A review by reasie
Women and Writing in Medieval Europe: A Sourcebook by Carolyne Larrington
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.