Time, Space, and Women’s Lives in Early Modern Europetsup.truman.edu/.../2001/...s-lives-in-early-modern-europe-preview.pdf · set of problems associated with “Time and Space

Time, Space, and Women’s Lives in Early Modern Europe

2000SKSM Page i Thursday, June 2, 2005 1:42 PM

Habent sua fata libelli

Sixteenth Century Essays & Studies Series

General EditorRaymond A. Mentzer

University of Iowa

Editorial Board of Sixteenth Century Essays & Studies

Elaine Beilin

Framingham State College

Miriam U. Chrisman

University of Massachusetts, Emerita

Barbara B. Diefendorf

Boston University

Paula Findlen

Stanford University

Scott H. Hendrix

Princeton Theological Seminary

Jane Campbell Hutchison

University of Wisconsin–Madison

Ralph Keen

University of Iowa

Robert M. Kingdon

University of Wisconsin, Emeritus

Mary B. McKinley

University of Virginia

Helen Nader

University of Arizona

Charles G. Nauert

University of Missouri, Emeritus

Theodore K. Rabb

Princeton University

Max Reinhart

University of Georgia

Sheryl E. Reiss

Cornell University

John D. Roth

Goshen College

Robert V. Schnucker

Truman State University, Emeritus

Nicholas Terpstra

University of Toronto

Margo Todd

University of Pennsylvania

Merry Wiesner-Hanks

University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee

2000SKSM Page ii Thursday, June 2, 2005 1:42 PM

Time,

Women’sLives

Space, an

nearly

modern europe

dited byAnne Jacobson SchutteThomas KuehnSilvana Seidel Menchi

E

Sixteenth Century Essays & Studies

Volume 57

Truman State University Press

Title Page

Copyright 2001 by Truman State University Press, Kirksville, Missouri 63501All rights reserved. Published 2001, Second Printing 2005. Sixteenth Century Essays & Studies Seriestsup.truman.edu

Cover illustration: Cittore Carpaccio,

Two Venetian Ladies

, c. 1510–15. Oil on wood.Courtesy of Civico Museo Correr, Venice

Cover and title page design: Teresa WheelerText: AGaramond, copyright Adobe Systems Inc.; display type: Optimum DTC.Printed by McNaughton & Gunn, Inc., Saline, Michigan USA

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Time, space, and women’s lives in early modern Europe / edited by Anne Jacobson Schutte, Thomas Kuehn, Silvana Seidel Menchi.

p. cm. — (Sixteenth century essays & studies : 57)Includes bibliographical references and index.ISBN 0-943549-82-5 (case : alk. paper) — ISBN 0-943549-90-6 (pbk : alk. paper)1. Women—History—Middle Ages, 500–1500—Congresses. 2. Women—Europe—

History—Congresses. 3. Women—Europe—Social conditions—Congresses. I. Schutte, Anne Jacobson. II. Kuehn, Thomas, 1950– III. Seidel Menchi, Silvana. IV. Title. V. Series.HQ1143.T4613 2001305.4'09'02—dc21

2001043061CIP

Truman State University Press gratefully acknowledges permission to publish these articles in English that first appeared in Italian in

Tempi e spazi di vita femminile tra medioevo ed età moderna,

a cura di Silvana Seidel Menchi, Anne Jacobson Schutte, Thomas Kuehn, Bologna: il Mulino, 1999.

No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any format by any means without written permission from the publisher.

The paper in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1992.

∞

00SchuttePrelims Page iv Thursday, June 2, 2005 4:40 PM

Contents

Illustrations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii

IntroductionThomas Kuehn and Anne Jacobson Schutte . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix

Part 1

Women’s History and Social History: Are Structures Necessary?Merry Wiesner-Hanks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3

The

Querelle des Femmes

as a Cultural Studies ParadigmMargarete Zimmermann . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .17

Grammar in ArcadiaGabriele Beck-Busse . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .29

The Girl and the Hourglass: Periodization of Women’s Lives in Western Preindustrial Societies

Silvana Seidel Menchi. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .41

Part 2

Getting Back the Dowry: Venice, c. 1360–1530Stanley Chojnacki. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .77

Daughters, Mothers, Wives, and Widows: Women as Legal PersonsThomas Kuehn. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .97

Women Married Elsewhere: Gender and Citizenship in ItalyJulius Kirshner . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .117

Part 3

“Saints” and “Witches”: in Early Modern Italy: Stepsisters or Strangers?Anne Jacobson Schutte . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .153

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Contents

vi

Ed. Kuehn, Schutte, & Seidel Menchi

The Dimensions of the Cloister: Enclosure, Constraint, and Protection in Seventeenth-Century Italy

Francesca Medioli. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .165

The Third StatusGabriella Zarri . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .181

Part 4

“Non lo volevo per marito: in modo alcuno”: Forced Marriages, Generational Conflicts, and the Limits of Patriarchal Power in EarlyModern Venice, c. 1580–1680

Daniela Hacke . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .203

Becoming a Mother in the: Seventeenth Century: The Experience of a Roman Noblewoman

Marina d’Amelia. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .223

Space, Time, and the Power of Aristocratic Wives in Yorkist and Early Tudor England, 1450–1550

Barbara J. Harris. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .245

Eighteenth-Century Marriage Contracts: Linking Legal and Gender HistoryGunda Barth-Scalmani . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .265

Part 5

En-Gendering Selfhood: Defining Differences and Forging Identities in Early Modern Europe

Kristin Eldyss Sorensen Zapalac . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .285

Construction of Masculinity and Male Identity in Personal Testimonies: Hans Von Schweinichen (1552–1616) in His

Memorial

Heide Wunder . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .305

About the Contributors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .325

Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .329

2000SKSM Page vi Thursday, June 2, 2005 1:42 PM

Illustrations

Grammar in Arcadia Gabriele Beck-Busse

Fig. 1. Pietro Longhi,

Il Precettore dei Grimani

(The Teacher of the Grimani Family).Private collection of Alessandro Orsi, Milan. Photo courtesy of the Museo Correr, Venice. (Fototeca V.19209) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .37

