ESSAYS AND ARTICLES by Judith M. Bennett
Past and Present (online 2024, print 2025), 2024
Late medieval Coventry attracted so many in-migrating singlewomen that it might have seemed a cit... more Late medieval Coventry attracted so many in-migrating singlewomen that it might have seemed a city of women — for every ten women, only seven men. Some of these peasants-turned-townswomen supported themselves as labourers, domestic servants or prostitutes, but it was the demand for their industrial labour as spinners of cloth-yarn and cap-yarn that drew most women to the city. Coventry’s merchants and masters, who needed spinners’ work but deplored women’s autonomy, tried with considerable success to push these spinners into supervised living within the city’s established households. The experiences of Coventry’s singlewoman-spinners show that ‘maidservants’ were sometimes industrial workers; that singlewomen were corralled into ‘little commonwealths’ well before Protestantism; and that ‘girl power’ was more about economic growth than the empowerment of women.
OUP will not allow me to post a full copy here, but I'll send a copy to anyone who requests it.
Medieval Feminist Forum, 2024
In 1973, I was a brand new lesbian and a brand new medievalist. This brief essay explores how the... more In 1973, I was a brand new lesbian and a brand new medievalist. This brief essay explores how these two strands of my life have since diverged and intersected (as of June 2023). Parts of this story are sad, but it is mostly happy. I hope it will speak to some of our shared concerns, and I also hope, with more anxiety than confidence, that its story of change-for-the-better continues for all of us.
I cannot post the full paper here (copyright law), but here are the first two pages. I'm happy to... more I cannot post the full paper here (copyright law), but here are the first two pages. I'm happy to send an offprint to anyone who asks.
ABSTRACT
Today, we readily understand that medieval marriage was often preceded by complex economic negotiations about dowers, dowries, inheritances, and even the costs of weddings. This article argues that medieval courtship-whether aimed at marriage or not-was also an occasion for negotiation and benefit. Focusing on evidence from late medieval England, it shows that courtship was not solely (or even predominantly) a path to marriage: it was also a pastime, an amusement, and-for women-a transaction of its own. Medieval people expected that any man might give any woman material benefits in return for the pleasures of her company and, possibly, the pleasures of sexual relations with her, too. This article also shifts well-recognized medieval discourses about female greed to new modern understandings about female need. The reliance of poor singlewomen on the material benefits of courtship speaks to us today about their profound vulnerability and neediness.
Coventry, England in the 1520s, 2023
See the attached PDF for the first two pages of my argument in this essay. If you would like a PD... more See the attached PDF for the first two pages of my argument in this essay. If you would like a PDF of the full article, let me know and I'll happily send you one. Alternatively, you may access a free and read-only copy via Cambridge Core (academia.edu will not let me post the link here).
ABSTRACT: Following on from 'Married and not: Weston's grown children in 1268-1269', this article places the Lincolnshire village of Weston within a realm-wide context to demonstrate that, as the rural economy stumbled after c. 1250, many young women and men either delayed marriage or could not marry at all. The European Marriage Pattern (late marriage for some and no marriage for others) can be discerned in England long before the socioeconomic adjustments that followed the Black Death, and it grew mainly from poverty, not prosperity.
See the attached PDF for the first three pages of my argument in this essay. If you would like a ... more See the attached PDF for the first three pages of my argument in this essay. If you would like a PDF of the full article, let me know and I'll happily send you one. Alternatively, you may access a free and read-only copy of the full article via Cambridge Core (academia.edu will not let me post the link here).
ABSTRACT: In 1268-1269 Spalding Priory created an inventory of its male serfs in Weston and the whereabouts of their offspring. Historical demographers have long laboured over this unique document, but their efforts have brought more confusion than consensus. Aiming to revive the historical utility of the Weston inventory, this article provides context for the inventory and access to the text itself. It also reorients analysis of the inventory away from a focus on households and families (both unsatisfactorily reported) and towards the extensive information it contains about how a generation of serf children grew into adulthood.
See the attached first two pages for a summary of my argument in this essay. Cambridge UP will no... more See the attached first two pages for a summary of my argument in this essay. Cambridge UP will not allow me to post the full essay on academic.edu, but I will happily send you a copy, upon request.
ABSTRACT: Alien subsidies suggest that many men and few women immigrated to England between 1440 and 1487. This article examines the one exception to this pattern: the large numbers of Scotswomen assessed as aliens in Cumberland, Westmorland, and Northumberland in 1440. It considers why so many women are found in these particular returns, what we can know about them, and how this knowledge might change our histories of women, labor, and mobility in both Scotland and England.
See the attached first two pages for a summary of my argument in this essay. Brepols will not al... more See the attached first two pages for a summary of my argument in this essay. Brepols will not allow me to post the full essay on academic.edu, but I will happily send you a copy, upon request.
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ESSAYS AND ARTICLES by Judith M. Bennett
OUP will not allow me to post a full copy here, but I'll send a copy to anyone who requests it.
