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Introduction

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2023

By
Corinne Saunders  and
Diane Watt
Edited by
Corinne Saunders  and
Diane Watt
Corinne Saunders
Affiliation:
Durham University
Diane Watt
Affiliation:
University of Surrey
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Summary

The introduction explores womenߣs authorship and addresses the range of works by or attributed to women that were in circulation in England in the Middle Ages in the context of their contributions to a multilingual and inclusive literary culture. It examines the importance of collaboration, arguing that womenߣs writings may be collaborative in different ways: through amanuenses, through translation and adaptation, and through their historical and literary relationships with the men who write their lives. It explores other collaborative aspects of womenߣs literary culture, including womenߣs contributions as patrons, scribes, readers, and subjects of texts. It considers the importance of womenߣs religious communities, as well as the ways in which devotional books were owned by women and exchanged between nuns and by lay women, and it considers the active engagement of women with secular writing as owners and commissioners of books as well as writers. It argues that English womenߣs networks extend from Britain to the Continent and beyond.

Keywords

medieval womenmedieval womenߣs writing literary cultureauthorshipbook ownershipscribesreaderspatronstranslatorssubjects
Type
Chapter
Information
Women and Medieval Literary Culture
From the Early Middle Ages to the Fifteenth Century
 , pp. 1 - 24
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

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References

Further Reading

Dinshaw, Carolyn, and Wallace, David, eds. (2003). The Cambridge Companion to Medieval Women’s Writing, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Finke, Laurie A. (1999). Women’s Writing in English: Medieval England, London: Longman.Google Scholar
Green, D. H. (2007). Women Readers in the Middle Ages, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Krug, Rebecca (2002). Reading Families: Women’s Literate Practice in Late Medieval England, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Loveridge, Kathryn, McAvoy, Liz Herbert, Niebrzydowski, Sue, and Price, Vicki Kay, eds. (2023). Women’s Literary Cultures in the Global Middle Ages: Speaking Internationally, Woodbridge: Boydell and Brewer.Google Scholar
McAvoy, Liz Herbert, and Watt, Diane, eds. (2012). The History of British Women’s Writing Volume 1: 700–1500, Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Meale, Carol M., ed. (1993). Women and Literature in Britain, 1100–1500, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Wallace, David (2011). Strong Women: Life, Text, and Territory 1347–1645, Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Watt, Diane (2007). Medieval Women’s Writing: Works by and for Women in England, 1100–1500, Cambridge: Polity Press.Google Scholar
Watt, Diane (2019). Women, Writing and Religion in England and Beyond, 700–1100, London: Bloomsbury.Google Scholar
Wogan-Browne, Jocelyn (2001). Saints’ Lives and Women’s Literary Culture, 1150–1300: Virginity and Its Authorizations, Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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