Fig. 2. Pietro Longhi,

La Lezione di geografia

(The Geography Lesson). PinacorecaQuerini Stampalia, Venice. Photo courtesy of the Museo Correr, Venice. (Fototeca V.19213) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .38

The Girl and the Hourglass Silvana Seidel Menchi

Fig. 1. Jörg Breu the Younger,

The Scale of Life

, 1540. Photo courtesy of the Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nürnberg . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .52

Fig. 2. Giorgione,

The Three Ages of Man

. Photo courtesy of the Galleria Palatina, Florence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .53

Fig. 3. Cristofano Bertelli,

The Ages of Woman’s Life,

c. 1560. Photo courtesy of the Cabinet des Estampes, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris. . . .54

Fig. 4. Anonymous Italian,

The Ages of Woman,

mid-sixteenth century? Photo courtesy of the Warburg Institute, London. . . . . . . . . . . .55

Fig. 5. Bernardo Strozzi,

Old Woman at the Mirror

. Photo courtesy of the Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .56

Fig. 6. Hans Baldung Grien,

The Three Ages of Life and Death,

1509–11. Photo courtesy of the Kunstmuseum, Vienna . . . . . . . . . . . . . .59

Fig. 7. Hans Baldung Grien,

The Seven Ages of Woman,

1544–45. Courtesy of the Museum der bildenden Künste Leipzig . . . . . . . . . . . . . .60

Fig. 8. Copy of Hans Baldung Grien,

The Three Ages of Woman and Death

. Courtesy of the Musée des Beaux Arts de Rennes . . . . . . . . . . . . .61

2000SKSMTOC.fm Page vii Thursday, June 2, 2005 4:41 PM

ix

Introduction

Thomas Kuehn and Anne Jacobson Schutte

This volume grows out of an international conference held in October 1997 inTrento and nearby Rovereto under the sponsorship of the Istituto Storico Italo–Ger-manico and the Dipartimento di Scienze Filologiche e Storiche of the Universitàdegli Studi di Trento.

1

Some thirty scholars from Italy, Germany, France, Austria,and the United States, with the help of numerous auditors, attempted to address aset of problems associated with “Time and Space in Women’s Lives in Early ModernEurope.”

In planning the conference, the organizing committee (Silvana Seidel Menchi,Anne Jacobson Schutte, Thomas Kuehn, Gabriella Zarri, and Heide Wunder)sought to move beyond the question “Did women have a Renaissance?” posedtwenty years earlier by Joan Kelly-Gadol,

2

which was soon criticized as being nar-rowly framed and based solely on literary evidence.

3

Instead, we conceived theagenda in terms of the female life cycle, from birth to old age and death.

4

And wethought in terms of the social and physical spaces within which women lived their

1

The history departments of Clemson University and the University of Virginia provided moralendorsement.

2

Joan Kelly-Gadol, “Did Women Have a Renaissance?” in

Becoming Visible: Women in EuropeanHistory

, ed. Renate Bridenthal and Claudia Koonz (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1977), 137–64;

BecomingVisible: Women in European History,

ed. Renate Bridenthal, Claudia Koonz, and Susan Stuard, 2nd ed.(Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1987), 175–201; also in Joan Kelly,

Women, History, and Theory

(Chicago:University of Chicago Press, 1984), 19–50.

3

Kelly’s formulation of the question no longer seems useful; it was omitted from

Becoming Visible

:

Women in European History

, ed. Renate Bridenthal, Susan Mosher Stuard, and Merry E. Wiesner, 3rd ed.(Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1998). For a selective list of responses to Kelly’s question, see Carole Levin,“Women in the Renaissance,” in

Becoming Visible

, 3rd. ed., 169–70 (n. 3).

4

This inspiration came from an anthology used by one of the organizers with great success in theclassroom:

Victorian Women: A Documentary Account of Women’s Lives in Nineteenth-Century England,France, and the United States,

ed. Erna Olafson Hellerstein, Leslie Parker Hume, and Karen M. Offen(Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1981). See also Merry E. Wiesner, chap. 2,

Women and Gender inEarly Modern Europe

(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993).

2000SKSM Page ix Thursday, June 2, 2005 1:42 PM

Introduction

x


lives and influenced their societies, communities, and families.

5

We asked presentersto emphasize the options available to women in various regions, social classes, andstatuses of life, while not neglecting the ways in which women’s choices were condi-tioned and limited. In addition, we requested that they pay attention to major theo-retical issues in the historical study of women: the older “oppression” model versusthe newer “agency” model; the advantages and disadvantages of focusing exclusivelyon women as a distinct social group (history of women) or concentrating on rela-tions between the sexes and the construction of “femaleness” and “maleness” (historyof gender). Thus we aimed to foster a refinement of scholarly investigation thatwould reveal the existence of, or at least point the way toward, a new paradigm.

Predictably, this ambitious charge, formulated in distinctively North Americanterms, proved more congenial to some presenters than to others. Practical limita-tions, furthermore, precluded exhaustive coverage of early modern Europe: with afew exceptions, the essays gathered here focus upon two geographical areas, Italy andGermany, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

6

Nonetheless, we believe thatthe volume as a whole succeeds in offering fresh insights drawn from research in avariety of sources, many of them not fully explored (if at all) in earlier scholarship.Perhaps more important, it serves as a methodological benchmark. Focusing onstages of the life cycle, these essays demonstrate, opens a wider window on gender—mainly but not exclusively the female gender—than did some previous approaches.This focus reformulates the “woman question” in two ways: by moving out from therealm of elite men’s prescriptive pronouncements about female nature (although thatsubject still merits attention and receives it in several essays included here) towomen’s lived experience; and by changing the singular, “woman,” to the plural,“women.”

