Early Modern Women Research Articles

Einleitung: Gewohnheit, Erfahrung und die ‚schreibende Frau‘

Abstract This introduction summarizes some of the main hypotheses that underly the contributions of this thematic issue of ARTES which is dedicated to the role of habit/custom and experience in the writing of some Early Modern women authors. One hypothesis is that references to habit and experience may have supported Early Modern women writers in their efforts to legitimize their arguments, knowledge and writing, the reason for this being that – due to various social restrictions and expectations – women were often denied access to other fields of knowledge, especially that of so-called book knowledge. Hence, the question arises to what extent the references to habit/custom and experience are connected to the question of female education and female strategies of (self-)empowerment. I will illustrate this using the prominent example of the medieval writer Christine de Pizan. Since the specific nature of female claims can only be assessed against the background of male writing practices, I will also make some introductory remarks on habit/custom and experience with reference to Early Modern male authors.

New Directions in Hispanic Jewish Studies: Early Modern Jewish and Conversa Women

ABSTRACT Increasing recognition of the integral role that religious and ethnic “others”—Jews and Muslims—played in the development of Iberian culture has become more integrated into the study of Spanish Empire, with an eye toward the converso experience in the colonial world as well. A much less developed line of inquiry relates to the experiences of those at the margins of sixteenth-century society, especially Jewish and conversa women, who were navigating unprecedented circumstances as refugees and New Christians. The disintegration of early modern women’s personal, familial, and communal foundations often left them in the most vulnerable positions; widows, who were not protected by the confines of marriage, experienced poverty and Inquisitorial accusations more often than others. Both Jewish and Spanish legal records feature a disproportionate number of cases related to the status of widows in a tumultuous society; some of the most compelling sources are Inquisition records that document the accounts of judaizing widows on trial. These new directions at the intersection of Jewish and Hispanic studies start broader conversations about Spanish Empire that include marginalized voices and exclude notions of imperial homogeneity.

A ‘more precise definition of the soul’ from the flights of the soul in The Blazing World and Primero sueño

ABSTRACT This study investigates Margaret Cavendish’s The Blazing World and Sor Juana’s Primero sueño (First Dream) in relation to Elisabeth of Bohemia’s inquiry about the soul-body union in her correspondence with René Descartes. Elisabeth’s question was two-fold, epistemic as well as metaphysical, and the first aspect remains understudied. Her epistemic question is rendered in gendered terms, seeking a ‘more precise’ account of a female-bodied soul (like hers), allegedly more susceptible to fits of vapours and eager for philosophical meditations nonetheless. This study argues that Descartes’s letters did not adequately address Elisabeth’s epistemic question as such and proposes instead to turn to the aforementioned fictions for accounts of the female soul’s pursuit of (self-)knowledge, by way of imaginary correspondence between the three early modern women on the rational soul in a female body.

‘Mankind Dame’: John Studley’s early modern Clytemnestra

Abstract John Studley’s Agamemnon (1566) explores women’s rule and how it can combine feminine and masculine elements to achieve and maintain political power. To do so, Studley employs the character of Clytemnestra, who simultaneously retains elements of her previous dramatic versions and is shaped to resonate with early modern English audiences. This process is twofold, taking into consideration linguistic and character traits. Clytemnestra’s language is expanded from the Latin through masculine-coded tropes characteristic of vernacular lyric. Moreover, she possesses traits traditionally considered masculine (martial courage, determination, bold speech and skill in weaponry). In Studley’s Clytemnestra, then, endurance and action combined create a gender hybridity in speech and behaviour. In turn, her portrayal resonates with discourses surrounding early modern women rulers, from Elizabeth Tudor to Mary Stuart. Ultimately, Agamemnon reshapes the treacherous queen of Mycenae to function as a commentary on how a woman in power could appear, speak and behave.

Early modern women philosophers and politics: Accommodating sphere restrictions

AbstractIn his Politics, Aristotle decreed that human beings needed to take part in politics to flourish, but that women, despite being human, needed to stay at home and away from politics. This paper offers an overview of how early modern women philosophers worked to makes their lives more political despite being constricted to the domestic sphere. Lucrezia Marinella argued that the home was like a small city, requiring quasi political skill to run, Cavendish believed that politics should cover the home and its inhabitants, not just the so‐called ‘public domain’. Mary Astell, less optimistic, thought that women could compensate for the urge to be political by retreating into a well‐educated mind.

