"To Free Them from Binding": Women in the Late Medieval English Parish

Abstract

To Free Them from Binding: Women in the Late Medieval English Parish Historians generally study the late medieval English parish in order to understand the Reformation. Consequently, they view the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries only as a period on the verge of major change from the perspective of later religious reform. Another hazard of letting the specter of the Reformation shadow their studies is that class and gender concerns are often subsumed under the more goal of describing religious reform. In order to begin altering the static image of late medieval parishes and the undifferentiated composition of their members, scholars need to borrow concerns and methodologies from fields other than history.' Although literary scholars of medieval drama are influenced by the later presence of William Shakespeare, they have been successful in studying medieval drama on its own terms. In seeking to uncover the early traditions of English theater, they have discovered, in parochial records and other ecclesiastical documents, many heretofore unknown examples of local dramatic performances. Their growing list of local theatrical presentations, however, does not go far enough in asserting the dynamism of the late medieval parish; the role of drama in the parish is important in its own right, not just as a precursor to later developments. It entertained, educated, and raised money, and the sources that usually record these performances are financial ones, which permit