Here readers will encounter women of different ages in a variety of socioeco-nomic and cultural situations—from the much studied but not fully understoodnoblewomen of fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Florence and Venice, to their coun-terparts in Rome and England, to the women who chose or were compelled to take

5

Here we were guided by other anthologies:

Connecting Spheres: Women in the Western World, 1500to the Present

, ed. Marilyn J. Boxer and Jean H. Quataert (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987);

Gendered Domains: Rethinking Public and Private in Women’s History

, ed. Dorothy O. Helly and Susan M.Reverby (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1992).

6

For various reasons, four papers presented at the conference did not find their way into this vol-ume. Two of them are included in the Italian version,

Tempi e spazi di vita femminile tra medioevo ed etàmoderna,

ed. Silvana Seidel Menchi, Anne Jacobson Schutte, and Thomas Kuehn (Bologna: Il Mulino,1999): Isabelle Chabot, “Seconde nozze e identità materna nella Firenze del medioevo”; and LuiseSchorn-Schütte, “Il matrimonio come professione: La moglie del pastore evangelico.” Two other contri-butions were not submitted for publication: Mary Garrard, “Artemisia Gentileschi: A New Painting andAnother Identity”; and Beate Schuster, “Zeit und Raum für Prostitution vom 14. bis 16. Jahrhundert.”

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Introduction

Time, Space, & Women’s Lives

xi

religious vows, to the bourgeois women of eighteenth-century Salzburg. Signifi-cantly, these women do not stand alone in a monolithic, unambiguously subordi-nate, and passive position. On the contrary, we see them interacting with theirparents, husbands, and other male “superiors,” as well as with their children, in aneffort to shape their own lives.

One of the concomitants of new approaches to the study of women is a newform of periodization, addressed in part 1. Kelly-Gadol’s question began from a con-ventional—some would say overly male—periodization in which the Renaissancefigures as the beginning of the modern world. Although she saw herself challengingaccepted schemes of periodization in her essay, Kelly-Gadol did not shift temporalmarkers so much as recast the quality of periods, mainly the Renaissance, in terms oftheir effects on women. In her wide-ranging essay, Merry Wiesner-Hanks worksthrough themes of capitalism and patriarchy and asks whether one can find a struc-ture or fashion a master narrative for women in early modern Europe. Prodded inpart by consideration of the interplay between historical and literary studies, sheoffers searching criticism of the term “early modern.” The other essays in this sectionpursue this theme of literature and history and the conjoined theme of periodiza-tion. Margarete Zimmermann examines the literary

querelle des femmes

as a vehicleby which women’s voices came eventually to be heard, tracking its changing terms totwentieth-century feminism. Gabriele Beck-Busse compares two Arcadian dialoguesintended to provide instruction in language in terms of their depictions of women.Finally, Silvana Seidel Menchi surveys multiple literary and artistic depictions of thestages of women’s lives, ending with legally significant ages. Her essay thus addressesthe stages of the life course as usually laid out by men and wrapped around changesin the female reproductive cycle.

Part 2 contains essays by the three male contributors to the conference and thisvolume, all from the United States. No papers were presented by males from othercountries, notably not the host nation, Italy—which speaks about the academic sta-tus and acceptability of women’s history in European countries. These three aregrouped not in order to set them apart from those of the women contributors butbecause they are similar in several ways. All three are Italian in focus, and in chrono-logical terms they are the earliest papers in the book, covering fourteenth- and fif-teenth-century events and developments. But they are consistent in more thantemporal and spatial terms, which may indicate something about the sorts of con-cerns that bring men to the study of women’s history. The problem of female agencyin the face of the ideology and laws of patriarchy is a common concern. In investi-gating that problem, all three also exploit legal and bureaucratic sources (in contrastto the literary sources at the heart of the essays in the first section): notarial texts,statutes, lawyers’

consilia

, civic and fiscal records. Study of female agency and ofthese sorts of sources is not a uniquely male endeavor. Christiane Klapisch-Zuber,who served as a commentator at the Trento conference, set the tone and direction ofresearch in a series of forceful and elegant essays that first began to appear over

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Introduction

xii


twenty years ago.

7

Interestingly, to varying degrees all three male authors seek tomodify Klapisch-Zuber’s judgment that (largely Florentine) women were subordi-nated to family structures that “remained under the control of level-headed males”and that women “were not permanent elements in the lineage.”

8

Dowry emerges ascentral in all these reassessments.

Stanley Chojnacki attempts to demonstrate that Venetian husbands, in contrastto their Florentine counterparts, even in the face of dowry inflation that he pegs at350 percent over two centuries, pledged property and securities to back return oftheir wives’ dowries following their (the husbands’) deaths. These women were thusgiven incentive not to remarry but to remain in their husbands’ homes and raisetheir children. Thomas Kuehn’s essay examines how Florentine women, against thelegal backdrop of the academic

ius commune

and civic statutes, grew into greaterlegal responsibility and activity over the life course. Not surprisingly, he finds thatwidows, directly possessed of property (including the now returned dowry) and fac-ing family responsibilities without a husband, had the most potential and need to beactive in the disposal and use of property and legal rights. Their relationships withmarital and natal kin also shifted during their lives; attention to such relationships iscrucial to understanding their activities. This is perhaps most clear in Julius Kirsh-ner’s analysis of the relatively anomalous case of the woman who married a manfrom a different city (more common in places like Modena and Milan than in Flor-ence and Venice), thus calling into question her citizenship rights in both her city ofbirth and that of her husband. Here the law was ambiguous, the main position beinga compromise worked out by the great fourteenth-century jurist Bartolus of Sasso-ferrato between the enlarged citizenship of late Roman law (enshrined in the

Corpusiuris civilis

) and the localism and nativism of the medieval communes. Within thecontingencies of cases, as the examples from the jurist Baldus de Ubaldis demon-strate, rules designed to protect male interests (some of which persisted into therecent past) had effects not always deleterious to female interests and actions.

