Feminae: Medieval Women and Gender Index


  • Record Number: 12981
  • Author(s)/Creator(s): Copeland , Rita.
  • Contributor(s):
  • Title: Why Women Can't Read: Medieval Hermeneutics, Statutory Law, and the Lollard Heresy Trials
  • Source: Representing Women: Law, Literature, and Feminism.  Edited by Susan Sage Heinzelman and Zipporah Batshaw Wiseman.  Duke University Press, 1994.  Pages 253 - 286.
  • Description:
  • Article Type: Essay
  • Subject (See Also): Heresy Literalism Lollard Movement Misogyny Readers Trials Vernacular Language Women in Religion
  • Award Note:
  • Geographic Area: British Isles
  • Century: 14- 15
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  • Abstract: This article deals with the material historical consequences of the long-lived clerical discourse that feminie reading is a carnal, fleshly reading that substitutes the letter for the spirit. This article looks at how women readers were regarded by prosecutors of the Lollard heresy, and in particular at one remarkable female "reader," Margery Baxter of Norwich. [Abstract submitted by the author to the Medieval Feminist Index.]
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  • Conference Info: - , -
  • Year of Publication: 1994.
  • Language: English
  • ISSN/ISBN: 0822314819