406 Book Reviews

The Oxford Handbook of Women and Gender in Medieval Europe, ed. Judith
M. Bennett and Ruth Mazo Karras (Oxford: Oxford U.P., 2013; pp. xiv +
626. £95).

This volume, edited by Judith M. Bennett and Ruth Mazo Karras, contains a
timely synthesis of the work published on women and gender in the middle
ages over the past four decades. It is divided into seven parts and thirty-
nine contributors (of whom three are men) have written chapters covering
specific areas of expertise. The first part, on ‘Gendered Thinking’, contains
fresh overviews of what gender meant for women in Christian, Islamic and
Jewish religious societies (Dyan Elliott, Judith Baskin and Jonathan Berkey,
respectively). What they highlight is not surprising—in all three religions
women were subordinate to men—although subtle differences in the ways in
which women could have agency outside the domestic sphere are revealing.

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Two contributions, on political traditions of female rulership (Amalie Fössel)
and the naturalistic approach in medicine and philosophy (Kathrine Park),
round off this introductory section on medieval theories about women.
The second part concentrates on law and contains five thought-provoking
chapters in which the authors discuss how normative literature can be used as
illustration not only of society’s rules and norms but as a guide to the lived
reality of medieval life. I found all five contributions extremely thoughtful in
their analysis of difficult legal language (Nelson and Rio’s joint contribution
on the early middle ages especially), juxtaposed with actual historical case
studies (Lansing’s clever dissection of one rape case as a means to reveal the
complexities and ambiguities in procedure), the local variety of exercise of
justice in urban law courts (Marie Kelleher), the gradual development of
notions of dos, dower and dowry (Susan Mosher Stuard), and an impressive
study of women and gender and canon law (Sarah McDougall).
After the legal norms, and their applications in practice, we turn in the third
part to the domesticity of women’s lives. This section begins with a magisterial
tour de force by Maryanne Kowaleski. In ‘gendering demography’ she builds up
a series of challenges to the persistent scholarly myth that in the middle ages
there was a shortage of women, illustrating that, apart from some very local
evidence for female early death, there are simply no grounds to extrapolate
such local evidence across time and space. Not surprisingly, material culture
features strongly in the contributions that make up the rest of this section:
a thought-provoking chapter on Jewish women by Elisha Baumgarten,
with three more specialist chapters—on Carolingian domesticity (Rachel
Stone), pious domesticities (Jennifer Kolpacoff Deane) and a wide-ranging
discussion of the usefulness of thinking in terms of private and public spaces
in western Europe by Sarah Rees Jones. The fourth part is entitled ‘Land,
Labor, Economy’, with strong contributions on slavery (Sally McKee), urban
and rural economies (Katherine Ryerson and Jane Whittle, respectively) and
a chapter on aristocratic economies (Joanna Drell). The history of sexuality in
the fifth part, ‘Bodies, Pleasures, Desires’, is represented by interesting topics:
on medical care for gendered bodies (Monica Green), same-sex relationships
(Helmut Puff ), the body in Byzantine society (Kathryn Ringrose) and
courtliness (E. Jane Burns).
While the previous two parts are each represented by four authors, the
sixth part, ‘Engendering Christian Holiness’, has been allotted more space

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 Book Reviews 407
for a greater variety of approaches. The well-known link between heresy and
(female) gender is sensitively discussed by John Arnold; a good chapter on
the cult of saints is provided by Miri Rubin; devoted holiness in the lay world
(on beguines and anchorites) is a contribution by Anneke Mulder-Bakker;
while Lisa M. Bitel surveys the early Christianities of Europe. The world of
monasticism is addressed with specific reference to reform in an impressive
chapter by Fiona Griffiths, who illustrates the importance of women’s
contribution to the ideas on implementation of reform, while at the same
time providing a theoretical framework for the roles of men and women in
the monastic world. The seventh and final part, ‘Turning Points and Places’,
underscores that some topics stand alone: the origin of medieval topoi such
as the Bride of Christ and the masculine woman which have their roots in
antiquity (Kate Cooper); the dread of the millennium which was felt by men
and women (Constance Bermann); the role of gender in the transition from

