[MRW96SYL] 
             

HI 417-01 EUROPEAN WOMEN'S HISTORY: MEDIEVAL, RENAISSANCE,
                        REFORMATION

BRIDGEWATER STATE COLLEGE                      FALL SEMESTER 1996
MWF 9 A.M.-9:50 A.M.

Instructor: Dr. Luci Fortunato De Lisle
Office:  Tillinghast 219
Office hours: MWF 11-noon
Telephone: (508) 697-1388 ext. 2412
e-mail: lfortunato@bridgew.edu
                  ____________________________

Required texts:
Amt, Emilie ed. Women's Lives in Medieval Europe: A Sourcebook.
     N.Y.: Routledge, 1993.
King, Margaret.  Women of the Renaissance.  Chicago: University 
     of Chicago Press, 1991.
Labarge, Margaret Wade.  A Small Sound of the Trumpet: Women in
     Medieval Life.  Boston: Beacon Press, 1986.
Weisner, Merry E.  Women and Gender in Early Modern Europe.
     Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993.

Additional readings will be handed out in class or placed on
library reserve as indicated in the syullabus below by date and as
announced in class.

CLASS/DUE DATE  TOPICS                        . . . ASSIGNMENTS DUE

W 9/4  Uncovering Women's History in the Medieval and Early Modern
       Periods

F 9/6  The Notion of Woman in the Early Middle Ages . . . Amt 1-13
       and *please read the chapter(s) on the Middle Ages to about
       the year 1000 in a Western Civilization textbook as a review

THE EARLY MIDDLE AGES TO 1000
M 9/9  Religion and Notions of Woman . . . Amt 13-35; Weisner 9-15
       and 179-181

W 9/11  Early Medieval Women and Religion:  Christian and Pagan
        Images and Realities . . .  Labarge chapters 1 and 2, 
        Amt 219-233; and article from History Today


F 9/13  Hagiography: portraits of early medieval Christian female 
        saints . . . presentations as assigned

M 9/16  Varieties of Early Medieval Women's Experience--
        Celtic, Germanic and Viking Women: marriage, family, the
        law, work and healing . . . handout Wemple, "Marriage and
        Divorce in the Frankish Kingdom" 95-124; Amt 36-52 and 121
        -136; library reserve Pierre Riche, Daily Life in the World
        of Charlemagne 47-63 and 182-186

W 9/18 Varieties of experience continued

F 9/20 Queens and noble women in the Germanic, Celtic, Anglo-
       Saxon, Merovingian, Carolingian and Byzantine settings
       . . . biographical research as assigned; ***PORTFOLIO/
       JOURNAL #1 DUE

THE HIGH MIDDLE AGES 1000-1350
M 9/23 Continuity and Change in Prescriptive Models for Women 
       . . . Andreas Capellanus, The Art of Courtly Love;  The
       Roman de la Rose [excerpts]; Tristan and Iseult [excerpts];
       samples of Troubadour poetry; Aquinas and the Scholastics;
       and papal writings on women as assigned; also *please read
       the chapters in a Western Civilization text book on the high
       and later Middle Ages ca. 1000-1350 for review

W 9/25 Prescriptive models continued . . . begin reading Labarge
       chapters 3 and 4

F 9/27  Political, economic, cultural and social roles of queens
        and noblewomen . . . Labarge Chapters 3 and 4 and selected
        biographies as assigned

M 9/30  Wife, Mother, Widow: Marriage and family life in the High
        Middle Ages . . . Amt 53-89; begin reading Labarge chapters
        5 and 6

W 10/2  Brides of Christ: Nuns and Beguines . . .  Labarge chapters
        5 and 6; Wiesner 181-185; Amt 233-267; library reserve
        reading of the letters of Abelard and Heloise

F 10/4  Town Women: Working women, guilds and the beginnings of the
        Commercial Revolution . . . Labarge chapter 7 to p. 156;
        handout of selected Weisner documents on the commercial
        revolution

M 10/7  Country Women: village and manorial realities . . . Labarge
        chapter 7 from p. 156-end
     
W 10/9  Women as Healers and Midwives . . . Labarge chapter 8; Amt
        95-118; library reserve A Medieval Health Handbook.  Also\
        be sure to view the video tape Sorceress on the library's
        video system before coming to class.

