IMC 2015: Sessions

Session 144: Medieval Prosopography, I: Medieval Women and Prosopography

Monday 6 July 2015, 11.15-12.45

Sponsor:	Medieval Prosopography
Organiser:	Amy Livingstone, Department of History, Wittenberg University, Ohio
Moderator/Chair:	Amy Livingstone, Department of History, Wittenberg University, Ohio
Paper 144-a	'For her advocacy that the will might stand': Elite Women and Wills in 10th-Century Anglo-Saxon England and the Ottonian Empire (Language: English) Megan Welton, Medieval Institute, University of Notre Dame, Indiana Index terms: Gender Studies, Genealogy and Prosopography, Religious Life
Paper 144-b	Ediva of Winchester and Godstow Abbey: Following in the Tradition of the Anglo-Saxon Foundress (Language: English) Berenice Wilson, Institute for Medieval Studies, University of Leeds Index terms: Gender Studies, Genealogy and Prosopography, Religious Life
Paper 144-c	In Search of Women in 14th-Century Walsham-le-Willows (Language: English) Vanessa Jane King, Department of History, Classics & Archaeology, Birkbeck, University of London Index terms: Gender Studies, Genealogy and Prosopography, Local History
Abstract	One of the great frustrations historians of the medieval world in general face is a paucity of sources. This issue become exponentially more difficult when trying to write the history of medieval women who seldom left enough material behind to reconstruct a 'biography' of their lives. Prosopography, or collective biography, has proved a useful tool for teasing out the lives of the women of the Middle Ages. The three papers on this panel will explore how prosopography has fleshed out the lives of Ottonian Empresses, Anglo-Saxon religious women, and the women from the village of Walsham le Willows. These papers will demonstrate how prosopographical methods have allowed these scholars to answer questions that had previously been impossible to address.