Women and Gender in Early Modern Europe Third Edition This new, updated edition of s prize-winning survey of women and gender in early modern Europe features an entirely new chapter on gender and race in the colonial world; expanded coverage of eighteenth-century developments including the Enlightenment; and enhanced discussions of masculinity, single women, same-sex relations, humanism, and women s religious roles within Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. All of the chapters incorporate the newest scholarship, and the book preserves the clear structure of previous editions with its tripartite division of mind, body, and spirit. Within this structure, other themes include the female life cycle, women s economic roles, artistic creations, education, and witchcraft. Coverage is geographically broad, including Russia, Scandinavia, the Ottoman Empire, and the Iberian Peninsula. This is essential reading for all students of early modern Europe and gender history and is accompanied by a Web site featuring extensive updated bibliographies, Web links, and primary source material. is a Distinguished Professor in the Department of History at the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee. She is the coeditor of the Sixteenth Century Journal. Her previous publications include Early Modern Europe 1450 1789 (2006), Gender in History (2001), and Christianity and Sexuality in the Early Modern World (2000). The companion Web site for this textbook can be found at /womenandgender.
NEW APPROACHES TO EUROPEAN HISTORY Series editors WILLIAM BEIK Emory University T. C. W. BLANNING Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge BRENDAN SIMMS Peterhouse, Cambridge New Approaches to European History is an important textbook series, which provides concise but authoritative surveys of major themes and problems in European history since the Renaissance. Written at a level and length accessible to advanced school students and undergraduates, each book in the series addresses topics or themes that students of European history encounter daily: the series embraces both some of the more traditional subjects of study and those cultural and social issues to which increasing numbers of school and college courses are devoted. A particular effort is made to consider the wider international implications of the subject under scrutiny. To aid the student reader, scholarly apparatus and annotation is light, but each work has full supplementary bibliographies and notes for further reading: where appropriate, chronologies, maps, diagrams, and other illustrative material are also provided. For a list of titles published in the series, please see the end of the book.
Women and Gender in Early Modern Europe Third Edition University of Wisconsin Milwaukee
University Printing House, Cambridge CB2 8BS, United Kingdom Cambridge University Press is part of the University of Cambridge. It furthers the University s mission by disseminating knowledge in the pursuit of education, learning and research at the highest international levels of excellence. C 2008 This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published 2008 5th printing 2014 Printed in the United States of America by Sheridan Books Inc. A catalog record for this publication is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Wiesner-Hanks, Merry E., 1952 Women and gender in early modern Europe / Merry E. Wiesner-Hanks. 3rd ed. p. cm. (New approaches to European history) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-521-87372-7 (hardback) ISBN 978-0-521-69544-2 (pbk.) 1. Women Europe History. I. Title. II. Series. HQ1587.W54 2008 305.4094 0903 dc22 2007039502 ISBN ISBN 978-0-521-87372-7 Hardback 978-0-521-69544-2 Paperback Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party Internet Web sites referred to in this publication and does not guarantee that any content on such Web sites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.
For Kai and Tyr
Contents List of Illustrations Acknowledgments page xi xiii Introduction 1 1 Ideas and Laws Regarding Women 17 Part I: Body 2 The Female Life Cycle 55 3 Women s Economic Role 101 Part II: Mind 4 Literacy and Learning 141 5 Women and the Creation of Culture 174 Part III: Spirit 6 Religion 207 7 Witchcraft 252 8 Gender and Power 276 9 Gender in the Colonial World 303 Index 335 ix