One of the implicit themes in these essays is the existence of laws and extralegalconventions restricting women’s access to the halls of political power and other pub-lic domains. The essays in part 3 gravitate around the prominent presence in Italiancities of a very special zone of female activity: religious life within and outside con-vents. We begin with Anne Jacobson Schutte’s presentation of sainthood and witch-craft as opposite ends of a continuum, both best seen in the employment of ratherharsh inquisitory procedures of proof. While female saints tended to come fromsocially privileged groups and witches from poorer and marginalized social origins,both gave occasion for the expression of male distrust of female nature. The same

7

These are gathered in an English translation: Christiane Klapisch-Zuber,

Women, Family, and Rit-ual in Renaissance Italy

, trans. Lydia G. Cochrane (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985).

8

Christiane Klapisch-Zuber, “The ‘Cruel Mother’: Maternity, Widowhood, and Dowry in Florencein the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries,” in idem,

Women, Family, and Ritual

, 117–31, at 118.

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Introduction

Time, Space, & Women’s Lives

xiii

sort of distrust, running especially high in the menacing circumstances of theCounter-Reformation, produced severe rules for the enclosure of those women whochose or were forced to enter convents. Francesca Medioli’s essay shows that maleauthorities were tolerant of breaches of the rules that resulted in no scandal but alsothat some of these women resisted constraints, even to the point of escaping fromtheir convents. Here again we encounter the theme of agency, but this time in rela-tion to women’s identity and life choices rather than control over property and chil-dren. Gabriella Zarri examines the search in Counter-Reformation Italy for a “thirdstatus” (between marriage and strict enclosure in a convent) in which women coulddedicate themselves to a celibate and religious existence. The educational and chari-table work of the Dimesse and the Company of St. Ursula provides examples of whatwomen who crafted a novel form of religious life could accomplish.

Marriage constitutes the theme of part 4. Just as some women disliked andrebelled against the life in the convent foisted upon them by their families (as seen inMedioli’s essay), some women expressed their displeasure at the husbands selectedfor them. Daniela Hacke looks at Venetian annulment cases in which womenclaimed that they had not given their consent (required by canon law) to marriage.

9

In sketching out the role of neighbors as witnesses in these suits, moreover, she raisesquestions about the degree to which the familial sphere was truly private. Marinad’Amelia’s analysis of the correspondence between Eugenia Spada and her mother isa revealing account of women’s relationships within families, including Eugenia’sdealings with her difficult mother-in-law. Much of this correspondence concerns thequintessentially female experiences of pregnancy, parturition, and motherhood. Fas-cinating details from morning sickness to weaning show how a woman’s body wasculturally constructed, observed, and commented upon, and what one woman, atany rate, went through. Eugenia was later widowed, remarried, took her daughterinto the new home, and had a child by her second husband, but remained pro-foundly interested in and attached to the sons she had to leave behind. D’Amelia’ssources and what they reveal about women’s lives stand at the opposite end from thelaws and prescriptions drafted by men that constitute so much of our source materialabout women in the past.

The two other essays in this group deal with northern European evidence. Usinga wide variety of sources, including letters and diaries, Barbara Harris looks at Englisharistocratic wives. She notes that despite the English legal rule of coverture, by whicha wife’s personality was absorbed into that of her husband, aristocratic husbands cameto rely on their wives as guardians, agents, and executors. These women were effectivemanagers of their own dowers and the property that would go to their children. In asimilar vein, examining judicial and notarial records from late-eighteenth-century

9

This is one of several themes covered in Chiara Valsecchi, “‘Causa matrimonialis est gravis et ardua’:

Consiliatores

e matrimonio fino al Concilio di Trento,”

Studi di storia del diritto

2 (1999): 407–580.

2000SKSM Page xiii Thursday, June 2, 2005 1:42 PM

325

About the Contributors

Gunda Barth-Scalmani is assistant professor in the Department for Austrian His-tory at the Universität Innsbruck. With Brigitte Mazohl-Wallnig and Ernst Wanger-man, she edited the volume Genie und Altag: Bürgerliche Stadtkultur zur Mozartzeit(1994). She has published articles on the history of gender, medicine, law, and bour-geois society in journals including L’Homme, Zeitschrift für feministische Geschichts-wissenschaft, and Mitteilungen der Gesellschaft für Salzburger Landeskunde, as well asin the collections Bürger zwischen Tradition und Modernität, ed. Robert Hoffmann(1997) and Rituale der Geburt: Eine Kulturgeschichte, ed. Jürgen Schlumbohm et al.(1998).

Gabriele Beck-Busse was recently appointed Wissenschaftliche Assistentin in theDepartment of Romance Philology and Linguistics at the Freie Universität Berlin.Her Habilitationschrift is entitled Grammatik für Damen zur Geschichte der französi-schen und italienischen Grammatik in Deutschland, England, Frankreich und Italien(1605–1850).

Stanley Chojnacki, professor of history at the University of North Carolina atChapel Hill, is the author of essays on the political and social roles of Venetian patri-cians and gender relations among them. Some of these are gathered in Women andMen in Renaissance Venice (2000). Among his recent publications is “La formazionedella nobiltà dopo la Serrata,” in Storia di Venezia, vol. 3, La formazione dello statoparizio (1997).

Marina d’Amelia is professor of early modern European history at the Università diRoma “La Sapienza.” Her book Orgoglio baronale e giustizia: Castel Viscardo alla finedel Cinquecento (1996) includes a discussion of the role played by women in estab-lishing feudal family identity and administering estates. Her articles on women andtheir dowries and female violence have appeared in the journals Quaderni storiciand Dimensioni e problemi della ricerca storica, and she edited the volume Storiadella maternità (1997). Her recent publication “Lo scambio epistolare tra Cinque e

2000SKSM Page 325 Thursday, June 2, 2005 1:47 PM

Contributors

326 Ed. Kuehn, Schutte, & Seidel Menchi

Seicento: Scene di vita quotidiana e aspirazioni” appeared in Per Lettera: La scritturaepistolare femminile tra archivio e tipografia, ed. Gabriella Zarri (1999).

