Mistress Monika shared with us many stories of realities and details of women's lives based on evidence from paintings, letters, church documents and other sources. As a beginning exercise, participants had a chance to choose from a pile of brief accounts of women from the period, which we read and then summarized for the group. Stories included:
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a weaver from Germany a woman from Holland who wrote on gender-neutral intelligence and medicine a philosophy professor who sculpted, etched glass, and painted for money (same Hollander) a prioress in England who wrote and illustrated a treatise on fishing a stonemason and sculptor in Germany a doctor of medicine in France a pirate in Gotland (who had been a princess, but ran away, found her true love and had a baby girl) a blacksmith in Germany an author, a biographer and researcher in France a textile merchant who sponsored a hospital and food for the poor those brief biographies were from Uppity Women of the Middle Ages.
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Some of the many other books Monika brought were:
800 Years of Women's Letters (Biography, Letters & Diaries), by Olga Kenyon
Legend of Good Women: Medieval Women in Towns and Cities, by Erika Uitz, 1988
A History of their Own: Women in Europe from Prehistory to the Present (two volumes)
Five estates of women were discussed:
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ATTENDEES:
Viviana Camilla Amy Asta AElflaed Beatrice Bardolf Jayne Lucia Jim |