Elizabeth Woodville and Margery Kempe, Female Agency in Late Medieval England

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Elizabeth Woodville and Margery Kempe, Female Agency in Late Medieval England ABSTRACT “She Should Have More if She Were Ruled and Guided by Them”: Elizabeth Woodville and Margery Kempe, Female Agency in Late Medieval England Laura Christine Oliver, M.A. Thesis Advisor: Beth Allison Barr, Ph.D. This thesis argues that while patriarchy was certainly present in England during the late medieval period, women of the middle and upper classes were able to exercise agency to a certain degree through using both the patriarchal bargain and an economy of makeshifts. While the methods used by women differed due to the resources available to them, the agency afforded women by the patriarchal bargain and economy of makeshifts was not limited to the aristocracy. Using Elizabeth Woodville and Margery Kempe as cases studies, this thesis examines how these women exercised at least a limited form of agency. Additionally, this thesis examines whether ordinary women have access to the same agency as elite women. Although both were exceptional women during this period, they still serve as ideal case studies because of the sources available about them and their status as role models among their contemporaries. “She Should Have More if She Were Ruled and Guided By Them”: Elizabeth Woodville and Margery Kempe, Female Agency in Late Medieval England by Laura Christine Oliver, B.A. A Thesis Approved by the Department of History ___________________________________ Jeffrey S. Hamilton, Ph.D., Chairperson Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of Baylor University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts Approved by the Thesis Committee ___________________________________ Beth Allison Barr, Ph.D., Chairperson ___________________________________ Julie A. Sweet, Ph.D. ___________________________________ Hope W. Johnston, Ph.D. Accepted by the Graduate School May 2012 ___________________________________ J. Larry Lyon, Ph.D., Dean Page bearing signatures is kept on file in the Graduate School. Copyright © 2012 by Laura Christine Oliver All rights reserved TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS iv CHAPTER ONE 1 Introduction 1 Biographical Background 5 Purpose 9 CHAPTER TWO 12 Make Herself Bare for His Love: Female Lay Piety 12 Introduction 12 Practical Piety as Reflected Through Monetary Contributions 15 Communal Participation as an Act of Piety 20 Personal Piety 30 Conclusion 40 CHAPTER THREE 43 My Husband Gave Me Leave: Women in the Domestic Sphere 43 Introduction 43 Childhood 45 Marriage and Motherhood 49 Widowhood 65 Conclusion 74 CHAPTER FOUR 76 Of Good and Ill Repute: Female Autonomy in the Public Sphere 76 Introduction 76 Interactions with the Populace 78 Clerical Interactions 91 Secular Involvement 101 Conclusion 111 CHAPTER FIVE 113 Conclusion 113 BIBLIOGRAPHY 119 iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I have had assistance from many parties in writing this thesis. First, I would like to thank my thesis committee members. Dr. Beth Allison Barr, my thesis advisor, has been the greatest mentor I could ask for. Despite everything she does in both her professional and personal life she was always willing to provide feedback, support, and encouragement. She has become a friend as well as an advisor. Dr. Julie Sweet has been unfailingly generous personally and professionally throughout my undergraduate and graduate time here at Baylor. Dr. Hope Johnston graciously agreed to be my third reader and drew attention to areas that needed improvement. Also, Dr. Katie Keene, who not only gave helpful criticism over the second chapter when it was in its early stages, but generously agreed to read over the entire thesis and provided invaluable feedback. I owe several other professors a debt of gratitude as well. Dr. Barry Hankins and Dr. Jeffrey Hamilton for providing me with a stipend during my time as a graduate student. Dr. Eric Rust has been a consistent and helpful advisor, offering encouragement and support, since I was a freshman undergraduate. Dr. David Bebbington has been a model of not only how to teach and encourage students, but how to be a scholar as well. He undoubtedly taught valuable lessons beyond the course material during this past fall semester. Many friends have encouraged me over the past years as well. My fellow graduate students have provided unwavering support since we met and created the fellowship necessary to thrive in a graduate school environment. I am especially grateful for the iv encouragement and motivation provided by Sarah Gross, Thomas DeShong, Robert DeBoard, and Lucas Miller. I also never would have made it this far without the support of my dearest friend, Kristen Shock, who has listened to every painstaking detail of this process and responded with nothing but encouragement and kind words. Finally, I would be remiss if I did not thank my family for their unstinting support during my years in Waco as I worked towards my undergraduate and graduate degrees, though they undoubtedly wished I had been closer to home. My parents, David and Susan, along with my sister, were unfailing sources of support, as were my grandparents, Jerry, Betty, Allen