Daniela Hacke is Wissenschaftliche Assistentin in the Lehrstuhl für Frühe Neuzeitof the Historische Seminar der Universität Zürich. She earned her doctorate at theUniversity of Cambridge with her dissertation, directed by Peter Burke, entitled“Marital Litigation and Gender Relations in Early Modern Venice (c. 1570–1700).”She is completing a critical edition and German translation of Moderata Fonte’s Ilmerito delle donne (1600).

Barbara J. Harris is professor of history and women’s studies at the University ofNorth Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her publications include Beyond Her Sphere: Womenand the Professions in American History (1978) and Edward Stafford, Third Duke ofBuckingham, 1577–1621 (1986). The essay in this volume is based on material fromthe book she is currently completing, Aristocratic English Women 1450–1550: Mar-riage and Family, Property and Career, for publication.

Julius Kirshner, a historian of law, is professor of medieval and Renaissance historyat the University of Chicago. With Osvaldo Cavallar and Susanne Degenring, heedited A Grammar of Signs: Bartolo da Sassoferrato’s Tract on Insignia and Coats ofArms (1994). He also edited the English-language version of the proceedings of aconference, “The Origins of the State in Italy,” held in Chicago in 1993.

Thomas Kuehn, professor of history at Clemson University, is the author of Emanci-pation in Late Medieval Florence (1982) and Law, Family, and Women: Toward a LegalAnthropology of Renaissance Italy (1991). He is currently completing a study of thelegal and social position of illegitimate children in fifteenth-century Florence.

Francesca Medioli, lecturer in Italian women’s history at Reading University, hasworked extensively on forced monachization and enclosure. Her publicationsinclude L’“Inferno monacole” di Arcangela Tarabotti (1990) and articles in Rivista distoria e letteratura religiosa, Clio, and the collection of essays Il monachesimo femmi-nile in Italia dall’Alto Medioevo al secolo XVII, ed. Gabriella Zarri (1997).

Anne Jacobson Schutte, professor of history at the University of Virginia, specializesin religion, culture, and gender in early modern Italy. Her publications include PierPaolo Vergerio: The Making of an Italian Reformer (1977), Printed Italian Vernacular


Contributors

Time, Space, & Women’s Lives 327

Religious Books, 1465–1550: A Finding List (1983), and editions in Italian andEnglish of Cecilia Ferrazzi’s inquisitorial autobiography (1991, 1996). She serves asNorth American coeditor of Archive for Reformation History/Archiv für Reformations-geschichte.

Silvana Seidel Menchi is professor of history at the Università degli Studi di Pisa.Among her numerous publications on sixteenth-century religious life, the best-known is Erasmo in Italia, 1520–1580 (1987), which has appeared in German andFrench translations. She is now working on the records of matrimonial trials inecclesiastical courts.

Merry E. Wiesner-Hanks, professor and chair of the Department of History at theUniversity of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, is one of the editors of The Sixteenth CenturyJournal. Among her publications are Working Women in Renaissance Germany (1986)and Women and Gender in Early Modern Europe (1993). Many of her articles on var-ious aspects of women’s lives and gender structures have been collected in the vol-ume Gender, Church, and State in Early Modern Germany (1998).

Heide Wunder is professor of early modern social and institutional history at theUniversität-Gesamthochschule Kassel. Her research centers on the history of genderand of the rural economy in the early modern era. One of her books has appeared inEnglish translation: He Is the Sun, She Is the Moon: Women in Early Modern Germany(1998).

Kristen Eldyss Sorensen Zapalac’s first book, “In His Image and Likeness”: PoliticalIconography and Religious Change in Regensburg, 1500–1600 (1990), was publishedas she was completing her fellowship in the Harvard Society of Fellows. After severalyears as a faculty member at Washington University in St. Louis, she is now directorof Information Technology at Secora Corporation. She is completing a second book,tentatively entitled Inside/Out: Judith of Bethulia and the Engendering of Selfhood inthe West.

Gabriella Zarri, professor of modern history at the Università degli Studi di Firenze,has written many articles and books on the history of ecclesiastical institutions andreligious life between the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries, with particular empha-sis on the relationship between women and religion. She has edited several volumesof essays, including (with Lucetta Scaraffia) Donne e fede: Santità e vita religiosa inItalia (1994), in English translation as Women and Faith: Catholic Religious Life in


Contributors


Italy from Late Antiquity to the Present (1999). Among her books are Le sante vive:Cultura e religiosità femminile tra medioevo e età moderna (1990) and Matrimonio tramedioevo e età moderna (2001).

Margarete Zimmermann, professor of French and Italian literature at the Freie Uni-versität Berlin, has published widely on twentieth-century French literature, Chris-tine de Pisan and medieval literature and culture, the European querelle des femmes,and feminist literary history. She now serves as president of the International Chris-tine de Pisan Society. Cofounder and coeditor of the gender studies yearbook Quer-elles and coeditor of the Ergebnisse der Frauenforschung, she has recently coedited twobooks: with Roswitha Böhm, Französische Frauen der Frühen Neuzeit: Dicterinnen,Malerinnen, Mäzeninnen (1999); and with Renate Kroll, Gender Studies in der roma-nischen Literaturen: Re-Visionen, Sub-Versionen (1999). She is currently working on astudy of Christine de Pisan and a history of French literature by women.


329

Index

Illustrations are indicated by bold locators.

