Women and Power in the Middle Ages ed. by Mary Erler, Maryanne Kowaleski (review)

REVIEWS writing an entertaining narrative, which characterizes this and other Re­ naissance treatments of the judgment. Ehrhart's study is praiseworthy in its consideration of the medieval reception ofthe judgment. The complexproblem ofsources and influence is dealt with in the analyses ofindividual works, and Ehrhart groups them as units in their national traditions. The notes on the text are extensive and generally thorough. The structure ofthe book makes it a potentially useful reference on the medieval Trojan material, but owing to the lack of a bibliography ofprimary and secondary sources, the function as a reference is not fully realized. Implicit in the study is an answer to the question ofhow the judgment, so minor an event in Homer's Iliad, attracted great attention as an icon in the Middle Ages. Because the judgment representsthe action which caused the war, it could not be ignored; but because it alsorepresents a moment of interaction between the gods and mortals, it could not be received as historical or even literary fact. The significance it gained through its rationalizing or allegorizing reception assured its unique status throughout the Middle Ages. But this point, and others, is never made explicit in the text. The facts which Ehrhart classifies and analyzes are left to interpret themselves. The study is, therefore, somewhat short on conclusions. Ehrhart, who currently teaches at Edward Williams College ofFairleigh Dickinson University, is a master of the languages whose literatures are discussed in her book. The book and the useful classification of works within the reception traditions demonstrate impressive erudition. The work is a valuable contribution to the study ofthe medieval literature ofthe Trojan War. NOEL HAROLD KAYLOR, JR. Institut for Anglistik Universitat Regensburg MARY ERLER and MARYANNE KOWALESKI, eds. Women andPo'N.ler in the Middle Ages. Athens and London: University of Georgia Press, 1988. Pp. 277. $30.00 cloth, $15.00 paper. Mary Erler and Maryanne Kowaleski present eleven historical and literary essays in medieval women's studies, essays mostly drawn from a March, 215 STUDIES IN THE AGE OF CHAUCER 1985, Fordham University conference entitled "Women and Power: In­ trigue, Influence, and Insubordination." Original research, lucid and informed argument, and rich footnotes make this a valuable collection. The variety of data the historians draw upon-manorial court records, citizenship registers, law codes, saints' lives, seals, records of book ownership, wills, and letters-illustrates the diversity of resources that must be used if we are to have a women's history. The chronological and geographical spread of the essays helps make a point important to the editors, that the power women had has varied. Judith M. Bennett and Martha C. Howell lead offthe volume with essays exploring women's lack of political power. Bennett's fourteenth-century English village shows that women, as daughters and especially as widows, had some public power but never any authority, that is, legitimizedpower, orpublic office. Howell studies female citizenship registrationin five north­ ern cities-Bruges, Leiden, Frankfurt, Lille, and Cologne-and discovers that, when the brotherhood forming the commune was defined as an association of households, women held citizenship, but when, to curtail the powers ofgreat families, the brotherhood was defined as an association of individuals (males) with access to public authority, women lost citizenship. Brigitte Bedos Rezak finds women using their own seals from ca. 1200 until ca. 1350, when the practice ofsealing documents declined. She finds that the lower the socialstatus, the higher theproportionofsealsbelonging to women; all her non-noble evidence is Norman. The editors reprintJo Ann McNamara and Suzanne Wemple's 1973 (rev. 1974) essay on women in the family, 500-1100, toaccompanyJane Tibbetts Schulenburg's essay on female saints in the same period. Using law codes, McNamara and Wemple note that women's right to inherit and bequeath property was established by the ninth and tenth centuries. The decline of aristocratic women's power occurred as the monarchy grew stronger, drain­ ing authority and so power away from feudal households. Schulenburg finds that ninth- and eleventh-century church reforms had the same effect on women's power as the strengthening monarchy. She marks 650-750 as the golden age of women saints, when politically prominent women­ queens, abbesses, nuns, hermits, and...