Henrietta Leyser

Henrietta Leyser considers the problems and attitudes fundamental to every woman of the time: medieval views on sex, marriage and motherhood; the world of work and the experience of widowhood for peasant, townswoman and aristocrat. The intellectual and spiritual worlds of medieval women are also explored. MEDIEVAL WOMEN celebrates the diversity and vitality of English women's lives in the Middle Ages.

A Social History of Women in England, 450-1500

Medieval Women

Samuel Fanous

The essays collected in this volume survey the life of Christina, her work & the extant lives of the saint. The contributors draw on research from a wide area of medieval scholarship & the collection includes both introductions to the saint & closely researched scholarly papers.

A Twelfth-century Holy Woman

Christina of Markyate

C. H. Talbot

'I wish to remain single, for I have made a vow of virginity.' This is the remarkable story of the twelfth-century recluse Christina, who became prioress of Markyate, near St Albans in Hertfordshire. Determined to devote her life to God and to remain a virgin, Christina repulses the sexual advances of the bishop of Durham. In revenge he arranges her betrothal to a young nobleman but Christina steadfastly refuses to consummate the marriage and defies her parents' cruel coercion. Sustained by visions, she finds refuge with the hermit Roger, and lives concealed at Markyate for four years, enduring terrible physical and emotional torment. Eventually Christina is supported by the abbot of St Albans, and her reputation as a person of great holiness spreads far and wide. Written with striking candour by Christina's anonymous biographer, the vividness and compelling detail of this account make it a social document as much as a religious one. Christina's trials of the flesh andspirit exist against a backdrop of scheming and corruption and all-too-human greed.

Henrietta Leyser

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