A

Aesop, 291age

of forty, 42, 44, 54, 64–65, 67social and psychological, 66–68of twelve, 62, 65of twenty-five, 63–65

age roles, 42, 67, 98“the ages of life,” 45–46

in art, 47The Ages of Woman, 55The Ages of Woman’s Life, 54Allgemeines Bürgerliches Gesetzbuch, 267,

276, 278, 280–81Annales school, 14annulment suits, 204–5, 214, 216, 221

strategies used in, 212–13Arcadia, 32–33Aristotle, 45Assisi, 130Augustine, 46autobiographies, masculinity in, 307

B

Baldo degli Ubaldi, x, 122, 125, 127, 129consilia of, 123

Domina Agnes, 124–30Domina Stefania, 138–44La Perugina, 130–38pro parte, 124, 137, 139sapientis, 124, 130

Barberino, Francesco da, 70–72Documenti d’amore, 64Reggimento e costumi di donna, 67–68

Bartolo of Sassoferrato, x, 121–22, 126, 128, 133–34, 144

Beauvoir, Simone de, 17–18Bertelli, Cristofano, 58

The Ages of Woman’s Life, 54blood, 296Boccaccio, Giovanni, xii, 22, 71, 286, 288–

89, 294, 300Decameron, 70

Borromeo, Carlo, 187Bourchier, John (earl of Bath), 261

relationship with wife Margaret, 262Bouwsma, William, 9Breu, Jorg the Younger, The Scale of

Life, 52Bürger, 268–69

C

capitalism, and work, ix, 3–7Castiglion Aretino, 124Castiglione, Baldasar, 305–6celibacy, female, 181, 196, 199

and teaching, 195Cesana, Vittoria, 203, 212Christianity, 287, 300citizenship

and gender, in twentieth century, 145, 147–48

unification of, 145citizenship rights, x, xiv

and civil law, 136dual citizenship, 119–20, 122, 144of foreign husbands, 120and foreign marriage, 135, 137, 140, 144


Index


citizenship rights continuedand inheritance rights, 139and intercity marriage, 125–28loss of citizenship, 120–21and marriage, 118, 120, 122, 146and punishment of crimes, 129penalties on foreign marriage, 120, 127of Roman women, 118–21unipersonality of married couples, 120

cloister, 213functions of, 176lay women in, 178nature of, 165

colleges, for women, 195–96community of property, 266, 270, 276

joint, 275partial, 272–73

Company of Saint Ursula, xi, 187, 189, 194, 197

lay character of, 185–86and virginity, 186, 188and vows, 185

Congregation of Bishops and Regulars, 166, 168–71, 174, 176–77

Congregation of Rites, 155, 157, 159Congregation of the Holy Office, 154consilia

pro parte, 124, 137, 139sapientis, 130

continuity and change, 4, 7, 13Controversies of the Male and Female Sexes,

22convents, x, 224

See also cloisterand enclosure, xi

Corpus iuris, x, 117, 119–20, 123, 134, 141Council of Trent, 165–66, 173, 179, 220

Tametsi decree, 205Counter-Reformation, xiThe Courtier, 305–6courts, and family conflicts, 209–11coverture, xi, 105, 246–47, 261, 264Cruz, Juana Inés de la, 198cultural history, and feminism, 19cultural studies, 17, 26

D

dal Giglio, Elena, 183daughters, 101–2de Beauvoir, Simone, 17–18Decameron, 286, 288decimal system, 46deconstructionism, 8de giudicato/diiudicatus, 79–81, 85, 88Dimesse, xi, 189, 194, 197

functions of, 193lay character of, 190, 192

disease, children’s, 230, 240medical practices, 237

domicile, 119Domina Agnes, 124–25, 135Domina Stefania, 138dowry, 102, 133–34, 137, 207–8, 215, 226,

252, 263, 271–72259detrimental practices, 77–78and female wealth, 95and Florence, 77guarantees, 89

maternal, 94–95Monte delle Dote, 90paternal, 93real estate, 91–92

inflation of, x, 79–80and marital separation, 104–5and marriage, 78–79restitution, 100, 106, 110, 113

beneficiaries, 86diiudicatus, 80executors chosen by women, 86–87fraternal coguarantees, 92–93government oversight, 88–89husband’s actions regarding, 82maternal guarantees, 94–95and the Monte delle Dote, 90paternal guarantees, 93regulations, 80–81, 84–85, 88time of, 84vadimonium, 80widowhood and remarriage, 82–83

security, 89, 91–95and Venice, 78


Index


Du Pont, Gratien, 22

E

“early modern,” ix, 11–13ecclesiastics, 226Eleanor of Rutland, 257–59emancipation, 101–3, 207enclosure, ix, 165, 179, 192

breaches of, 169–71, 175grounds for, 167–68as imprisonment, 173for male religious persons, 166opposition to, 184perceptions of, 173nuns, 166as protection, 178resignation to, 177unpopularity of, 167

England, Yorkist and Early Tudor, 245Erba, Caterina, 161–63Erondell, Peter, 29essentialism, 14

F

fablesand Aesop, 291collections of

“Ælfredic,” 291of Marie de France, 290–93, 295Mishle Shu’alim, 291, 295, 298–99

gender identity and transformations in, 300–301

interpretations of, 288of “pregnant” man, 285–87translations of, 291of widower and baby, 285, 287

family conflicts, 209, 211–13physical violence in, 204, 214–15public nature of, 219resolution of, 204, 214–15, 220

feminism, ix, xvii, 17early French, 24late twentieth century, 25

Florence, 100dowry practices of, 77laws regarding women, 98

Fonte, Moderata, 197–98French Garden, 29–30, 32, 36

G

genderand citizenship, 117cultural construction of, xii, xivdivision of work, 6Hellenistic-Christian views, xiihistory of, xvi, xviiJewish views, xiistereotypes, xvii

gender constructions, in autobiographies, 306

gender debate, 22, 25gender dissonance, among Christian Euro-

peans, 287gender history, and language, 8gender identity, 288

in Judaism and Christianity, 300gender relations, xiiGiglio, Elena dal, 183Giorgione, The Three Ages of Man, 53Glossa ordinaria, 119–20, 126, 134, 146grammar books

