topics for core course
2 November: Kimm
Curran (Medieval and Scottish History, Glasgow)
Stereotypes: women’s history and gender studies
Women and gender Studies
in Scotland is a new and exciting concept. Because it is so innovative
many historians have not yet considered women and gender studies as a
valid means of exploring Scotland’s history. For this seminar on
women and gender in Medieval Scottish History a focus of the presentation
will be to link similar, but not identical, aspects of social history
and discuss the absence of these subjects in works on medieval Scotland.
The structure of the seminar will be in two parts:
1) Discussion of women
and their absence from Medieval Scottish Historiography; the future of
medieval women’s history in Scotland, and how we as historians can
address this issue in our own research.
2) Discussion of how we address the issue of gender and its validity as
an analytical category; this will focus on a consideration of stereotypes
associated with gender, their origins’, and their usefulness in
illuminating the lives of medieval men and women.
In many of the secondary
sources on medieval Scotland women have been relegated to being only strong-minded
queens, witches or mentioned briefly as the marriage partners of great
kings and noblemen. Many of us may have heard of St. Margaret and her
contribution to the Scottish church, and who could forget that ‘monstrous
regiment of women’—Mary of Guise and Mary Queen of Scots!
While these women might get more attention (some may think that too much
has been written about Mary Queen of Scots already), very little has been
written about other women in Medieval Scotland. In this discussion we
will explore why this is the case. Is it that there were no women in medieval
Scotland worthy of study? (In some cases we are even told that the history
of particular medieval women is not possible to construct and therefore
not worthy of study. ) Since the majority of Scottish secondary literature
contributes to the invisibility of women we are unlikely to be inspired
to look for them in the primary sources (e.g. charters). Why do we not
know very much about Scottish women before 1800? Is it simply that we
have not been taught to look for women or ask particular questions of
the sources? To date there has been relatively little written on those
women and noteworthy monographs are few and far between. Elizabeth Ewan’s
article ‘Women’s history in Scotland: towards an agenda,’
suggests how we might address the issue of studying women in pre-industrial
Scotland using particular methods/models used elsewhere. She proposes
that it is possible to study medieval Scottish women by using similar
models and acknowledging the existence of women in the historical record.
She also suggests that we start asking particular questions of the sources
to gain a better understanding of medieval and early modern Scottish women.
The appearance of
women in the history books, however, whilst long overdue, does not adequately
address the issue of gender. Increasingly, attempts are being made to
expand the use of gender, both male and female, as an analytical category.
Using ‘gender’ in this way has the potential to provide insight
into the construction and development of the lives of both men and women
in medieval society. Gender, like all other social constructs, is organic
in nature, changing over time and dependent on many factors including
class, geography, ethnicity, and occupation; indeed these factors are
the basis of many ‘stereotypes’ associated with gender. In
this part of the discussion we will explore the usefulness of gender as
an analytical category and consider some of the ‘stereotypes’
of masculinity and femininity. It is important to establish where these
‘stereotypes’ originate and the extent to which they are representative
of the period in question. To what extent are these ‘stereotypes’
created by and dependent on the nature of the sources? We need to address
whether or not it is sufficient to consider male or female as binary opposites
or in ‘relational constructs’, or if we should instead be
exploring the idea of the plurality of both masculinities and femininities.
Women and gender history
is still in its nascent stages. This is not, however, due to a lack of
interest in the subject but rather because the development of this type
of history has come fairly late to Scotland in comparison with other Western
countries. The reasons for this are complex. However, this allows us to
use the groundwork that has been laid elsewhere so that we can explore
issues about women and gender and provide new and insightful viewpoints
on Scotland’s past. It is important to recognize that there is work
being done on medieval and early modern social history in Scotland but
the work and recognition of this work has yet to make an impact on mainstream
Gender and Archaeology: Contesting the Past. Routledge Press, New York:
Jenkins, Keith. Re-thinking History. Routledge Press, New York: 1991.
Walker-Bynum, Caroline. ‘Did the 12th Century Discover the Individual?’
in Jesus as Mother: Studies in the Spirituality of the High Middle Ages.
University of California Press, Berkeley (1982): 82-106.
Brotherstone, Terry , et al. Gendering Scottish History: An International
Approach, The Mackie Occasional Colloquia Series, No.1, Cruthnie Press,
Scott, Joan. ‘Gender: a useful category of historical analysis’,
American Historical Review, 91 (1986): 153-75.
Reading: Women’s History
‘Women’s History in Scotland: Towards and Agenda,’ Innes
Review 46 (1995) 155-64.
Ewan, Elizabeth ‘A Realm of One’s Own? The place of medieval
and early modern women in Scottish History.’ In Gendering Scottish
History. Eds. T. Brotherstone & O. Walsh. (Glasgow 1999), 19-36.
See also by E. Ewan: http://www.uoguelph.ca/~eewan/
(contains a bibliography of source on Scottish Women, medieval to
Kelly, Joan. Women History & Theory. University of Chicago Press,
Meikle, Maureen. ‘The World of Women: Recent Medieval and Early
Modern Publications,’ Innes Review 45 (1994), 71-77.
Meikle, Maureen & Elizabeth Ewan, eds. ‘Introduction,’
Women in Scotland c.1100-c.1750. (Edinburgh 1999).
Reading: Gender History
Aird, W.M., ‘Frustrated
Masculinity: the Relationship between William the Conqueror and his Eldest
Son,’ in D.M. Hadley ed. Masculinity in Medieval Europe. Longman:
New York (1999): 39-55.
Bennett, M. ‘Military Masculinity in England and Northern France
c.1050 – c.1225,’ in D.M.Hadley, ed. Masculinity in Medieval
Europe, Longman: New York (1999): 71-88.
Clover, Carol J. ‘Regardless of Sex: Men, Women and Power in Early
Northern Europe,’ in Nancy Partner, ed. Studying Medieval Women,
The Medieval Academy of America: Cambridge, Massachusetts (1993): 143
Frantzen, Allen. ‘When Women Aren’t Enough,’ in Nancy
Partner, ed. Studying Medieval Women, The Medieval Academy of America:
Cambridge, Massachusetts (1993): 61-85.
Hadley, D.M. ed. Masculinity in Medieval Europe. Longman, New York: 1999.
Partner, Nancy. ‘No Sex, No Gender’ in Nancy Partner ed. Studying
Medieval Women, The Medieval Academy of America Cambridge, Massachusetts
(1993):117 – 142.
of seminar topics for core course in semester 1