California State University, Fresno

Department of History

HIST 129T: Women, Sex, and Power in Early Modern Europe

Spring 2004

Professor Maritere Lopez

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  Part I: Introduction

  Part II: Lecture: “Women’s History and Early Modern Europe”

• Birkett, Dea and Juliw Wheelwright.  "'How Could She?" Unpalatable Facts and Feminists' Heroines," in Gender & History, v2 n1 (Spring 1990), 49. (For the text, click here)

• King Margaret L. "Women's Voices, the Early Modern, and the Civilization of the West," in Shakespeare Studies, v25 (1997), 21.  (For the text, click here)

• Scott, Joan W.  "Gender: a Useful Category of Analysis," in Gender and the Politics of History.  New York: Columbia University Press, 1988. (For the text, click here)

• _____.  "Women’s History," in Gender and the Politics of History.  New York: Columbia University Press, 1988.  (For the text, click here)

     For Guide Questions, click here.

  Part II: Lecture: “The Foundations of Early Modern Conceptions of Women”

  Primary Sources:

• Anonymous, "Hic Mulier; or, the Man-Woman," in Henderson, Katherine U., ed.  Half humankind : contexts and texts of the controversy about women in England, 1540-1640.  Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1985.  (For the text, click here)
• Aristotle's View of the Difference between the Sexes (For the text, click here)
• Bible, selections (For the text, click here)
• Juvenal’s Satire #6 (For the text, click here)
• Swetnam, Joseph.  "The Arraignment of Lewd... and Inconstant Women," in Henderson, Katherine U., ed.  Half humankind : contexts and texts of the controversy about women in England, 1540-1640.  Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1985. (Part I, Part II)

  Secondary Sources:

• Cantarella, Eva.  "The Origins of Western Misogyny," in Pandora's Daughters: The Role and Status of Women in Greek and Roman Antiquity.  Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1987.  (For the text, click here)
• _____.  "Philosophers and Women," in Pandora's Daughters: The Role and Status of Women in Greek and Roman Antiquity.  Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1987.  (For the text, click here)
• King, Margaret L. and Albert Rabil Jr, "The Other Voice in Early Modern Europe: Introduction to the Series" (For the text, click here)

  For the guide questions, click here.

  Part II: Lecture: "Women’s Mainstream Roles: Daughter, Wife, and Mother”

  Thesis Page and Annotated Bibliography Due

  Part I: Discussion: Women and Men on the Role of Women

  Primary Sources:

• Astell, Mary.  "Some Reflections upon Marriage, Occassioned by the Duke and Duchess of Mazarine's Case..." (For the text, click here)

• Calvin, John.  12th Sermon on St. Paul's Letter to the Ephesians (For the text, click here)

• Vives, Juan Luis.  The Education of a Christian Woman.  Charles Fantazzi, ed. and trans.  Chicago: Chicago University Press, 2000.  Read pp. 125-38, 155-72, 175-209, 243-64, 315-21.

  For Guide Questions, click here.

   Part II: Lecture: “Alternative Roles: Women and Religion”

  Primary Sources:

• Anonymous.  "A Letter to a Virtuous Lady to Dissuade Her... from Becoming a Nun" (For the text, click here)
• Ferrazzi, Cecilia.  Autobiography of an Aspiring Saint.  Schutte, Anne Jacobson, trans.  Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1996. (Part I, Part II)
• Tarabotti, Angela.  Paternal Tyranny.  Panizza, Letizia, trans.  Chicago: Chicago University Press, 2004.  Read pp. 37-84.

  Secondary Sources:

• Baker, Joanne.  "Female Monasticism and Family Strategy: the Guises and Saint Pierre de Reims," in Sixteenth Century Journal, v28 n4 (Winter, 1997), 1091. (For the text, click here)

  For the guide questions, click here.

   Part II: Lecture: "Alternative Roles: Prostitutes and Courtesans"

    Canceled

  SS #110 @ 6:00 p.m.