Dodds, Lara and Michelle M. Dowd. Feminist Formalism and Early Modern Women’s Writing: Readings, Conversations, Pedagogies. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 2022. (= Women and Gender in the Early Modern World.) 304 pp.

Dodds, Lara and Michelle M. Dowd. <i>Feminist Formalism and Early Modern Women’s Writing: Readings, Conversations, Pedagogies.</i> Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 2022. (= Women and Gender in the Early Modern World.) 304 pp.

Studying Forms and Functions of Plurilingualism in Eighteenth-Century European Women’s Letters: The Case of Elizabeth Carter (1717–1806)

ABSTRACT This article addresses the plurilingual writing practices of eighteenth-century women of letters through the case of Elizabeth Carter (1717–1806), a plurilingual poet and translator who mastered no less than ten different languages. To determine the forms and functions of plurilingualism in early modern women’s letters, this article puts forward a methodological framework which combines insights from different fields of study. This framework moves beyond the notion of code-switching, and argues for a distinction between manifest and latent forms of epistolary plurilingualism. To determine the functions of plurilingualism in women’s letters, it proposes a contextualised reading. The potential of this framework is then illustrated by a close analysis of Elizabeth Carter’s plurilingual correspondence with Catherine Talbot (1721–1770). From this analysis, it appears that during the early years of their correspondence, Carter’s use of plurilingualism was inspired by an awareness of the inherent differences between languages, and of the dynamic interplay between language and identity. Studying the plurilingual dimensions of eighteenth-century women’s letters thus not only sheds new light upon women’s linguistic capabilities, but it also gives more insight into the way in which early modern women (re)shaped their intellectual and/or literary self/ves through letter writing.

The early modern canon and the construction of women’s writing

ABSTRACT In this essay, I aim to provide an overview of the relationship between women’s writing and the ‘canon’, to suggest some reasons for its continuing marginality to that canon, and to outline briefly the ways in which the particular character and qualities of early modern women’s writing require a rethinking of many of our dominant narratives about the literary history of the period. In this I draw upon the work of many critics whose work has shaped my thinking, and who are mapping out exciting new trajectories for the future direction of this field. The second part of the article focuses on setting out some ways in which early modern women’s writing might provide productive challenges to current orthodoxies about the canon of Renaissance Literature. Finally, I turn to the future, and some ideas about how the category of ‘women’s writing’ itself needs to be repositioned and reconceived.

Putting women back into the early modern economy: Work, occupations, and economic development

AbstractA dataset of just under 10,000 work tasks gleaned from court depositions that records women's as well as men's work, and unpaid as well as paid activities, prompts a reassessment of the transformation of the early modern economy and women's role within it. Rather than sectoral change in production activities with a growth of manufacturing at the expense of agriculture, the evidence suggests that work tasks changed little over time despite occupational specialization increasing. Women's labour force participation is shown to contribute 44 per cent of work in the economy, rather than 30 per cent as in previous estimates. This is partly because of the importance of commercialized housework and care work, which has been largely overlooked in existing models of the early modern economy. Turning to waged work, findings confirm that men's and women's participation in paid agricultural work were linked, with women being employed in greater numbers when men were not available. However, these trends had a strong relationship with access to land, a factor that has been neglected in comparison with demographic trends and the cost of consumables. The organization of work was transformed in the seventeenth century as the number of completely landless households increased rapidly.