French, 29French Garden, 29–40“Grammars for Ladies,” 29, 33, 36and pedantry, 36Promenades de Clarisse, 29, 33–40and teaching of moral values, 29, 31–32

Grien, Hans Baldung, 61The March Toward Death, 57The Seven Ages of Woman, 57, 60The Three Ages of Life and Death, 57, 59The Three Ages of Woman and Death, 57,

61“the young girl and death,” 55

guardianship of children, 239, 247

H

ha-Nakdan, Berechiah, 295, 297–98scriptural additions to fables, 299

historical terminology, 8–12historiography, xii–xiii, xvihousehold management, by wives, 251–52


Index


housewife, 5

I

Il Carbaccio, 22inheritance practices

of Salzburg, 268wardship, 248, 260

inheritance rights, 133–34, 139, 141–43, 208

primogeniture, 194inquisition, 155ius commune, x, 97, 102–6, 108, 115, 120,

123, 129–31, 134, 137, 141–43, 148

ius proprium, 97

J

Judaism, 287, 300

K

Kelly-Gadol, Joan, vii, ix, xiv, xv, 8–9, 25Klapisch-Zuber, Christiane, ix, 68, 77, 83,

111, 237

L

lactation, blocking of, 235–36ladder of life, 47, 49–50, 52–55language and history, 7language textbooks, 30, 33La Perugina, 128, 130law, ix, xiii, xiv

and daughters, 101and equality of sexes, 97, 99, 117, 149Florentine, 100, 106history of, 266, 273and legal fictions, 127, 135–36matrimonial, 267, 276–77and mothers, 107and personhood of women, 97–98, 115,

276presumed female weakness, 99–100, 131Roman, 99, 117, 120, 134social practice of, 266unipersonality of married couples, 127,

146and widows, 108

and wives, 103written and verbal agreements, 270

Le deuxième sexe, 17legal fictions, 127, 135–36Les deux Perroquets, 34, n. 27Lestrange, Anne, 254–56letters, of women, 224La Lezione de geografia, 36, 38, 39life cycle

See also life stagesin art and literature, 47conceptualizations of, 51female, 52–53, 57

“ages of life,” 45and aging, 43–44in art and literature, 45and marriage, 63three phase calendar, 62, 70, 72

female perception of, 69interpretations, 48–49medieval and early modern interpreta-

tions, 47stages, viii, ixturning points in, 42

life mapsladder of life, 47, 49–50, 52–55medieval and early modern, 45, 47and the Reformation, 49wheel of life, 47

life stages, 42, 48, 114See also life cyclein art, 49, 51–52, 54–55, 57, 62female, 41, 43–44, 71

and law, 62–66and marriage, 62, 66, 68–71and sexual identity, 65

of wives, 246literary and historical studies, 10–11Lutheranism, xii

See also Schweinichen, Hans von

M

Ma’aseh Book, 286, 288–89, 297Maidalchini, Domenico, 225–26

death of, 238


Index


Maidalchini, Eugeniachildren of, 237, 240, 243

caring for, 238children’s diseases, 230, 237, 240guardianship of children, 225, 239–41letters of, 225, 227, 237, 244

concerning daily life of baby, 236marriages, 225–26, 239–41pregnancy, 225, 227–28, 238

bodily changes, 231lactation blocking, 235medical practices, 230search for wet nurse, 232–34weaning, 236–37

preparations for motherhood, 229widowhood, 239

Maidalchini, Pacifica, 226–28, 234The March Toward Death, 57Margaret of Bath, 260–64Marie de France, 290–93, 295marriage, xi, 103–4, 225, 242, 265

See also marriage contractsSee also under life stages: femaleannulment of, xi, 73, 204–5, 212, 214,

216, 221courts and, 209

arranged marriages, 245clandestine, 205contracts, 250, 261and dowry, 77–96early female age at, 71, 73

opposition to, 72emotional relationships in, 245–46financial support of married couple,

250–51first marriages, 247–48forced, 203intercity, 122, 137, 139, 144

and inheritance rights, 133–34laws regarding, 267, 276legal concept of, 276–77, 280–81negotiations, 253, 263parental consent, 206as partnership, 276patrician, 208–9principle of consent, 205, 209

remarriage, xiresidence with in-laws, 250resistance to, 204, 221responsibilities of remarried widows, 260second marriages, 247, 260secret, 208–9treatment of couples by parents and in-

laws, 249–50unipersonality in, 127validity of union, 205–6, 208, 215widowhood, xiwomen’s contributions to, 277women’s contributions to family success,

246in Yorkist and Early Tudor England, 245young age at, 248

marriage contractsamong Bürger class, 268–69, 274, 277characteristics of, 271generational effects of, 278–79community of property, 266, 270–76and gender relations, 280in Germany, 266–81as historical sources, 267introductions to, 271regulation of wedding gifts and dowry,

