we cannot fully understand the aristocratic Marcher society without including women in our histories.
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