Medieval Women and Their Objects

The essays in Medieval Women and Their Objects present multifacetedconsiderations of the intersection of objects and gender within thecultural contexts of late medieval France and England. Some take amaterial view of objects, showing buildings, books, and pictures as sitesof gender negotiation and resistance and as extensions of women'sbodies. Others reconsider the concept of objectification in the lives ofmedieval women-either fictional or historical-by looking closely attheir relation to gendered material objects, taken literally as women'spossessions and as figurative manifestations of their desires.

Essays in the opening section consider how medieval authors imaginedfictional and legendary women using particular objects in ways thatreinforce or challenge gender roles. These women bring objects into theorbit of gender identity, using and relating to them in a literal sense,while also taking advantage of their symbolic meanings. The secondsection focuses on the use of texts both as objects in their own rightand as mechanisms by which other objects are defined. The possessorsof objects in these essays lived in the world, their lives documented byhistorical records, yet like their fictional and legendary counterparts, theytoo used objects for instrumental ends and with symbolic resonances.Contributors to the final section consider the objectification of medievalwomen’s bodies as well as its limits. While objectification at times seemsto allow for a trade in women, authorial attempts to give definitive shapesand boundaries to women’s bodies either complicate the very genderboundaries they are trying to contain or reduce gender into an ideologicalabstraction.