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female to male contributions in urban merchant capitalism (Martha Howell);
the medieval roots of the early modern witch craze (Laura Stokes); and the
interpretation of Christine de Pizan as a proto-feminist (Roberta Krueger).
On purpose, I have guided the reader step by step through the contents.
Students will appreciate the Handbook for its helpful introductions, while more
advanced readers and specialists in the field will find the new interpretations,
provocative thinking and illustrative material inspiring. The volume ought to be
on everyone’s bookshelf or, in electronic form, bookmarked on one’s computer.
The editors should be congratulated on having gathered together the very best
in current scholarship. Most contributors are from the USA and the UK with a
handful from outside the Anglophone field. The Oxford series of Handbooks
is meant to collect together with insight and distribute with enthusiasm and
inspiration what has been published in a particular field. Naturally, each pair
of editors puts their stamp on such enterprise. In this case, Judith Bennett
and Ruth Mazo Karras are star professors with chairs at American universities.
Both began their careers exploring late medieval-England but quickly spread
their wings across an impressively wide area of expertise. As ‘products’ of
the 1970s and 1980s feminist wave of historiography on women and gender,
they emphasise how the present volume has allowed feminist historians to
reinterpret the medieval past by restoring women to their place in society and
by offering interpretations of their various roles. Occasionally, I found myself
cringeing at the fact that many distinguished contributors to this book are
portrayed as belonging to a sisterhood of female historians with an ideological
mission to put medieval history right. The editors’ version of the history of
women historians and historians of women (not the same thing) is decidedly
USA-oriented. Eileen Power’s significant contribution to the development of
medieval social and economic history, and the place of women in it, in the UK
and worldwide, is represented only in the form of her husband’s posthumous
publication of her articles. Why not mention her ground-breaking history
of the wool industry (and the role of women in it), her history of medieval
nunneries, or indeed her teaching role at one of the UK’s leading female
colleges (Girton College, Cambridge)? Important scholarship on women was
produced in France, Italy and Germany—though you would not think so,
reading the editors’ introduction. Conversely, I will not quibble about gaps in
the coverage that could have been filled. What I do regret, however, is the fact
that the editors have missed a remarkable opportunity to use the introduction
EHR, CXXX. 543 (April 2015)
408 Book Reviews
to reflect on the study of women and gender, and where we go next. I was
not too upset to read little on masculinities, a relative gap acknowledged by
the editors. What I think most medievalists interested in women and gender
would now like to ponder is whether there is a future. After four or five decades
of spotlighting women and, in effect, separating women from their menfolk, is
it not time now to bring the sexes together and see how they collaborated and
interacted? To me the publication of the Handbook seems a good point to stop
isolating women and to concentrate on the interaction of the genders.
ELISABETH VAN HOUTS
doi:10.1093/ehr/cev026 Emmanuel College, Cambridge

Le Prince, son peuple et le bien commun de l’Antiquité tardive à la fin du

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Moyen Âge, ed. Hervé Oudart, Jean-Michel Picard and Joêlle Quaghebeure
(Rennes: P.U. de Rennes, 2013; pp. 447. €22).

Anglophone readers should be warned that this is not the book which the title
might lead them to expect. This is not yet another updating of the Carlyles’
great six-volume History of Mediaeval Political Theory in the West. There is
very little about the impact of Roman law (as opposed to Roman history), just
one mention of Aristotelian political ideas, and only the barest of references
to thinkers such as Aquinas, Bartolus, Dante or Marsilius of Padua. Three of
the chapters in this book might fit into an updating of the Carlyles, but even
they not easily; they are Yves Sassier’s reinterpretation of John of Salisbury’s
Policraticus, IV, 1–2; Alain Dubreucq’s discussion of Carolingian mirror-of-
princes literature; and, to a lesser extent, Élizabeth Crouzet-Pavan’s interesting
survey of Italian fifteenth-century moral justifications for princely regimes.
The other essays in the book focus not on thinkers but on doers. The aim
was to shed light on the political ideas of subjects rather than those of rulers,
by deducing them from chronicles, charters, illuminations or other sources.
Contributors were then encouraged to attempt to assess the role of the people
in medieval politics. This highly laudable aim was made yet more difficult
by the editors’ additional brief: the book should also investigate whether the
ideological foundations of the principate, as established by Augustus and paid
lip-service to by the emperors of late antiquity, survived to influence rulers or
their critics into the later middle ages. Hervé Oudart introduces the volume
by offering a snapshot of these alleged ideological foundations: the prince was
a man to whom the people rallied on account of his virtues, and because they
perceived that their own good was served by following him. The principate
was reinforced by an oath to the ruler taken by all the people. Jean-Pierre
Martin adds to this picture by demonstrating the prince’s role in providing
security for the people as a cornerstone of the common good.
Having laid out the groundwork, Oudart then examines an important
chapter in French historiography. He particularly admires Karl Werner’s
interpretation of post-Carolingian history because Werner draws parallels
between the princely regimes that proliferated then and the principate of the
classical period. Admittedly there is much to be said for Werner’s thesis. Yet it
almost certainly makes too little of the victories in the field that were so vital
to the emergence of most new principalities, and of the value of a prince’s
EHR, CXXX. 543 (April 2015)