The Fourth Estate: A History of Women in the Middle Ages

Did women really constitute a "fourth estate" in medieval society and, if so, in what sense? In this wide-ranging study, Shulamith Shahar considers this and the whole question of varying attitudes to women and their status in Western Europe between the twelfth and the fifteenth centuries. She draws a cohesive picture of women in a range of situations: nuns and married women, peasants and noblewomen, townswomen, and women involved in heretical movements and witchcraft.

Shulamith Shahar is Associate Professor and Head of Medieval Studies at the University of Tel Aviv.