Women and Wealth in Late Medieval Europe

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xi

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2. Introduction

   • Theresa Earenfight

   Pages 1-12

3. Constant du Hamel: Women, Money, and Power in an Old French Fabliau

   • Daniel M. Murtaugh

   Pages 13-32

4. Take All My Wealth and Let My Body Go

   • M. C. Bodden

   Pages 33-49

5. “Consider, I Beg You, What You Owe Me”: Heloise and the Economics of Relationship

   • Sally Livingston

   Pages 51-65

6. Money isn’t Everything: Concubinage, Class, and the Rise and Fall of Sibil·la de Fortià, Queen of Aragon (1377–87)

   • Núria Silleras-Fernández

   Pages 67-88

7. Merchant Women and the Administrative Glass Ceiling in Thirteenth-Century Paris

   • Sharon Farmer

   Pages 89-108

8. “Appropriate to Her Sex”? Women’s Participation on the Construction Site in Medieval and Early Modern Europe

   • Shelley E. Roff

   Pages 109-134

9. The Spending Power of a Crusader Queen: Melisende of Jerusalem

   • Helen A. Gaudette

   Pages 135-148

10. Exploring the Limits of Female Largesse: The Power of Female Patrons in Thirteenth-Century Flanders and Hainaut

    • Erin L. Jordan

    Pages 149-169

11. Money, Books, and Prayers: Anchoresses and Exchange in Thirteenth-Century England

    • Lara Farina

    Pages 171-185

12. Women and Property Conflicts in Late Medieval England

    • Anna Dronzek

    Pages 187-207

13. Private Properties, Seigniorial Tributes, and Jurisdictional Rents: The Income of the Queens of Portugal in the Late Middle Ages

    • Ana Maria S. A. Rodrigues, Manuela Santos Silva

    Pages 209-228

14. Royal Finances in the Reign of María of Castile, Queen-Lieutenant of the Crown of Aragon, 1432–53

    • Theresa Earenfight

    Pages 229-244

15. Back Matter

    Pages 245-285

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The twelve essays in Women and Wealth in Late Medieval Europe re-examine the vexing issue of women, money, wealth, and power from distinctive perspectives - literature, history, architectural history - using new archival sources. The contributors examine how money and changing attitudes toward wealth affected power relations between women and men of all ranks, especially the patriarchal social forces that constrained the range of women s economic choices. Employing theories on gender, culture, and power, this volume reveals wealth as both the motive force in gender relations and a precise indicator of other, more subtle, forms of power and influence mediated by gender.

• crusades
• England
• Europe
• Middle Ages
• women

THERESA MARIE EARENFIGHT is Associate Professor of History and Chair of the Medieval Studies Program, Seattle University, USA.

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