Table of Contents

Preface, acknowledgements, abbreviations, glossary, list of illustrations
Introduction
1: Contexts:- Medical theories; Religious teachings; The law and its administration; Citizenship; Popular notions; Stereotypes; Misogyny and patriarchy.
2: Life Stages:- Childhood and Adolescence: Early years; Service; Courtship.
3: Adult Life:- Marriage; Maternity; Single women; Widowhood; Old age; Death.
4: Female Culture:- Space; Speech; Material culture; The practice of piety; Female friendship; Passionate friends and lesbian relationships; Female consciousness and feminism.
5: The Makeshift Economy of Poor Women:- Work and gender; Poverty; Making a living; The indigent and destitute.
6: Occupational Identities and Social Roles:- Running a household; Professional and skilled work: medical, educational, and cultural; Crafts, trades, and multiple occupations; Royal, civic, and institutional employment; Public housewifery.
7: Politics:- Female monarchs; Aristocratic women: Queens consort and courtiers; Popular politics before 1640; Women and revolution, 1640-1660; Women in political movements, 1660-1720.
Conclusion
Epilogue
Select bibliography

About the Author

Sara H. Mendelson is Professor of the Arts and Science Program at McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario. Patricia Crawford is Professor in the History Department at the University of Western Australia.

Reviews

... a rich, full and stimulating analysis of many aspects of women's lives during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries ... very clearly structured throughout ... Mendelson and Crawford's book is wide-ranging and sophisticated, and should be widely read. It will serve both as an invaluable teaching companion and, with its immensely detailed bibliography (which is especially good as a guide to manuscripts and unpublished doctoral work), as a useful tool for further research for many years to come. Journal of Early Modern History ... an important new feminist study of women in early modern England by two of the leading social historians in their field ... offers both a valuable synthesis and a fresh insight into areas until recently little studied. Particularly useful are the sections on single women and the chapter on female culture, which includes fascinating discussion of speech and material culture. The book also provides an important theoretical framework for women's history, one that is genuinely innovative conceptually and methodologically. Journal of Early Modern History Impressive ... powerful and substantial ... For scholars and students alike, Women in Early Modern England 1550-1720 is obligatory reading, and for many of us, it deserves a special place on a shelf close at hand. Renaissance and Reformation Anyone working in the field of early modern women owes historians Sara Mendelson and Patricia Crawford a profound debt of gratitude for Women in Early Modern England 1550-1720. Fifteen years of painstaking archival research fuel their carefully considered conclusions about women's everyday lives across a variety of classes. Renaissance and Reformation The authors deftly bring together archival information with a sweeping awareness of the secondary historical work available to make this the single most exciting and useful book in years available on the subject of early modern English women, and the first book to provide a complex picture of the lives of poor, laboring, and middling class women alongside the lives of the privileged. Renaissance and Reformation Mendelson and Crawford have assembled a formidable array of materials which shed light on the hitherto somewhat obscure subject of Early Modern Women ... an excellent book and highly recommended. Parergon Mendelson and Crawford ... set new standards and reorient early modern women's history toward new goals. Mendelson and Crawford's methodology gives the book a credence almost unassailable. Journal of Interdisciplinary History This splendid book, well written with sparkling prose, shows how a methodology rigorously applied can destroy old presumptions - in this case, the professed lack of historical sources about early modern women's lives ... Mendelson and Crawford have achieved their ambitious aim and taught us much about the historian's craft. Journal of Interdisciplinary History This is an important book which is sure to become influential in our understanding of women's history ... it contains much that is subtle, interesting, and innovative; it moves our understanding of women's lives forwards, providing a position from which to start new debates. This book should become the core text for all courses in early modern England and required reading for any student covering early modern England more generally. Jane Whittle, University of Exeter