English Aristocratic Women, 1450-1550 by Barbara J Harris

English Aristocratic Women, 1450-1550 by Barbara J Harris

Portraits of aristocratic women from the Yorkist and Tudor periods reveal elaborately clothed and bejeweled nobility, exemplars of their families' wealth. Unlike their male counterparts, their sitters have not been judged for their professional accomplishments. In this groundbreaking study, Barbara J. Harris argues that the roles of aristocratic wives, mothers, and widows constituted careers for women that had as much public and political significance and were as crucial for the survival and prosperity of their families and class as their husband's careers. Women, Harris demonstrates, were trained from an early age to manage their families' property and households; arrange the marriages and careers of their children; create, sustain, and exploit the client-patron relationships that were an essential element in politics at the regional and national levels; and, finally, manage the transmission and distribution of property from one generation to another, since most wives outlived their husbands. English Aristocratic Women unveils the lives of noblewomen whose historical influence has previously been dismissed, as well as those who became favorites at the court of Henry VIII. Through extensive archival research of documents belonging to more than twelve hundred families, Harris paints a collective portrait of upper-class women of this period. By recognizing the full significance of the aristocratic women's careers, this book reinterprets the politics and gender relations of early modern England. Barbara J. Harris is Professor of History and Women's Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her previous works include Edward Stafford, Third Duke of Buckingham, 1478-1521.

.. a richly informative work full of interesting details and telling insights. * Social History Society Bulletin *
In its extraordinary archival grounding as well as its lucid exposition of the characteristics of this intersection of rank and gender, this book is indispensable reading for social historians of all stripes. * Choice *
This important study paints both an unusually broad and an unusually specific portrait of the opportunities for power and liabilities to subordination specific to elite women in 15th- and 16th-century England. * Choice *

Barbara J. Harris is Professor of History and Women's Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her previous works include Edward Stafford, Third Duke of Buckingham, 1478-1521

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780195151282
ISBN 10	0195151283
Title	English Aristocratic Women, 1450-1550
Author	Barbara J Harris
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Oxford University Press Inc
Year published	2002-09-05
Number of pages	360
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.