The medieval woman (review)

Abstract

156 Reviews course for which the teachers have selected this book as required or recommended reading. The anthology contains extracts from the obvious figures in the religious and cultural developments of the sixteenth century: Luther, Calvin, Erasmus, More, Montaigne, Machiavelli, etc. However, at times, the selections are refreshingly surprising. Instead of Erasmus' In praise ofFolly, for example, the editors included passages from his coUoquies on marriage and courtship. I found other pleasant surprises, such as the Jesuit Jose de Acosta's attempt to reconcile the existence of Amerindians and the unique fauna of the N e w World with the biblical accounts of creation and Noah's ark. The anthology contains some serious omissions, however. It has nothing on the Anabaptists or other radical groups of the Reformation. Another serious omission is a section on 'Art', even though one of the editors is an art historian. It is true that the section on 'Europe and the wider world' does contain extracts from Diirer's diary of his trip to the Netherlands and the section on 'The crisis of authority: France' does contain passages from Cellini's autobiography. However, Leonardo's 'On painting', Alberti's 'On architecture', selections from Vasari's Lives, and other sources would have been a welcome addition in this anthology, designed after all for use in an interdisciplinary course. A. Lynn Martin Department of History University of Adelaide Ennen, Edith, The medieval woman, trans. E. Jephcott, Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1989; cloth; pp. 327; 24 plates; R. R. P. AUS$79.95. This is a strangely uneven book. It is hard, at times, to discern the logic that governs the sequence of subjects within each of the three main chapters and there is a tendency to stray into fairly bald general medieval history. The coverage is chronological rather than thematic and basically German in emphasis. The sections on non-German history are competent but sporadic, somewhat arbitrary in selection of material, and derivative. The emphasis throughout the book is descriptive and there is little attempt to belabour the oppressive socio-polidcal structure that kept women in a subordinate place. Indeed, Ennen is impressed by the number of energetic, mainly upper class, w o m e n in the Middle Ages and includes numerous summary sketches of their careers, from Judith, daughter of Charles the Bald in the ninth century, to Eleanor of Aquitaine, Joan of Arc and Lucrezia Borgia in later times. Perhaps the best areas of the book are those discussing the role and lifepatterns of w o m e n in German towns and in economic affairs generally. Here Ennen draws upon her own previous research experience and that of numerous German coUeagues. One undoubted strength of the book, in fact, is its reference Reviews 157 to a great many German research papers and monographs not likely to be known to English language readers. Reference to English language research is, however, defective and there is, or seems to be, a studied avoidance of such dlustrious non-German sources and examples as Christine of Markyate, Heloise, the Menagier of Paris, Christine de Pisan, Matheolus, Jeun de Meun, etc. The book is, factually, good value. There is much packed between its covers, from the early Germanic period (some close discussion here based on the lawcodes, Gregory of Tours, and relatedtexts)rightdown to sixteenth-century Europe, with commendable, if necessarily sketchy, attempts at coverage of 'daily hfe' topics (diet, dress, etc.) and a concern to talk of peasant and urban women as wed as aristocratic ones. The topic of women in religion is weU, if derivatively, covered, though it suffers from a failure to use good English language writing and there is no attempt to explain the peculiarities of female mystical and reUgious interests and impulses. The English speaking world's fascination with holy anorexia, w o m e n and magic, the occult, and witchcraft is also barely registered. Nor must the reader expect to find anything of women's emotions, sexuality, or inner life. This is a book which treats its subject as a standard academic topic. W o m e n are described from without and above as comprehensively as space permits, much as one might...