The Oxford Handbook of Women and Gender in Medieval Europe provides a comprehensive overview of the gender rules encountered in Europe in the period between approximately 500 and 1500 C.E. The essays collected in this volume speak to interpretative challenges common to all fields of women`s and gender history - that is, how best to uncover the experiences of ordinary people from archives formed mainly by and about elite males, and how to combine social histories of lived experiences with cultural histories of gendered discourses and identities. The collection focuses on Western Europe in the Middle Ages but offers some consideration of medieval Islam and Byzantium.

The Handbook is structured into seven sections: Christian, Jewish, and Muslim thought; law in theory and practice; domestic life and material culture; labour, land, and economy; bodies and sexualities; gender and holiness; and the interplay of continuity and change throughout the medieval period. It contains material from some of the foremost scholars in this field, and it not only serves as the major reference text in medieval and gender studies, but also provides an agenda for future new research.

- Provides a comprehensive survey of gender and medieval studies in one book
- A variety of approaches (e.g. women`s lives vs. gendered texts), offered by some of the leading scholars in the field
- Original approaches to the topics, providing readers with new approaches to the field
- Written in an accessible style, so ideal for experts and non-experts

Table of Contents

1: Women, Gender, and Medieval Historians, Judith M. Bennett and Ruth Mazo Karras
Part I Gendered Thinking
2: Gender and the Christian Traditions, Dyan Elliott
3: Jewish Traditions about Women and Gender Roles: From Rabbinic Teachings to Medieval Practice, Judith R. Baskin
4: Women and Gender in Islamic Traditions, Jonathan P. Berkey
5: The Political Traditions of Female Rulership in Medieval Europe, Amalie Foessel
6: Medicine and Natural Philosophy: Naturalistic Traditions, Katharine Park
Part II Looking through the Law
7: Women and Laws in Early Medieval Europe, Janet L. Nelson and Alice Rio
8: Conflicts over Gender in Civic Courts, Carol Lansing
9: Later Medieval Law in Community Context, Marie A. Kelleher
10: Brideprice, Dowry, and Other Marital Assigns, Susan Mosher Stuard
11: Women and Gender in Canon Law, Sara McDougall
Part III Domestic Lives
12: Gendering Demographic Change in the Middle Ages, Maryanne Kowaleski
13: Genders and Material Culture, Katherine L. French
14: Gender and Daily Life in Jewish Communities, Elisheva Baumgarten
15: Carolingian Domesticities, Rachel Stone
16: Public and Private Space and Gender in Medieval Europe, Sarah Rees Jones
17: Pious Domesticities, Jennifer Kolpacoff Deane
Part IV Land, Labor, Economy
18: Slavery, Sally McKee
19: Urban Economies, Kathryn Reyerson
20: Rural Economies, Jane Whittle
21: Aristocratic Economies, Joanna H. Drell
Part V Bodies, Pleasures, Desires
22: Caring for Gendered Bodies, Monica H. Green
23: The Byzantine Body, Kathryn M. Ringrose
24: Same-Sex Possibilities, Helmut Puff
25: Performing Courtliness, E. Jane Burns
Part VI Engendering Christian Holiness
26: Gender and the Initial Christianization of Northern Europe (to 1000 CE), Lisa M. Bitel
27: The Gender of the Religious: Wo/men and the Invention of Monasticism, Albrecht Diem
28: Women and Reform in the Central Middle Ages, Fiona J. Griffiths
29: Devoted Holiness in the Lay World, Anneke B. Mulder-Bakker
30: Cults of Saints, Miri Rubin
31: Heresy and Gender in the Middle Ages, John H. Arnold
32: Cultures of Devotion, Kathleen Ashley
Part VII Turning Points and Places
33: The Bride of Christ, the "Male Woman", and the Female Reader in Late Antiquity, Kate Cooper
34: Gender at the Medieval Millennium, Constance H. Berman
35: Gender in the Transition to Merchant Capitalism, Martha C. Howell
36: Toward the Witch Craze, Laura Stokes
37: Towards Feminism: Christine de Pizan, Female Advocacy, and Women`s Textual Communities in the Late Middle Ages and Beyond, Roberta L. Krueger

Author Information

Edited by Judith M. Bennett, John R. Hubbard Professor of History, University of Southern California, and Ruth Mazo Karras, Professor of History, University of Minnesota

Judith M. Bennett teaches women`s history and medieval history at the University of Southern California. She is the author of a number of books and articles on medieval women and on the feminist practice of history, as well as a popular textbook on medieval European history.

Ruth Mazo Karras teaches history at the University of Minnesota. She is the author of five books and numerous articles in medieval history and the history of gender and sexuality. She is a co-editor of the journal Gender and History, General Editor of the Middle Ages Series at the University of Pennsylvania Press, and a former president of the Berkshire Conference of Women Historians.

Contributors:
John H. Arnold, Birkbeck, University of London
Kathleen Ashley, University of Southern Maine
Judith R. Baskin, University of Oregon
Elisheva Baumgarten, Bar Ilan University
Judith M. Bennett, University of Southern California
Jonathan Berkey, Davidson College
Constance Berman, University of Iowa
Lisa M. Bitel, University of Southern California
E. Jane Burns, University of North Carolina
Kate Cooper, University of Manchester
Jennifer Kolpacoff Deane, University of Minnesota, Morris
Albrecht Diem, Maxwell School of Syracuse University
Joanna Drell, University of Richmond
Dyan Elliott, Northwestern University
Amalie Foessel, University of Duisburg-Essen
Katherine French, University of Michigan
Monica H. Green, Arizona State University
Fiona Griffiths, New York University
Martha Howell, Columbia University
Ruth Mazo Karras, University of Minnesota
Marie A. Kelleher, California State University, Long Beach
Maryanne Kowaleski, Fordham University
Roberta L. Krueger, Hamilton College
Carol Lansing, University of California, Santa Barbara
Sara McDougall, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, CUNY
Sally McKee, University of California, Davis
Anneke B. Mulder-Bakker, University of Groningen
Janet Nelson, King`s College London
Katharine Park, Harvard University
Helmut Puff, University of Michigan
Sarah Rees Jones, University of York
Kathryn Reyerson, University of Minnesota
Kathryn Ringrose, University of California, San Diego
Alice Rio, King`s College London
Miri Rubin, Queen Mary University of London
Laura Stokes, Stanford University
Rachel Stone, King`s College London
Susan Mosher Stuard, Haverford College
Jane Whittle, University of Exeter