Authority, Gender and Emotions in Late Medieval and Early Modern England

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xvi

   PDF

2. Introduction: Authority, Gender, and Emotions in Late Medieval and Early Modern England

   • Susan Broomhall

   Pages 1-17

3. From Letters to Loyalty: Aline la Despenser and the Meaning(s) of a Noblewoman’s Correspondence in Thirteenth-Century England

   • Kathleen Neal

   Pages 18-33

4. The Role of Exempla in Educating through Emotion: The Deadly Sin of ‘lecherye’ in Robert Mannyng’s Handlyng Synne (1303—1317)

   • Anne M. Scott

   Pages 34-50

5. How to be ‘Both’: Bilingual and Gendered Emotions in Late Medieval English Balade Sequences

   • Stephanie Downes

   Pages 51-65

6. St Richard Scrope, the Devout Widow, and the Feast of Corpus Christi: Exploring Emotions, Gender, and Governance in Early Fifteenth-Century York

   • P. J. P. Goldberg

   Pages 66-83

7. Anxieties with Political and Social Order in Fifteenth-Century England

   • Merridee L. Bailey

   Pages 84-105

8. Raising Girls and Boys: Fear, Awe, and Dread in the Early Modern Household

   • Stephanie Tarbin

   Pages 106-130

9. Authority in the French Church in Later Sixteenth-Century London

   • Susan Broomhall

   Pages 131-149

10. ‘The Pattern of All Patience’: Gender, Agency, and Emotions in Embroidery and Pattern Books in Early Modern England

    • Sarah Randles

    Pages 150-167

11. A Subject for Love in The Merry Wives of Windsor

    • Diana G. Barnes

    Pages 168-186

12. Emotions, Gender Expectations, and the Social Role of Chancery, 1550–1650

    • Amanda L. Capern

    Pages 187-209

13. Back Matter

    Pages 210-229

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This collection explores how situations of authority, governance, and influence were practised through both gender ideologies and affective performances in medieval and early modern England. Authority is inherently relational it must be asserted over someone who allows or is forced to accept this dominance. The capacity to exercise authority is therefore a social and cultural act, one that is shaped by social identities such as gender and by social practices that include emotions. The contributions in this volume, exploring case studies of women and men's letter-writing, political and ecclesiastical governance, household rule, exercise of law and order, and creative agency, investigate how gender and emotions shaped the ways different individuals could assert or maintain authority, or indeed disrupt or provide alternatives to conventional practices of authority.

• Medieval England
• early modern England
• history
• literature
• authority
• influence
• gender
• emotions
• bilingualism
• church
• England
• expectation
• French
• Medieval English
• subject

“Authority, Gender and Emotions in Late Medieval and Early Modern England is a rich and wide-ranging collection of essays that addresses the ways men and women negotiated and often manipulated emotion to engage in social, legal, and political life. … this collection will be of interest to anyone concerned with emotional expression and the performativity of gender in relation to the various types of authority that stretch across medieval and early modern divides.” (Katey E. Roden, Renaissance Quarterly, Vol. 69 (4), 2016)

"This ground-breaking collection brings together a series of fine essays which explore the interchange between emotions, authority and influence, especially in a gendered context, in late medieval and early modern England. It will be compulsory reading for students and scholars who want to start exploring this fascinating new field." - Christopher Fletcher, CNRS-University of Paris I (Panthéon-Sorbonne), France

• The University of Western Australia, Australia

  Susan Broomhall

Kathleen Neal, Monash University, Australia Anne M. Scott, University of Western Australia, Australia Stephanie Downes, University of Melbourne, Australia P. J. P. Goldberg, University of York, UK Merridee L. Bailey, University of Adelaide, Australia Stephanie Tarbin, University of Western Australia, Australia Sarah Randles, University of Melbourne, Australia Diana Barnes, University of Queensland, Australia Amanda L. Capern, University of Hull, UK

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