Woman Defamed and Woman Defended An Anthology

"It is impossible / That any clerk wol speke good of wyves." Behind the words of Chaucer's Wife of Bath lies a vast corpus of medieval misogynistic writings. These texts, which range from those of the Church Fathers to a rich array of vernacular literature, have had a profound effect on the status of women in the West. Despite the recent surge of investigations into women's situation, however, no one book has sought to collect the key voices of medieval antifeminism, let alone to present the voices sometimes raised, even at that epoch, in defence of women. This new volume meets the urgent need for a single and substantial sourcebook of these materials in modern translation, including an introduction, notes, and commentary. The accessibility of the better-known texts here (from Jerome to Walter Map; from Heloise and Abelard to Christine de Pizan and Chaucer) will be welcomed by those engaged in medieval and women's studies; the lesser-known writings concerning, for instance, the sexual "double standard", and women and the priesthood, will provide unexpected discoveries for specialists and beginners alike. The book also features a surprising range of early texts championing women--including material never previously available in translation.

List of Plates
Abbreviations
Introduction	p. 1
The Roots of Antifeminist Tradition	p. 17
Ancient Satire	p. 17
From The Art of Love and Amores	p. 18
From Satire VI	p. 25
Scripture	p. 31
Physiology and Etymology	p. 38
From Generation of Animals	p. 39
From On the Usefulness of the Parts of the Body	p. 41
From Etymologies	p. 43
'Matter' and 'Form' in Later Writings	p. 46
From Monologium	p. 46
From the Summa theologiae	p. 47
From The History of the Destruction of Troy	p. 48
The Church Fathers	p. 50
From The Appearance of Women	p. 50
From Homily IX on St Paul's Epistle to Timothy	p. 58
From On Widows	p. 60
From Paradise	p. 61
From the Commentary on Luke	p. 61
From Against Jovinian	p. 63
From Letter 22, to Eustochium	p. 74
From Letter 77, to Oceanus	p. 76
From Confessions	p. 78
From The Literal Meaning of Genesis	p. 79
From City of God	p. 81
The Legacy of the Church Fathers	p. 83
From the Decretum	p. 83
From The Story of His Misfortunes	p. 88
From Letter 3: Heloise to Abelard	p. 89
From The Story of His Misfortunes	p. 91
From the Summa theologiae	p. 92
From Tristan	p. 94
Rule for Anchoresses	p. 95
From Part II	p. 95
From Part IV	p. 97
The Satirical Tradition in Medieval Latin	p. 99
The Life of Secundus	p. 99
The Femme Fatale	p. 100
The Letter of Valerius to Ruffinus, against Marriage	p. 103
From On Love	p. 114
Against Marrying	p. 125
Antifeminist Tales	p. 130
The Book of the Wiles of Women	p. 130
The Widow	p. 135
From Sermon 66 in Sermons for All	p. 144
Vernacular Adaptations in the Later Middle Ages	p. 148
From The Romance of the Rose	p. 148
From The Corbaccio	p. 166
From The Lamentations of Matheolus	p. 177
The Wife of Bath	p. 198
The Wife of Bath's Prologue	p. 198
Responses to Antifeminism	p. 223
The Thrush and the Nightingale	p. 224
The Good Woman	p. 228
From Letter 6, 'On the Origin of Nuns'	p. 232
From The Book of Consolation and Advice	p. 236
The Response to Richard de Fournival's Bestiary of Love	p. 242
The Southern Passion	p. 244
From A Lover's Confession	p. 248
'Whether women are permitted to instruct men'	p. 251
'Whether women are suitable to consecrate the sacrament'	p. 255
From The Register of Bishop Trefnant	p. 257
From Dives and Pauper	p. 260
Merelaus the Emperor	p. 270
A Woman Defends Women	p. 278
From The Letter of the God of Love	p. 279
From The Quarrel of the Rose	p. 286
From The City of Ladies	p. 289
Bibliography	p. 303
Index	p. 315
Table of Contents provided by Blackwell. All Rights Reserved.

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Woman Defamed and Woman Defended An Anthology of Medieval Texts

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