IMC 2019: Sessions
Session 650: Marriage Strategies and Noble Heiresses in the 12th and 13th Centuries
Tuesday 2 July 2019, 11.15-12.45
| Organisers: | Harriet Kersey, School of Humanities, Canterbury Christ Church University Charlotte Pickard, Centre for Continuing & Professional Education, Cardiff University |
|---|---|
| Moderator/Chair: | Louise J. Wilkinson, School of Humanities, Canterbury Christ Church University |
| Paper 650-a | The Heiress and Marital Strategy in 12th and 13th-Century France (Language: English) Index terms: Genealogy and Prosopography, Women's Studies |
| Paper 650-b | Pawns or Agents: The Marriage Arrangements of Baronial and Knightly Heiresses, c. 1200-1300 (Language: English) Index terms: Genealogy and Prosopography, Women's Studies |
| Paper 650-c | A Family Affair?: English Aristocratic Heiresses and Marriage in the 13th Century (Language: English) Index terms: Genealogy and Prosopography, Women's Studies |
| Abstract | Noble heiresses were among the most powerful women in medieval society and yet, they posed a very real problem for the noble family. Although female inheritance was widely accepted, women inherited by default, due to a failure in the male line of succession. This session will explore the role of marital strategies in navigating, what had the potential to be, difficult circumstances. The papers in this session will discuss aristocratic women, from the gentry through to the high nobility. Setting them in their political contexts, the papers will consider how these women and their families employed marital strategy and the extent to which they had agency in arranging their marriages. |