  Primary Sources:

• Aretino, Pietro.  Aretino's Dialogues.  Raymond Rosenthal, trans.  New York: Ballantine Books, 1971. (Part I, Part II, Part III) NOTE: This selection is crude and overtly sexual.  Also, some of the copies are not easy to read.
• Franco, Veronica.  Poems and Selected Letters.  Margaret Rosenthal, trans.  Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1998. (For the text, click here)

  Secondary Sources:

• Brackett, John K.  "The Florentine Onestá and the Control of Prostitution, 1403-1680," in Sixteenth Century Journal, v24 n2 (Summer, 1993), 273-300. (For the text, click here)
• Norberg, Kathryn.  "Prostitutes," in Natalie Zemon Davis, ed.  A History of Women: Renaissance and Enlightenment Paradoxes.  Cambridge, Mass: Belknap Press, 1993.  458-474.  (For the text, click here)

  For the guide questions, click here.

  Part II: Lecture: “Women and Work: the Necessary Evil”

  Primary Sources:

• Hameln, Glueckl of.  Memoirs.  Read pages 1-10, 23-6, 56-9, 66-76, 79-84, 121-6, 152-7, 217-20, 229-30, 235-41, 255-61, 264-6.

  Secondary Sources:

• Hufton, Olwen.  "Women, Work, and Family," in Natalie Zemon Davis, ed.  A History of Women: Renaissance and Enlightenment Paradoxes.  Cambridge, Mass: Belknap Press, 1993.  15-45. (For the text, click here)

• Wiesner, Merry E.  "Having Her Own Smoke: Employment and Independence for Singlewomen in Germany, 1400-1750," in Bennett, Judith M. and Amy M. Froide, eds.  Singlewomen in the European Past, 1250-1800.  Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999.  (For the Text, click here)

• _____.  "Paltry Peddlers or Essential Merchants?  Women in the Distributive Trades in Early Modern Nuremberg," in Sixteenth Century Journal, v12 n2 (Summer 1989), 3.  (For the text, click here)

  Guide questions forthcoming.

  Part I: Short Discussion: Glueckl of Hameln

  Part II: Discussion: Men and Women on Women’s Education

    Primary Sources:

• Chamberlayne, Edward.  "An Academy or College, wherein... Young Ladies... May be Duly Instructed..." (For the text, click here)

• Various.  "Education," in Aughterson, Kate, ed.  Renaissance Woman: Constructions of Femininity in England.  London and New York: Routledge, 1995.  (For the text, click here)

• Vives, Juan Luis.  The Education of a Christian Woman.  Charles Fantazzi, ed. and trans.  Chicago: Chicago University Press, 2000.  Read pp. 53-76, 116-24.

  Secondary Sources:

• Sonnet, Martine. "A Daughter to Educate," in Natalie Zemon Davis, ed.  A History of Women: Renaissance and Enlightenment Paradoxes.  Cambridge, Mass: Belknap Press, 1993. 101-131. (For the text, click here) 

  For the guide questions, click here.

    Part III: Lecture: “Women and the Law”

  Take-home Exam 1 Due

          For the exam question, click here.

  Part I: Discussion: Women and the Law

  Primary Sources:

• Roman Law, selections (For the text, click here)

• T.E.  Excerpts from The Law's Resolutions of Women's Rights, in Klein, Joan Larsen, ed.  Daughters, Wives, and Widows: Writngs by Men About Women in England, 1500-1640.  Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1992.  (Part I, Part II)

  Secondary Sources:

• Hardwick, Julie.  "Women 'Working' the Law: Gender, Authority, and Legal Process in Early Modern France," in Journal of Women's History, v9 n3 (Autumn 1997), 28.  (For the text, click here)

• Stretton, Tim.  "Women, Legal Rights, and Law Courts," in Women Waging Law in Elizabethan England.  Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998.  (For the text, click here)

   Part II: Lecture: “Physiology and the Body: the Science of Gender in Early Modern Europe”

  Research Paper Due

  Part I: Discussion: The Science of Gender

  Primary Sources:

• Ancient Physiological Works, selections (For the text, click here)

• Various.  "Physiology," in Aughterson, Kate, ed.  Renaissance Woman: Constructions of Femininity in England.  London and New York: Routledge, 1995.  (For the text, click here)

  Secondary Sources:

• Park, Katherine.  "Medicine and Magic: the Healing Arts," in Brown, Judith C. and Robert C. Davis, eds.  Gender and Society in Renaissance Italy.  New York: Longman, 1998.  (For the text, click here)

• Woods, Charles T.  "The Doctor's Dilemma: Sin, Salvation, and the Menstrual Cycle in Medieval Thought," in Speculum, v56 n4 (October, 1981), 710.   (For the text, click here)

    Part II: Lecture: “Women’s Bodies, Midwives, and Witches”

  Part I: Discussion: Sexuality, Midwives and Witches

  Primary Sources:

• Kramer, Heinrich and Jakob Sprenger. Malleus Malificarum (1486), selections.  (For the text, click here)

• "Documents," in Sharpe, James.  Witchcraft in Early Modern England.  London: Longman, 2001.  (For the text, click here) - Since many of you were unable to open the original document, I've re-scanned it and divided it into two separate documents.  Part I, Part II.

