Woman Defamed and Woman Defended: Anthology of Medieval Texts - Tapa dura

Arguably nothing has more profoundly influenced the status of woman in the West than the configuration of chiefly pejorative opinions about her inherited by medieval Christendom, and vigorously propounded by a "torrent" of writers (as it seemed to Christine de Pizan around 1405) from the 11th century onwards. Arguably any attempt to understand the status of woman up to the 19th century will benefit from direct engagement with the main currents of medieval misogyny. Yet, amidst the surge of fresh investigations of woman's role from the Middle Ages onwards, no one book has sought to collect together the key voices of medieval antifeminism, let alone to present the voices (other than Christine's) sometimes raised even at that epoch in defence of woman. The need for a single and substantial sourcebook of these materials in modern translation is met in this volume. The accessibility of the better-known texts here (from Jerome to Walter Map; from Heloise and Abelard to Matheolus and Chaucer) will be welcomed by those engaged in women's studies or in medieval and later culture: the lesser-known writings also represented, concerning for instance the sexual "double standard" and women and the priesthood, will provide unexpected discoveries for specialists and beginners alike.