reasie's review
2.0
This is a collection of extant written works, sorted into categories like 'marriage' or 'work' and then presented chronologically.
I like the idea, but there were a few things that made the book difficult for me to enjoy. For instance, many of the excerpts are not dated, or you are told 'for the description of this, go to the previous excerpt'. It's good that the editor provides the date of the publication she is taking her excerpt from, but I always crave a sense of the date of a piece, even if it's "our best guess is late 10th century."
Also, having read "Treasure of the City of Ladies" and "The Women Troubadours" - I found I had read at least three quarters of the material already. And I found the introductory background material to be too broad for my tastes.
I like the idea, but there were a few things that made the book difficult for me to enjoy. For instance, many of the excerpts are not dated, or you are told 'for the description of this, go to the previous excerpt'. It's good that the editor provides the date of the publication she is taking her excerpt from, but I always crave a sense of the date of a piece, even if it's "our best guess is late 10th century."
Also, having read "Treasure of the City of Ladies" and "The Women Troubadours" - I found I had read at least three quarters of the material already. And I found the introductory background material to be too broad for my tastes.
bookswithpetra's review
3.0
I think this is an excellent start point for someone who wants to know more about women in Medieval Europe. The truth is that even though Europe was very male dominated, this source book still showed that there were some exceptions. This was a very good basis for my thesis reading as it had excellent amount of sources written by Medieval women. I will be sure picking up something else by Larrington in the future.
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