The History of British Women's Writing, 700-1500 Volume One

This volume, now available in paperback for the first time, focuses on women's literary history in Britain between 700 and 1500, a period traditionally marginalized in accounts of women's writing in English. Such marginalization, the editors argue, has been brought about in part by the erroneous assumption that there were no women writers in Britain before the emergence of Julian of Norwich and Margery Kempe in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The History of British Women's Writing Volume 1: 700-1500 vigorously refutes this premise by exploring a wide range of texts written by, for, and in collaboration with women from the Anglo-Saxon period through to the beginning of the sixteenth century.

By also considering women's writing in the context of the deeply multicultural and multilingual milieu which was medieval 'Britain' it uncovers a wide range of literary activity undertaken in Latin, Welsh, and French, as well as in the English vernacular, and, in so doing, it demands a rethinking of the long-established traditions of 'English' literary history, and even of the concept of 'writing' itself.

Liz Herbert McAvoy is Professor of Gender in English Studies and Medieval Literature at Swansea University, UK, where she also directs The Centre for Medieval and Early Modern Research. She has published widely in the area of medieval women's writing and has recently published a book on gender, space and medieval anchoritic enclosure.

Diane Watt is Professor of English Literature at the University of Surrey, UK. She has published widely in medieval literature and culture and her book publications include Medieval Women's Writing (2007) and The Lesbian Premodern, co-edited with Noreen Giffney and Michelle Sauer (2011).

Preface to the Paperback Edition
Acknowledgments
Notes on Contributors
Chronology
1. Introduction: Writing a History of Women's Writing from 700 to 1500; L.Herbert McAvoy and D.Watt
PART I: PRE-TEXTS AND CONTEXTS
2. Women and the Origins of English Literature; C.A.Lees and G.R.Overing
3. Literary Production Before and After the Conquest; C.A.M.Clarke
4. The French of the English and Early British Women's Literary Culture; C.Batt
5. Women Writers in Wales; J.Cartwright
6. Medieval Antifeminism; A.Bernau
PART II: BODIES, BEHAVIOURS AND TEXTS
7. Romance; C.Saunders
8. Saints' Lives; S.Horner
9. Devotional Literature; M.M.Sauer
10. Marian Literature; S.Niebryzdowski
11. Late Medieval Conduct Literature; M.J.Seaman
PART III: LITERACIES AND LITERARY CULTURES
12. Women and their Manuscripts; C.M.Meale
13. Women and Reading; L.Farina
14. Women and Networks of Literary Production; E.Robertson
15. Anonymous Writers; L.H.McAvoy
16. Women Translators; A.Barratt
17. Women's Letters, 1350-1500; J.Daybell
PART IV: FEMALE AUTHORITY
18. Christine de Pizan and Joan of Arc; N.B.Warren
19. Mary of Oignies; J.N. Brown
20. Bridget of Sweden; L.Saetveit Miles
21. Catherine of Siena; A.C. Grisé
22. Julian of Norwich; A.Appleford
23. Margery Kempe; D.Watt
24. 'A Revelation of Purgatory'; M.C.Erler
Bibliography
Index