Women at the centre: medical entrepreneurialism and ‘la grande médecine’ in eighteenth-century Lyon

Abstract We draw on Colin Jones’ framing of the Sisters of Charity as medical practitioners rather than charitable carers (1989) to centre the entrepreneurialism of Marie Grand and Marie Fiansons’ medical practice in eighteenth-century Lyon. Although historians recognize the significance of early modern European women’s (medical) work, they often assume such work existed in the shadows of the medical marketplace. Archival erasures and gendered narratives obscure the flexibility of women’s medical practices. Grand and Fiansons’ documents, analysed alongside adverts for local medical services, elucidate working women’s medical practices. As silk-workers and self-defined ‘chymists’ and herbalists, Grand and Fiansons were at the centre of healthcare and medicine. The breadth of their practice and networks emerges through the exceptional survival of their ‘counter-archive’ in the consular court archives. Their story reveals the fluidity and porousness of boundaries between domestic and occupational medicine, precarity and commodified care work, and charity and entrepreneurialism.

The Reading, Reception, and Collecting of Isabella Whitney’s A Sweet Nosgay, c.1573–1871

ABSTRACT Much recent scholarship on early modern women’s writing has focussed on their marginalia. Yet how active readers responded to their printed work after it left the bookseller’s stall has remained largely unexplored. This article responds to this critical gap by applying the principles of feminist bibliography to copy-specific annotations found in Isabella Whitney’s poetic miscellany A Sweet Nosgay (1573). Texts by early modern women often enjoyed a surprisingly long reception history and textual afterlife. By analysing early modern ownership inscriptions and nineteenth century marginalia found in the sole extant copy of Whitney’s text, this article considers how A Sweet Nosgay was read across time as a valuable work of ameliorating literature. Descriptions of Whitney's text in nineteenth century auction catalogues similarly allow us to trace changing attitudes towards, and readership of, her work: raising questions of how gender contributed to an author’s desirability, economic value, and ultimate survival. Ultimately, this case study demonstrates the need for a wider chronological and generic framework by which to consider the layered reception of the multitude of women’s texts like Whitney’s that survive in a single recorded source.

Sewn in Place: Gender, Materiality, and Mapmaking in the Early United States

Focused on four early nineteenth-century embroidered maps of the US capital in Washington, DC, the following analysis situates the maps’ appropriation of printed material in the context of early modern women’s work and its associated knowledge networks, exploring how embroidery’s unique set of material practices restructured conventional cartography’s claims to power and political oversight. Investigating how such practices shaped the mapmakers’ relationship to the powerful symbolism of the national capital, this account reveals embroidery to be more than just an imitative, schoolgirl art. Embroidery emerges as a way of thinking about and working with space all its own.

Lara Dodds and Michelle M. Dowd, eds. Feminist Formalisms and Early Modern Women's Writing: Readings, Conversations, Pedagogies. Women and Gender in the Early Modern World Series. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2022. Pp. 304. $60.00 (cloth).

Lara Dodds and Michelle M. Dowd, eds. Feminist Formalisms and Early Modern Women's Writing: Readings, Conversations, Pedagogies. Women and Gender in the Early Modern World Series. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2022. Pp. 304. $60.00 (cloth).

Antigone's Example: Early Modern Women's Political Writings in Times of Civil War from Christine de Pizan to Helen Maria Williams by Mihoko Suzuki (review)

Antigone's Example: Early Modern Women's Political Writings in Times of Civil War from Christine de Pizan to Helen Maria Williams by Mihoko Suzuki (review)

The Witch and the Devil in the Well: Women and Magic in Venetian Politics

Abstract: In early modern Venice, men and women regularly visited wells and remote islands to summon the Devil. This practice, rooted in traditions established in the Middle Ages, continued into the eighteenth century. One popular form of this tradition involved witches opening up a portal to Hell in the deserted wells of the city. Witnesses to these conjurations testified that they could smell sulfur, see hellfire and smoke, and hear the groaning of the damned when the witches performed their magical rites. The Devil himself appeared to talk to the witch who summoned him, usually to give her advice on elections to the Great Council or the location of hidden treasures. Using trials from the Venetian Inquisition, this essay examines women's involvement in the political life of the city, maintaining that through their expertise in magic and knowledge of rumor, they played a larger role in the early modern state and knew more of its secrets than we have credited them with having.

