Gender and Heresy: Women and Men in Lollard Communities, 1420-1530 by Shannon McSheffrey (review)

BOOK REVIEWS797 Accurate transcriptions and meticulous scholarly attention to detaU are saUent features of this work.The explanatory preliminary chapters and exhaustive indices render it an invaluable source for scholars of medievalValencia, and one which should find a place on the shelves of aU major research Ubraries. Jill R.Webster St. Michael's College University ofToronto Gender and Heresy: Women and Men in Lollard Communities, 1420-1530. By Shannon McSheffrey. [Middle Ages Series.] (PhUadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. 1995. Pp. xui, 253. $38.95 cloth; $18.95 paperback.) Shannon McSheffrey's detailed study of eight Lollard communities in southeast and south central England (1420-1530) examines the interplay of gender, social status, familial linkages, and literacy to counter the idea that medieval heretical communities were more attractive to women than was orthodox reUgiosity . In arguing that Lollardy was not notably attractive to or supportive of women, McSheffrey keeps an eye on comparative findings relating to early modern and modern religious groups and on recent debates regarding literacy levels and patriarchy. The evidence is drawn from bishops' registers, court books, and wiUs, with a judicious use of Foxe where original records are missing. Only occasionaUy does this study draw support from the Uterature of LoUardy The narrative analysis rests on a matrix of names of persecuted LoUards listed in the appendix, which McSheffrey has sorted by gender, relationship to other LoUards, and literacy (defined as reading in English). McSheffrey's primary finding is that women composed a relatively smaU percentage of recorded LoUards (28%), that they did not assume public teaching roles, were not in leadership positions, were more likely than men to have famUy connections with other LoUards, and were therefore more likely to have been attracted to LoUardy for famiUal rather than ideological reasons.They also had far lower literacy rates than men (3% as opposed to 19%). McSheffrey details one significant exception to this picture—a group of female LoUards in Coventry who met together and looked to the leadership of one Alice Rowley, a woman of higher social status who seems to have been able, uniquely, to cross gender Lines and provide leadership to the male LoUards from more modest social levels. Despite the strengths ofthis study, McSheffrey's work raises questions. She argues that men controlled the movement at the pubUc, conventicle level, and that women listened, learned, and sometimes taught only in informal, private circumstances. Considering the privy nature of conventicles, however, the distinction is problematic, and court documents, more routinized after 1428, often 798BOOK REVIEWS use the same language for men as women (e.g.,"counseling or defending heretical doctrines in privy conventicles or assembUes"). A few stronger women in the movement (AUce Harding, Hawisse Mone, Margery Baxter) are quite possibly not given theU due in McSheffrey's emphasis on the private nature of their actions. McSheffrey argues that LoUard literacy rates support assessments of a low level of literacy in late medieval England, but what low and high Uteracy means she does not say. In my work, which she cites as arguing for high Uteracy her figures and mine (an estimated 25% male Uteracy rate) converge nicely. Some of her conclusions—husbands had greater influence on wives than the reverse (p. 92), neighbors were particular targets of proselytizing (p. 75), and her larger conclusion (p. 136) that women could stretch their gender roles only when their social status gave them some precedence over men—require more evidence than the sources presently aUow. The evidence for women is more suggestive than conclusive (partly because, as McSheffrey notes, authorities were less interested in them); what evidence there is represents only a proportion of the actual cases, and the information provided by legal documents is often spare. More evidence from LoUard writings might strengthen her conclusions . Her effort to close with comparative conclusions regarding orthodox devotional practices and their attractiveness to female piety needs further fleshing out. Overall, this is an intriguing but inconclusive study that provides important support to an argument offered by others studying continental heresies, viz., that medieval heresies,upon close examination, do not appear to have provided women with greater leadership roles or outlets for their reUgiosity than did orthodox religious practices...