Rethinking Women and Property in Sixteenth‐ and Seventeenth‐Century England

Abstract

AbstractIf one were to consider male‐authored literary works alone – with no reference to historical documents or women's writing – one would probably be left with a distorted picture of women's status in relation to property. However, work in three main areas – legal history, material culture, and women's writing – in the last fifteen years has improved our understanding of women and property considerably. For example, revisions of legal history have highlighted differences between Renaissance women's everyday practices in relation to property and what the law theoretically required, and materialist work on women's connections to cloth production and theatrical properties ascribes significant agency to them. While analyses of women's diaries, letters, and wills have illuminated their thoughts and behavior in relation to property, we can still learn more from women's imaginative writing, especially their poetry.