F 10/11 Women on the Fringes: prostitutes, heretics and Jewish and
        Mosem women . . . Labarge chapter 9; Amt 279-313

M 10/14  NO CLASS--COLUMBUS DAY

W 10/16 Women's Cultural Expression in the Big Tradition of the
        High Middle ages . . . Labarge Chapter 10; Bogin The
        Women Troubadours as assigned; biographies and samplings
        of female writers, composers, artists

F 10/18 Women in High culture in the Middle Ages cont. . .
        presentations 

M 10/21 MID-TERM EXAMINATION ESSAY DUE ALONG WITH PORTFOLIO/JOURNAL
        #2

WOMEN IN THE RENAISSANCE/REFORMATION AND EARLY MODERN PERIOD
W 10/23 Consistent and shifting views of women's nature, honor
        and nobility into the Renaissance . . . Weisner 15-21;
        student presentations of representative source documents
        from Ian Maclean The Notion of Woman in the Renaissance,
        Dante, Chaucer, etc. *Please also read the chapters on the
        Ranaissance and Reformation periods in a Western
        Civilization textbook for review.

F 10/25  Humanism and the notion of Woman . . . student  
         presentations of representative source documents by
         Petrarch, Boccaccio, Castiglione, Alberti, Machiavelli,
         Erasmus, More, Cornelius Agrippa, or examples from
         Renaissance Feminism or Kelso, Doctrine for the Lady of
         the Renaissance

M 10/28 The Male Gaze in Renaissance Art and Classical and
        Religious Models for Women in  the art and literature of
        the Renaissance . . .  student-selected works of art;
        handout of Weisner documents; library reserve John Berger,
        Ways of Seeing

W 10/30  Contemporary Historical Debate--toward a "Herstoriography"
         of the Renaissance . . . Kelly, "Did Women Have a
         Renaissance?";  Herlihy, "Did Women Have a Renaissance: 
         A Reconsideration"
 
F 11/1  Reformation: Protestant and Catholic Theologies and the
        Idea of Woman . . . Wiesner, 21-25; and student
        presentations of Luther, Calvin, Fox, etc. on women

M 11/4  Women and Public Power in the Renaissance: Renaissance 
        Queens Private and Public Power . . . King chapters 1 and
        3; and biographical reports as assigned on Catherine de'
        Medici, Catherine of Aragon, Elizabeth I, Christina of
        Sweden, etc.

W 11/6  Court Ladies, Courtesans and Humanism . . . reading
        selections as assigned by/on Isabella d'Este, Moderata
        Fonte, Gaspara Stampa, Louise Labe, Vittoria Colonna,
        Lucretia Borgia, Veronica Franco, etc

F 11/8  Female Education and Women's Literacy and Artistic
        Expression in the Renaissance [VT Artemesia Gentileschi] .
        . . Wiesner Chapters 4 and 5 to p. 167; readings from
        Bathsua Makin

M 11/11 NO CLASS--VETERAN'S DAY

W 11/13 Italian City Women: Focus on Florence and Venice . . .
        library reserve Gene Brucker, The Society of Renaissance
        Florence document numbers 16-20, 33, 50, 65-66, 76; 
        Guido Ruggiero selections from The Boundaries of Eros

F 11/15 NO CLASS--[I'll be away at a conference] WORK ON YOUR
        ESSAY OPTION PAPERS.

M 11/18 Northern European City Women: France, the Holy Roman
        Empire, England and the Low Countries . . . Wiesner chapter
        3; Christine de Pizan on the Defense of women 137-161;
        ESSAY OPTION PAPERS DUE
  
W 11/20 Rural Women in the late medieval/early modern era . . .
        Be sure to view the video tape Le retour de Martin Guerre
        [The Return of Martin Guerre] in the library before coming
        to class; also read handout from Davis' book The Return of
        Martin Guerre

F 11/22 Going Beyond Social Boundaries: A matter of Honor,
        Marriage, and Sexual Mores in the Renaissance . . .
        handouts of selected documents from Klaphisch-Zuber and
        of Ruggiero's "More Dear to Me Thanb Life Itself"

M 11/25 Women on the Fringes: Prostitutes, Lesbians, Slaves,
        Heretics, and Criminals . . . Library reserve Brucker, The
        Society of Renaissance Florence documents 88-92, 105-106,
        109, 128, 132; and Fortunato De Lisle "Lucrezia and her
        Massimilano: A Renaissance Woman's Story" and "Protecting
        Meretricious Women in Sixteenth-Century Lucca"; Judith
        Brown Immodest Acts  

W 11/27 1492 and Beyond: The Experience of Separdic and Moslem
        Women of the Reconquista and Women of the Age of
        Exploration . . . student presentations as assigned

F 11/29 NO CLASS--THANKSGIVING BREAK

M 12/2  The Experience of Women in the Protestant Reformations:
        Secular and Religious Roles . . . King chapter 2; Wiesner 
        chapter 2 and pp. 186-213

W 12/4  Catholic Women's Experiences and Tridentine Reform . . 
        Wiesner 195-213; focus presentations on Angela Merici
        and Teresa of Avila

F 12/6  Discipline and Control Witin a Changing Mentalite: Women
        and the Inquistion and the European Witchcraze . . . 
        library reserve Ginsburg Nightbattles 33-47; DBQ documents;
        [possible film to be viewed prior to class if it is
        available  Day of Wrath]