• Vives, Juan Luis.  The Education of a Christian Woman.  Charles Fantazzi, ed. and trans.  Chicago: Chicago University Press, 2000.  Read pp. 80-109.

  Secondary Sources:

• Karras, Ruth Mazo.  "Sex and the Singlewoman," in Bennett, Judith M. and Amy M. Froide, eds.  Singlewomen in the European Past, 1250-1800.  Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999.  (For the Text, click here)

  Part I: “Women Writers, the Querelle des Femmes and Early Modern ‘Feminism’”   

  Part II: Discussion: The Querelle and the Power of the Pen

  Primary Sources:

• de Pizan, Christine.  The City of Ladies, selections (Part I, Part II)
• Various.  "Proto-Feminisms," in Aughterson, Kate, ed.  Renaissance Woman: Constructions of Femininity in England.  London and New York: Routledge, 1995.  (For the text, click here)

  Secondary Sources:

• Nash, Jerry C.  "Renaissance Misogyny, Biblical Feminism, and Helisenne de Crenne's Epistres Familieres et Invectives," in Renaissance Quarterly, v50 n2 (Summer, 1997), 379.  (For the text, click here)
• Murray, Jacqueline.  "Agnolo Firenzuola on Female Sexuality and Women's Equality," in Sixteenth Century Journal, v22 n2 (Summer, 1991), 199-213.  (For the text, you must access the library's database list, enter JSTOR, and search for this reading.  My download did not work.)

  SS #110 @ 6:00 p.m.

May 3  

Class Canceled

We will discuss the readings on the 10th.

The "Artemisia" screening is still on for the 7th.

  Part I: “Women as Rulers and Patrons: Ultimate Female Power?”

  Part I: Discussion: Women as Rulers and Patrons

  Primary Sources:

•  Knox, John.  "The First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstrous Regiment of Women" (For the text, click here)

  Secondary Sources:

• Ffolliott, Sheila.  "The Ideal Queenly Patron of the Renaissance: Catherine de' Medici Defining Herself or Defined by Others?," in Cynthia Lawrence, ed., Women and Art in Early Modern Europe.  Pennsylvania State University, 1997.  (For the text, click here)
• Robertson, Karen.  "Tracing Women's Connections from a Letter by Elizabeth Ralegh," in Frye, Susan and Karen Robertson, eds. Maids and Mistresses, Cousins and Queens: Women's Alliances in Early Modern England. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999. (For the text, click here)
• Smyth, Carolyn.  "An Instance of Feminine Patronage in the Medici Court of Sixteenth-Century Florence: the Chapel of Eleonora da Toledo in the Palazzo Vecchio," in Cynthia Lawrence, ed., Women and Art in Early Modern Europe.  Pennsylvania State University, 1997.  (For the text, click here)

  SS #110 @ 6:00 p.m.

  Part I: Discussion: Women as Rulers and Patrons

  Part II: Discussion: Women as Creators

• Cohen, Elizabeth.  "The Trials of Artemisia Gentileschi: a Rape as History," in Sixteenth Century Journal, v31 n1 (2000), 47-75.  (For the text, click here.)

• York, Laura.  "The 'Spirit of Caesar' and His Majesty's Servant: the Self-Fashioning of Women Artists in Early Modern Europe," in Women's Studies, v30 n3, 499-520.  (For the text, click here).

  PLEASE NOTE: QUESTIONS FOR THE 2ND EXAM ARE NOW AVAILABLE BELOW.

On or before

May 20 

by the close of business

  Take-home Exam 2 Due (DUE IN PERSON - you may turn it in to any of the History Department's

  assistants.  Make sure to have the essay date-stamped.)

  For the exam question, click here.