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Reviewed by:
  • Women, Identities and Communities in Early Modern Europe
  • Sally Fisher
Tarbin, Stephanie and Susan Broomhall, eds, Women, Identities and Communities in Early Modern Europe (Women and Gender in the Early Modern World), Aldershot, Ashgate, 2008; hardcover; pp. xiii, 242; 12 b/w illustrations; R.R.P. US$99.95, £50.00; ISBN 9780754661849.

As part of the 'Women and Gender in the Early Modern World' series, this excellent collection of thirteen essays examines the power of gender in shaping identities and communities in Early Modern Europe. Dedicated to Professor Patricia Crawford, the editors of this collection acknowledge Crawford's work 'as an example of rigorous feminist scholarship by which conventional interpretations of women, gender and early modern history might be challenged' (Preface).

The Introduction provides an overview of both Crawford's scholarship and the collection of essays. Tarbin and Broomhall assert that: 'In this collection we respond to Trish's challenge to acknowledge the complexity of women's lives, recognizing the critical power of gender to structure identities and communities both in the historical sources we treat and in our experiences as historians today' (p. 9). These essays successfully respond to this challenge. Crawford's enormous contribution to this field is evident throughout, underpinning what also stands [End Page 185] alone as a valuable and timely study of women's experiences in Early Modern Europe within the contexts of identities and communities.

This collection is thematically divided into six parts – Reading Communities in History; Domestic Polities; Social Networks; Negotiating the City; Gentry Communities; and Queens and Court. Tarbin and Broomhall state that they have 'arranged these essays according to the contexts they accentuate as most significant for their individual analyses of communities and identities' (p. 8). Recognising a review such as this cannot do justice to such a broad range of scholarship, I offer instead a brief overview.

In the first section, Anne Laurence explores identity and gender in seventeenth-century Ireland. Considering religious, linguistic, political and national participation, Laurence suggests studying these themes through an analysis of families and households. Next, Sarah Ferber considers French cases of demonic possession within the context of identity politics, including how the historian identifies with historical figures. Both Laurence and Ferber challenge conventional approaches to the reading of historical documents to reveal women's experiences, suggesting new methods of enquiry.

Philippa Maddern, considering servant marriages in late medieval English households, and Claire Walker, through a study of English nuns and their communities in the seventeenth century, present examples of households which, when analysed within the context of gender, revise established ideas of domestic structures.

Dolly MacKinnon studies Early Modern women's social networks through an analysis of clothing bequests in an Essex parish. MacKinnon demonstrates how charity shaped women's collective identities within the parish, and the effect this could have upon individual women. Jacqueline Van Gent also considers women's social networks in her fascinating reading of eighteenth-century Swedish witchcraft trials, highlighting how women could use magic as a uniting or divisive force.

Moving from the rural to the urban, Lyndal Roper and Laura Gowing explore women and the Early Modern city; Ausburg and London respectively. Roper's vividly illustrated essay explores the feminine symbols representing an overtly male civic community, within which women occupied an ambiguous position. Gowing's essay studies the experiences of poor single mothers in negotiating their position within the city, successfully demonstrating women could create a certain sense of belonging, although it was 'for many women a point of hard bargaining' (p. 150). [End Page 186]

Sara Mendelson sensitively reads Anne Dormer's letters recounting her abusive marriage. Mendelson shows how the local gentry neighbourhood of seventeenth-century Oxfordshire served as a female community, supporting Dormer despite individual religious or political differences. Frances Harris analyses correspondence between Elizabeth Packer Geddes and Elizabeth Burnet. Set against the backdrop of the Revolution of 1688, Harris suggests how reading shaped women's political identities, whilst also demonstrating how women formed connections between themselves through such shared concerns.

Susan Broomhall analyses Eleanor de Poitiers' record of fifteenth-century Burgundian court life within the context of the honour culture of the court. Broomhall considers the importance of knowledge of...

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