Medieval Mothering (New Middle Ages)

In 19 original essays, this study offers a broad range of approaches to medieval society's undertanding of mothering and the uses to which the practice and imagery of mothering could be assumed by females and males alike. Theoretical essays examine medical and literary sources to establish that for male commentators, the narrowly biological, female parameters of maternity were insistently supplanted by images of nurturant mothering, an ungendered activity that could be preempted and associated with male behavior. The remainder focus on representations of motherhood in Old Norse and Icelandic literatures, and on record evidence for the maternal behavior of actual mothers in medieval France, England, and Spain.Medieval Mothering (New Middle Ages), was published 1999 under ISBN 9780815336655 and ISBN 0815336659.