Maidens' Lights and Wives' Stores: Women's Parish Guilds in Late Medieval England

Abstract

The dynamism of the late medieval English parish found some of its expression in new roles and opportunities for women. Churchwardens' accounts show a late fifteenth-century increase in the number and variety of parish activities carried out by women in all-women groups. Parish guilds for married women and single women became a part of communal religious practice, and a means of expressing religious concerns particular to women. Within these groups women organized, raised funds, socialized, and worshiped. These new roles gave women visibility and leadership opportunities, but also paradoxically affirmed and reinforced what were deemed to be appropriate female behavior and interests.