Women and Writing in Medieval Europe: A Sourcebook Book

	List of illustrations
	Acknowledgements
	Introduction	1
1	Marriage
	The good wives	19
	The malmariee	20
	Marriages in romance	23
	A rash wooing: unusual events at a wedding feast	25
	The disobedient wife	28
	A forward young woman	30
	Duties of the bourgeois housewife	31
	Caring for a sick husband	34
	A clandestine marriage	36
2	Love, Sex and Friendship
	An early woman's song	53
	Sexual passion recalled	54
	Two later love-lyrics	55
	The Trobairitz	56
	About love	59
	The writing of love letters	61
	Love between women	63
	The Archpriest of Hita	65
	Il Dolce Stil Nuovo	67
	An alba (dawn-song)	69
	A woman poet celebrates the female genitals	71
	The dangers of courtly love	72
	A thwarted affair	74
	A Valentine letter	75
	A Spanish woman poet	76
3	Motherhood and Work
	Fredegund and Rigunth	90
	Old English pregnancy charms	90
	Taking in an orphan child	92
	Trobairitz lyric on child-bearing	95
	Mothers in Montaillou	95
	The horrors of motherhood	96
	Margery and her children	98
	On the motherhood of Christ	101
	Freydis's trading venture	103
	Women in retail	105
	Margery's business ventures	107
	The division of labour	108
4	Women and Christianity
	The life and death of Abbess Hild	126
	The Nun of Watton	128
	Hildegard's vision of Ecclesia, the Church	134
	Rannveig's vision	138
	The women of Helfta	141
	Letters of St Clare of Assisi	149
5	Women and Power
	Fredegund	164
	Sigrid the Strong-minded	169
	Anna Dalassena and imperial power	173
	Alvild the Pirate	175
	Queen Philippa and the burghers of Calais	177
	A noble lady known to Christine de Pizan	178
	The way of life of the wise princess	179
	Joan of Arc	181
6	Education and Knowledge
	The learning of Anglo-Saxon nuns	194
	The teaching of girls	197
	A wise woman prophesies	198
	Women's physiology	200
	Heloise and Abelard	204
	Women's education and Christine's own experience	207
	The foolishness of fashion	208
	Selling one's soul for knowledge	210
7	Women and the Arts
	The first western dramatist: Hrotsvit's Dulcitius	231
	Some Norse women poets	234
	Hildegard and music	236
	Marie de France	240
	The poetry of Hadewijch	242
	Isolde and her music-making	248
	An embroidered praise-song	250
	Christine and the problem of representation	251
	Becoming textual: how Margery got her book written	254
	Bibliography	256
	Index	269