How relevant does gender remain to premodern history in the twenty-first century? This book considers this question in eight case studies that span the European continent from 1400 to 1800. An introductory essay examines the category of gender in historiography and specifically within premodern historiography, as well as the issue of source material for historians of the period.
This volume of essays, by art historians and museum professionals, offers interpretations of how gender – both masculinity and femininity – is made manifest in material goods and their representations, consistently pointing out the role of these is not only in reflecting, but also constructing the gendered self. The objects under consideration range from the quotidian to the exotic, including beds, guns, fans, needle paintings, prints, drawings, mantillas, almanacs, reticules, silver punch bowls, and collage.
The historians in this collection are looking for ways to expand the ways we examine and write about medieval women. They are interested in the great and the obscure, and women from different times and places. All attempt to get closer to the life as lived, personified in individual stories. As such, these essays prompt us to rethink what we can know about medieval women, how we can know it, and how we can write about them to expand our insights.