List of Illustrations Illustrations 1 Abraham Bach, Recipe for Marital Bliss, c. 1680. Dorothy Alexander and Walter L. Strauss, The German Single-Leaf Woodcut, 1600 1700 (New York, Abaris Books, 1977), p. 61. page 28 2 Melchior Lorch, Allegory of Nature, 1565. Walter L. Strauss, The German Single-Leaf Woodcut, 1550 1600, vol. II (New York, Abaris Books, 1975), p. 609. 40 3 Anne Bonney as a pirate. Book illustration from Historie der Englesche zeerovers (Amsterdam, 1725). Courtesy of Universiteitsbibliotheek Amsterdam. 74 4 Albrecht Dürer, The Birth of Mary, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin Kupferstichkabinett. 86 5 Illustrations from Thomas Raynalde, The Byrth of Mankynde, London, 1545. 88 6 Geertruydt Roghman, Woman Spinning, before 1650. Harvey D. Parker Collection. Courtesy of Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. 120 7 Dirk Vellert, The School Room, 1526. British Museum. 146 8 Anna Maria van Schurman, self-portrait, 1633. Engraving on copper. Kunstsammlung Veste Coburg. 159 9 Sofonisba Anguissola, Lucia, Minerva, and Europa Anguissola Playing Chess, 1555. Poznan, Museum Narodowe. 180 10 Judith Leyster, The Proposition. Mauritshuis, The Hague, inventory nr. 564. 182 11 Artemesia Gentileschi, self-portrait. Royal Collection, Hampton Court. Copyright Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. 184 xi
xii List of Illustrations 12 Lucas Cranach d.a., Women Assaulting Clergy, detail, after 1537. Staatlich Museen zu Berlin, Kupferstichkabinett, KdZ 4798. 215 13 Hans Baldung Grien, The Witches, 1510. Stadtgeschichtliche Museen Nürnberg, Kaiserstallung. 261 14 William Blake, Europe Supported by Africa and America, 1796. 306 15 Giambattista Tiepolo, Saints Catherine of Siena, Rosa of Lima, and Agnes, 1740. S. Maria del Rosario, Venice, Italy. Scala/Art Resource, New York. 314 16 Anonymous, eighteenth century. Las Castas, Museo Nacional del Virreinato, Tepotzotlan, Mexico. Schalkwijk/Art Resource, New York. 326 Map 1 Colonial possessions of European states in 1783. 304
Acknowledgments A study like this that attempts to survey the entire life experience of half the European population from Spain to Scandinavia over 300 years would not be possible without the kind assistance of a huge number of people and the financial support of foundations and institutions. On the latter, I first thank the Regents of the University of Wisconsin, from whom I received a fellowship at the Institute for Research in the Humanities at the University of Wisconsin Madison, which allowed me a year off from teaching to write the first edition of this book and subsequent sabbaticals to work on several other books whose ideas shaped the second and third editions. Much of the information from Germany comes from my own research in libraries and archives there over the years, which was supported by grants from the Fulbright Foundation, the Deutsche Akademische Austauschdienst, and the American Council of Learned Societies. My familiarity with women s writings in many languages was enhanced by a summer at the Center for Renaissance Studies at the Newberry Library, for which I thank the Exxon Foundation. My first venture into gender history on a global scale was supported by a fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation. My intellectual debts are much more difficult to acknowledge adequately. Women s history has always prided itself on sisterly camaraderie and the sharing of ideas, and my own experience over the years has certainly borne this out. In the first and even second editions of this book, I tried to thank everyone by name who provided me with information and suggestions or with whom I ve discussed the ideas that emerge here, but that is now impossible, as the list would go on for pages. I would still like to acknowledge the many people who willingly read and commented on drafts of chapters for the various editions: Diana Robin, Barbara Duden, Jeffrey Merrick, Jens-Christian Johansen, Carole Shammas, Grethe Jacobsen, Suzanne Desan, Tom Broman, Susan Karant-Nunn, Jane Bowers, and David Lindbergh. I also thank a few people whose scholarship and friendship have been particularly important over the years: Darlene Abreu-Ferreira, Barbara Andaya, Judith Bennett, xiii
xiv Acknowledgments Elizabeth Cohen, Natalie Zemon Davis, Katherine French, Grethe Jacobsen, Deirdre Keenan, Gwynne Kennedy, Susan Karant-Nunn, Carole Levin, JoAnn McNamara, Jeffrey Merrick, Allyson Poska, Diana Robin, Lyndal Roper, Anne Schutte, Hilda Smith, Ulrike Strasser, Susan Stuard, Gerhild Scholz Williams, and Heide Wunder. My inability to acknowledge everyone results from what has happened with scholarship in the field. When I first began to study women in early modern Europe, I could read everything that had been published in the field in a couple of months. Now my bookshelves groan and my file cabinets burst with a spectacular array of research, and there is an entire book series (Women and Gender in the Early Modern World) and a specialized journal (Early Modern Women). Even surveying this research is difficult, and for this I relied on the assistance of my wonderful graduate student, Bri Smith. The extended and thorough bibliographies that are the results of her work can best be seen on the Web site that accompanies this book. As always, none of this work would have been possible without the support of my husband Neil and my sons Kai and Tyr. I dedicated my first book to my grandmothers in sisterhood and dedicate this one to my sons, in the hope that the world they shape will be one where gender will make less of a difference, where cats will be cats.