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widows may have class interests or political interests, which they defend, but they are also subject to categories of gender which interacted with their other identities. The importance of multiple identities in twelfth-century culture has 2 introduction recently been investigated by Ian Short, who argues that the AngloNorman English sought to maintain a sense of cultural distinctiveness, and in so doing they perpetuated a sense of social exclusiveness.6 This model of self-definition thus unconsciously draws on elements of closure theory to explain increasing twelfth
way the intervention of that government might affect their lives. The surviving records cover twelve counties in England: Lincolnshire, Northamptonshire, Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Rutland, Huntingdonshire, Norfolk, Suffolk, Hertfordshire, Essex, Cambridgeshire and Middlesex. Women from all ranks of the landholding classes are represented in the rolls relating to the twelve counties surveyed: from the twice widowed Margaret duchess of Brittany and countess of Richmond and sister of the Scottish king, who is listed as holding land worth £55 2s and eight marks per
noblewomen and power 7 Seals Representation, image and identity here are over 145 extant secular women’s seals from the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries.1 They present the historian with unique opportunities to study the portrayal of female identity in twelfth-century England. Seals were visual representations of power, and they conveyed notions of authority and legitimacy. They publicly presented a view of both men and women which visibly crystallised ideas about gender, class and lordship. The modern historian of seals owes a considerable debt to
-emphasised the mutuality between parties, that is, between donor(s) and beneficiary, could be symbolic and were usually voluntary.2 This approach is similar to that of Barbara Rosenwein, who stressed the relationships between donors which were created when gifts were exchanged.3 Dominique Barthélemy argues that social class was exhibited when precious objects such as gold rings were exchanged.4 Stephen White also argues that the social context of gift exchange is important because countergifts were tangible expressions of specific social hierarchies and served to define the
power and portrayal 2 Power and portrayal lthough the twelfth century is often presented as a ‘Golden Age’ of English historical writing, few historians have discussed the portrayal of twelfth-century women. An important exception, Marjorie Chibnall’s study of women in Orderic Vitalis, is valuable for the way it explores Orderic’s presentation of noblewomen according to their marital status, class and wealth.1 Essentially, Chibnall agreed with Eileen Power that the image of women in literature was complex and reflected the place of women in society generally.2
–7 above. 18 Tabuteau states that for Norman churches the length of a witness list was not a particular concern – practice varied from church to church – and that neither rank nor class made an individual suitable to witness: Transfers of Property, p. 156; Hudson, Land, Law, and Lordship, p. 159; J. Hudson, The Formation of the English Common Law: Law and Society in England from the Norman Conquest to Magna Carta (London: Longman, 1996), p. 42. 19 Mowbray Charters, p. lvii, where the lord’s family were supplemented by members of the household, knights and those who held
This collection and the romances it investigates are crucial to our understanding of the aesthetics of medieval narrative and to the ideologies of gender and sexuality, race, religion, political formations, social class, ethics, morality and national identity with which those narratives emerge.
relics starts to work (first one foot twitches, then another) and how the young boy felt (his healed limbs strong and painless) afterwards, Bede paints a still more intimate picture of this scene, so that his audience can almost feel the healing sensation of the shoes for themselves and become sensuously, as well as intellectually, involved. Relics such as these shoes may be classed as evocative objects, a description which recognises the power of objects in human 158 158 Nonhuman voices in Anglo-Saxon literature and material culture lives and underscores the
? One of the challenges of this collection is to read Beowulf in a more personal way. Although I had not given it much thought before, this challenge made me wonder whether my own working-class background might lie behind my love for the artefactual. I am a first-generation scholar, the first in my family to attend university, let alone pursue postgraduate studies. The norm was for men to leave school at sixteen (or younger) and find a trade, which they would remain in for the rest of their lives. My entry into middle-class academia might be viewed as a ‘success
actual concerns of the landowning class of the time – property, fences, hunting rights, being just to one’s tenants, seeking proper legal redress for wrongs, and eventually, after much harm done, compromise and reconciliation’.2 MUP_McDonald_05_Ch4 82 11/20/03, 13:57 Sir Degrevant 83 While agreeing with Davenport’s desire to place the narrative in a knowable historical context, I think he defines the audience and its ‘actual concerns’ too narrowly. Without disputing the justice of his formulation, I would argue that the very term landowning class, however accurate