From Spiritual Guide to Church Mother

Abstract This article compares late medieval and early modern patterns of women’s preaching in Strasbourg. Medieval women circumvented gendered restrictions against female preaching through performative acts of embodied devotion. This article compares the embodied sermons of Gertrude Rickeldey of Ortenburg and the printed sermons of Katharina Schütz Zell to discuss the change and continuity in late medieval and early modern women’s preaching. Using Beverly Kienzle’s definition of the sermon and Roxanne Mountford’s concept of rhetorical space, I identify continuity in both’s women’s conformity to gendered regimes of piety. I also argue that Protestant reform shifted the location of female religious authority from embodied piety to printed sermons, but in a way that reflects a continuity with medieval traditions of female preaching. Overall this article demonstrates how women’s preaching persisted within the theological and cultural changes of the early modern period.

Antigone’s Example: Early Modern Women’s Writing in Times of Civil War from Christine de Pizan to Helen Maria Williams, written by Mihoko Suzuki

Antigone’s Example: Early Modern Women’s Writing in Times of Civil War from Christine de Pizan to Helen Maria Williams, written by Mihoko Suzuki

Editing what is Lost: Histories, Metatexts and the Extant Letters of Elizabeth Cary

ABSTRACTThis article argues that the editorial history of Elizabeth Cary’s letters has powerfully influenced how the letters are read and understood today. In particular, it suggests that an editorial organisation that cleaves to Cary’s conversion has had a narrowing effect, straightjacketing the letters as “conversion writing” and underplaying the significances of texts actually enmeshed in a more expansive range of epistolary activity. The article forwards an alternative editorial strategy – a site-based method which allows for the consideration of Cary not only as a Catholic convert (an exceptional figure) but also as an early modern woman with companionate connections to other early modern writers deploying the epistolary form to address quotidian matters such as penury, precarity, homelessness and family breakdown. Dealing with the neglected issue of “extant-ness” throughout, the article argues that editors of early modern women’s letters can be more explicit about the ways in which chance, contingency and curation influence that which survives. It makes a case for embracing “extant-ness” as a concept which might usefully undergird all epistolary enquiry.

“[An] old battle constantly re-fought”: Why Language Matters when Editing Early Modern Women’s Letters: A Case Study Of the Holograph Letters of Margaret Tudor, Queen of Scots (1489–1541)

ABSTRACTThrough a case study of the holograph letters of Margaret Tudor, Queen of Scots (1489–1541), this article examines the centuries-old editorial debate of whether to modernise or preserve the old-spelling of early modern texts. I examine how historical biographers and editors have approached and presented the language of Margaret Tudor’s letters and consider the implications their editorial approaches have on how readers perceive the figure and epistolary voice of Margaret Tudor. I then draw upon two recent studies in the field of linguistics to show how the detailed analysis of diplomatic transcriptions of Margaret Tudor’s holograph letters can provide important new insights and a fuller understanding of Margaret’s sociolinguistic history, her dual identity as English princess and Queen of Scots, and the processes and agents involved in the production of her holograph correspondence. This article argues for the necessity of diplomatic editions and for an editorial approach that carefully attends to and contextualises the language of early modern women’s letters. The article contends that such an approach is central to developing more advanced and nuanced understandings of early modern women and their letters.

A Devolutionary Approach to Editing the Letters of the First Duchess of Ormonde

ABSTRACT“To devolve”, explains John Kerrigan, “is to shift power in politics or scholarly analysis from a locus that has been disproportionately endowed with influence and documentation to sites that are dispersed and more skeletally understood”. This “devolutionary” approach has had some success in shaping our understanding of the history and culture of early modern Ireland; in this article, I consider its impact on scholarly editing. I suggest that the “expansive, multilevelled, discontinuous, and polycentric” approach described by Kerrigan is particularly valuable for editing collections of letters. I draw upon my experience of editing the more than three hundred surviving letters of Elizabeth Butler, née Preston, Baroness Dingwall and first Duchess of Ormonde to outline what a “devolutionary” editorial practice involves and what insights it brings. I show how a “polycentric” approach influenced all aspects of my own editorial work, from the selection and arrangement of letters, the transcription policy, the presentation of headnotes, the content of annotations, the Introduction, illustrations, and editorial apparatus such as family trees and lists of persons and places. Ultimately, I suggest that editing early modern women’s letters from Ireland and elsewhere is not only uniquely suited to but demands a “devolutionary” approach.