271–72and social class, 266, 268, 270–73, 275verbal agreements, 270

marriage negotiations, role of women in, 226

masculinity, xiiin autobiographies, 307

Mattei, Girolamo, 225Memorial of Hans von Schweinichen, 307

See also Schweinichen, Hans von.confession of beliefs in, 309gender constructions in, 310, 320genealogy in, 309–10goals of, 308historical period of, 308masculinity in, 320tension between noble and Christian val-

ues, 311, 314, 317, 319, 322microhistory, xiii, xvimidwives, choosing of, 234


Index


miracles, 285Mishle Shu’alim, 291, 295, 298–99misogyny, 43, 55Montecchio Vesponi, 125Monte delle Doti, 90, 102moral values, 29, 31morning sickness, 227motherhood, xi, 243–44

class awareness and relations in, 242female perception and experience of, 223

mothers, 107Roman, 223

Mozart, parents of, 269Mozart, Wolfgang, 265mundualdus, 100

N

Nevizano, Giovanni, 43–44, 58, 63, 67Nulla mulier, 130–32, 135, 138, 142nuns, 165, 167–68, 213

annulment of vows, 171–72, 175–77escaped, 172, 174–76forced professions, 169

O

Old Woman at the Mirror, 56

P

parentsauthority of, 205, 213, 215–16, 220–21responsibilities and duties of, 207

parturition, xipaterfamilias, 206, 217–18patria potestas, 206–7patriarchy, ix, xvii, 7

and continuity, 4pedantry, 36

See also Les deux Perroquetsperiodization, ix, 13–14

biological, 44and historical terminology, 9, 11–12theoretical foundations, 45–47of women’s lives, 41, 54

and androcentrism, 50changes in, 51and early marriage, 68

medieval and early modern, 50Perugia, 130Pizan, Christine de, 20–21polemiche sul sesso femminile. See querelle des

femmesIl Precettore dei Grimani, 36, 37, 39pregnancy, xi

customs, 228devotions during, 229fears concerning, 231in Italian upper class, 225, 228rituals, 229

“pregnant” man fable, xii, 285–87, 292compared to Boccaccio’s version, 293–94interpretation of, 288, 296in Mishle Shu’alim, 295moral of, 298physician character in, 297sources of, 289versions of, 294–95

principle of consent, 205, 209, 214, 220Promenades de Clarisse, 29, 33–34, 36public/private spaces, dichotomous gender-

ing of, xvPythagorean numbers

perfect number seven, 46Pythagorean tetrad, 45

Q

querelle des femmes, ix, xiv, 17, 43, 305changes in terminology, 23definition of, 18–19female authors, 22French texts, 23–24history of, 21–22, 24and interdisciplinary research, 26–27Italian texts, 23in late twentieth century, 25linguistic analyzation of, 19texts, 22textual and argumentative strategies, 20

querelle des sexes, 17

R

Reggimento e costumi di donna, 67–68


Index


relationshipshusband–wife, 245parent–child, 203, 206, 213, 224

conflicts in, 204household order and, 214, 218–20as metaphor for state government, 217parental authority, 205

religious institutions, female, semireligious, 181, 184

See also Company of Saint Ursula; Dimesse

functions of, 196religious life, and convents, xreligious writings, of women, 224Renaissance, 8

effects on women, xvand feminism, 9–10and women, 3

rightscitizenship (See citizenship rights)inheritance (See inheritance rights)

S

sainthood, x, 154paths to, 160as a social phenomenon, 153trials for, 155

saints, 153Salzburg, xii, 267–68The Scale of Life, 52Schweinichen, Hans von

See also Memorial of Hans von Schwein-ichen

attaining adulthood, 314, 316attitude towards drinking, 314biographical information, 311–12career possibilities, 313childhood, 312first love, 315Lutheran beliefs, 309, 323marriage to Margarethe Schellendorf,

317–18Memorial, xii, 307personal relationships, 315, 320–22release from duke’s service, 318

The Second Sex, 17

selfhood, 300Christian concepts of, 301–2Jewish and Christian concepts of, 287modern concepts, 303

semireligious, 184The Seven Ages of Woman, 57, 60social history, and structures, 3soul, nature of, 301–2Spada, Eugenia. See Maidalchini, EugeniaSpada, Maria, 225–29, 232, 235, 238, 244

letters of, 224Spada family, 226Spada Veralli

archive, 224family, social rise of, 224

Spinelli, Maria Felice, 157–59stereotypes, xviiStrozzi, Alessandra Macinghi, 69Strozzi, Bernardo, Old Woman at the Mirror,

56

T

“the third status,” 181–82The Three Ages of Life and Death, 57, 59The Three Ages of Man, 53Tournon, Alexandre, 29, 35tutela, 99, 109

U

Ursula, Saint. See Company of Saint Ursulauxorial cycle, 246–47, 251

V

vadimonium, 80–81, 83–85, 88executors chosen by women, 86–87

Venice, 203constitution of, 217–18dowry practices in, 78–79myth of, 216–18

Ventian Republic, saints of, 157Viterbo, 138, 144

W

wage labor, 6wardship, 248, 260weaning, 236–37


Index


wet nurses, 232–34widower and baby fable, 285, 287–89widowhood, xi, 225, 239

dowry restitution and, 82widows, 108, 144, 191, 279

and dowry restitution, 110as executors of husband’s estate, 247, 259and guardianship of children, 109, 247and remarriage, 110–12

wifehood, 246–47 (See also wives)wills, 138, 140, 247, 259, 262, 279

See also under dowry: restitutionconsent of male relatives to, 131–32

witchcraft, x, 160, 162–63as a social phenomenon, 153trials for, 155

witches, 153wives, 103

See also Eleanor of Rutland; Lestrange, Anne; Margaret of Bath

contributions to family success, 246English aristocratic, xi, 245, 247, 257as executors of husband’s estate, 260, 262as heads of households, 251–53as managers of finances, 262as partners of husbands in managing

assets, 253–54relationship with natal family, 250residence with mother-in-law, 250

uxorial cycle, 251women

agency of, viii, ix, xi, xvi, 8, 101, 205, 264

colleges for, 195–96and convents, xemancipation of, 101–3history of, xvi, xvii, 4, 10, 13, 43

and language, 8and structures, 3, 15

as legal persons, 97–99, 106, 113–14, 118

age of adulthood, 103changes at marriage, 103daughters, 101–2mothers, 107widows, 108–12wives, 103

literacy of, 269and marriage, xioppression of, viii, xvirelationships with family, x, xi, 203religious life of, x, xiv

nontraditional alternatives, 182roles of, 30–31, 44, 53, 183

in family life cycle, 223–24semireligious communities for, 181–82work of, 3, 5–7


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