ABSTRACT
Today, we readily understand that medieval marriage was often preceded by complex economic negotiations about dowers, dowries, inheritances, and even the costs of weddings. This article argues that medieval courtship-whether aimed at marriage or not-was also an occasion for negotiation and benefit. Focusing on evidence from late medieval England, it shows that courtship was not solely (or even predominantly) a path to marriage: it was also a pastime, an amusement, and-for women-a transaction of its own. Medieval people expected that any man might give any woman material benefits in return for the pleasures of her company and, possibly, the pleasures of sexual relations with her, too. This article also shifts well-recognized medieval discourses about female greed to new modern understandings about female need. The reliance of poor singlewomen on the material benefits of courtship speaks to us today about their profound vulnerability and neediness.
ABSTRACT: Following on from 'Married and not: Weston's grown children in 1268-1269', this article places the Lincolnshire village of Weston within a realm-wide context to demonstrate that, as the rural economy stumbled after c. 1250, many young women and men either delayed marriage or could not marry at all. The European Marriage Pattern (late marriage for some and no marriage for others) can be discerned in England long before the socioeconomic adjustments that followed the Black Death, and it grew mainly from poverty, not prosperity.
ABSTRACT: In 1268-1269 Spalding Priory created an inventory of its male serfs in Weston and the whereabouts of their offspring. Historical demographers have long laboured over this unique document, but their efforts have brought more confusion than consensus. Aiming to revive the historical utility of the Weston inventory, this article provides context for the inventory and access to the text itself. It also reorients analysis of the inventory away from a focus on households and families (both unsatisfactorily reported) and towards the extensive information it contains about how a generation of serf children grew into adulthood.
ABSTRACT: Alien subsidies suggest that many men and few women immigrated to England between 1440 and 1487. This article examines the one exception to this pattern: the large numbers of Scotswomen assessed as aliens in Cumberland, Westmorland, and Northumberland in 1440. It considers why so many women are found in these particular returns, what we can know about them, and how this knowledge might change our histories of women, labor, and mobility in both Scotland and England.
OUP will not allow me to post a full copy here, but I'll send a copy to anyone who requests it.
ABSTRACT
Today, we readily understand that medieval marriage was often preceded by complex economic negotiations about dowers, dowries, inheritances, and even the costs of weddings. This article argues that medieval courtship-whether aimed at marriage or not-was also an occasion for negotiation and benefit. Focusing on evidence from late medieval England, it shows that courtship was not solely (or even predominantly) a path to marriage: it was also a pastime, an amusement, and-for women-a transaction of its own. Medieval people expected that any man might give any woman material benefits in return for the pleasures of her company and, possibly, the pleasures of sexual relations with her, too. This article also shifts well-recognized medieval discourses about female greed to new modern understandings about female need. The reliance of poor singlewomen on the material benefits of courtship speaks to us today about their profound vulnerability and neediness.
ABSTRACT: Following on from 'Married and not: Weston's grown children in 1268-1269', this article places the Lincolnshire village of Weston within a realm-wide context to demonstrate that, as the rural economy stumbled after c. 1250, many young women and men either delayed marriage or could not marry at all. The European Marriage Pattern (late marriage for some and no marriage for others) can be discerned in England long before the socioeconomic adjustments that followed the Black Death, and it grew mainly from poverty, not prosperity.
ABSTRACT: In 1268-1269 Spalding Priory created an inventory of its male serfs in Weston and the whereabouts of their offspring. Historical demographers have long laboured over this unique document, but their efforts have brought more confusion than consensus. Aiming to revive the historical utility of the Weston inventory, this article provides context for the inventory and access to the text itself. It also reorients analysis of the inventory away from a focus on households and families (both unsatisfactorily reported) and towards the extensive information it contains about how a generation of serf children grew into adulthood.
ABSTRACT: Alien subsidies suggest that many men and few women immigrated to England between 1440 and 1487. This article examines the one exception to this pattern: the large numbers of Scotswomen assessed as aliens in Cumberland, Westmorland, and Northumberland in 1440. It considers why so many women are found in these particular returns, what we can know about them, and how this knowledge might change our histories of women, labor, and mobility in both Scotland and England.
Most medieval people were peasants, just like Cecilia, and they were humble people, living socially below the knights, bishops, and kings who figure so large in medieval histories. This book shows that peasants also made medieval history. It explores how peasant lives were closely entangled with the lives and interests of those more privileged; it looks at manors as well as villages; parishes, faith, and ritual; royal taxes and justice; economy and trade; famine and disease. By moving out from Cecilia's perspective, the book explores the ties and tensions that bound all medieval people--poor as well as rich--into a medieval society.
This book also provides a primer on the fact-finding and interpretative debates that are at the heart of the historian's craft. Each chapter includes a new section on how medievalists today are studying such topics as puberty, morals, courtship, and climate change. The illustrations, taken from the famous Luttrell Psalter, provide a coherent, rich, and interpretatively complex visual program. And the final chapter explores some of the different ways in which historians, for better and for worse, have understood medieval society.
If you would like a review copy, please contact Oxford University Press.