M 12/9  The Impact of the Scientific and Intellectual Revolution on
        Women . . . Wiesner 25-35, 167-172 and chapter 8; and
        PORTFOLIO/JOURNAL #3 DUE

W 12/11 review/revision/reassessment

FINAL EXAMINATION AS SCHEDULED BY HIGHER POWERS!
*****************************************************************

COURSE REQUIREMENTS

Late Renaissance writer Mary Astell contends in A Serious Proposal
to the ladies, for the Advancement of Their True and Greatest
Interest, by a Lover of her Sex that higher education of women
ought not to be constrained by the "normal" curriculum which had
been based, since the Middle Ages, upon formal lecture and public
disputation; rather it ought to be an invitation to conversation. 
In the spirit of Astell's vision, in this class we shall engage in
a COLLOQUIUM format for a good portion of the classes--[though I
make no promises that the course will be totally devoid of some
lecture components!]  Utilizing discussion and divers contributions
as our central approach to an informed conversation about women in
the Middle Ages and Early Modern Era, it is my hope that questions
and themes will emerge about the prescriptive vs. the actual
experiences of women of the time periods we shall consider, about
the selection and use of sources and the approaches for the study
of women in History, and about how recent scholarship on European
Women's history is problematizing assumptions about historical
periodization and interpretation from the classical to the modern
era.

1.)In pursuit of these ends, you are asked to keep a READING
JOURNAL which along with any formal PRESENTATION MATERIALS can grow
into a PORTFOLIO of your developing work over the semester.  In
your READING JOURNAL you shoud make reflective entries which go
beyond summary and descriptive notes for each assignment--you ought
not simply to summarize the readings but engage them, question
them, converse with them. You need not respond to every article,
chapter or document you read; rather pull TWO OR THREE intriguing
points or questions out of your required reading for a given week
to focus on for a page or so, no more.  Additionally, any formal
notes, outlines, diagrams, handouts, photocopies, etc. which
accompany any of the brief oral PRESENTATIONS you will be asked to
contribute to the class should also be included in your portfolio. 
You will have a good deal of choice in these presentations and they
may range not only in subject but also in nature from biographical
to documentary, from visual to musical or literary.  DOne well,
these presentations should add a dynamism to the course and themes
and questions of particular interest to THIS class should emerge
within the far-ranging syllabus skeleton I have designed. 
Fundamental to your success--as well as the success of the course
this semester--is your consistent, careful reading of ALL
ASSIGNMENTS and your willingness TO DISCUSS them with the class.

Hard copies of portfolios are due on the dates listed below.  If
there is sufficient computer knowledge among class members, I shall
look into establishing a class account through which journal
entries can be posted and responded to by other members of the
class.  This peer exchange and editing can work very supportively
as you become more comfortable with composing a critical reading
journal or with analysing primary source documents.  With or
without a class account, you can always e-mail me with ideas or
questions. [lfortunato@bridgew.edu]

2.) JOURNAL/PORTFOLIO DUE DATES
--FRIDAY 9/20
--MONDAY 10/21
--MONDAY 12/9

3.) EXAMINATIONS
There will be two examinations which will consist of essay
questions which will require you to synthesize what you have read
around significant questions and themes in the first and second
halves of the course respectively.  You will be required to
demonstrate familiarity with specific evidence and examples across
your reading and will need to place these within the context of
historiographical and methodological concerns central to this
branch of historical study.
--MIDTERM EXAMINATION--MONDAY 10/21
--FINAL EXAMINATION--AS SET BY THE COLLEGE

4.) PRIMARY SOURCE OR JOURNAL RESEARCH ESSAY OPTIONS
Finally, you must successgully complete one of the following
assignment options.  In either instance your final product shoudl
run 6-8 pages in length.
--OPTION A: Select a book-length primary source/monograph by/about
a woman/women in the periods under consideration in this course. 
Read and carefully analuse the work for its insights, values and
limitations for understanding an aspect of women's history in the
medieval or early modern period.  N.B. Be certain that you get your
choice approved by me in advance to be sure it is an appropriate
source.                   OR
--OPTION B: Locate three articles in scholarly journals on an
approved topic, subject or theme in medieval or early modern
European women's history.  Abstract, review and critique the
articles noting any patterns, trends or juxtapositions in the study
of women's history they might represent.
--DUE--MONDAY 11/18

SUMMARY OF GRADE DISTRIBUTION ELEMENTS
--3 JOURNAL/PORTFOLIO SUBMISSIONS             10% EACH = 30%
--2 EXAM ESSAYS                               20% EACH = 40%
--1 PRIMARY SOURCE OR JOURNAL ESSAY 0PTION    15%      = 15%
--ORAL PRESENTATIONS AND CLASS PARTICIPATION  15%      = 15%