and Eleanor. Without them, this thesis never would have been written. v CHAPTER ONE Introduction During a visit to York, Margery Kempe was brought before Henry Bowet, the Archbishop of York, who was well known for his stern stand against Lollardy and heresy. He quickly disapproved of her white clothing and commanded that she be fettered as a false heretic when he learned that she was a wife. Kempe boldly stated that she was not a heretic and he could not prove her one. Once she proved a solid understanding of the Articles of Faith, the Archbishop instructed her to take leave of diocese immediately and she must not teach or challenge the people in his diocese. Kempe refused to comply, and stated, ‘No, sir, I shall not swear, for I shall speak of God and reprove those who swear great oaths wheresoever I go, unto the time that the pope and holy church have ordained that no man shall be so hardy to speak of God, for God almighty forbids not, sir, that we shall speak of him. And also the gospel makes mention that, when the woman had heard our Lord preach, she came before him with a loud voice and said, “Blessed be the womb that bore you and the teats that gave you suck.” Then our Lord said again to her, “Forsooth so are they blessed that hear the word of God and keep it.” And therefore, sir, I think that the gospel gives me leave to speak of God.’1 A clerk then read from a letter of Saint Paul that stated women should not preach to which Kempe asserted that she did not preach because she never entered a pulpit, but simply used communication and good words before recounting a tale about a bad priest. 1 Lynn Staley, trans., The Book of Margery Kempe (New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 2001), 92. 1 The Archbishop commended the tale, but then asked for a man to lead Kempe away from him.2 This vignette encapsulates the argument of this thesis. On the one hand, Margery Kempe was constrained by patriarchy—a system of society in which men hold the power and women are largely excluded from it—as can be seen by the male response to her actions. The Archbishop was upset that Kempe wore the white clothing of a maiden, which she was not, and that she was publicly speaking about God, which women were not supposed to do. On the other hand, Kempe clearly continued to exercise agency by lecturing the men in return, and ultimately was commended by the Archbishop, though he wanted her away from him as quickly as possible. Like Margery Kempe, women in late medieval England were able to maneuver within the limitations of patriarchy to exercise agency. Two ways in which they did this was through employing what Denise Kandiyoti has coined “the patriarchal bargain” and through what Judith Bennett has called an “economy of maksehifts.” According to Kandiyoti, the “patriarchal bargain,” is the “conscious and unconscious strategy that women adopt for dealing with the structure of male dominance that define their lives.”3 For example, upper class women exchanged their contributions to the social reproduction of their class and families in return for political power, economic resources, and prestige. In a similar way, Judith Bennett used the phrase “economy of makeshifts” to describe how medieval peasants manipulated available resources to better their economic 2 Staley, The Book of Margery Kempe, 90-95. 3 Barbara Harris, English Aristocratic Women, 1450-1550 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 9. 2 situations.4 Again, this idea can be applied to upper class medieval women who often used their family connections, children, and husbands (along with the wealth these relationships provided) to gain power and influence within their own lives. The question, of course, is if all women in medieval Europe had the ability to use the patriarchal bargain and an economy of makeshifts to exercise agency within their own lives, or if these options were primarily available to upper class women. In her work, History and Feminism, Judith Bennett argues that patriarchy trumps all during the medieval period, regardless of class. Bennett states that there are three types of patriarchy: the ecclesiastical power of men recognized as Christian leaders; the legal powers of a husband/father over his wife, children, and other dependents; and as a “general system through which women have been and are subordinated to men.”5 Barbara Harris, in her text English Aristocratic Women, argues differently and asserts that class trumps gender, meaning women in the upper classes were able to free themselves from the bonds of patriarchy because of their high social status that allowed them more freedom. Through this independence, Harris states that the responsibilities aristocratic women carried out as “wives, mothers, and widows constituted female careers that had as much political and economic as domestic importance and were as crucial to the survival and prosperity of their families and class as the careers of their male kin.”6 This thesis falls between these two parties, arguing that while patriarchy was certainly present in England during the late medieval period, women of the middle and upper classes were 4 Judith Bennett, A Medieval Life: Cecilia Penifader of Brigstock, c.
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