Women's Voices in Tudor Wills, 1485–1603

Name: Women's Voices in Tudor Wills, 1485–1603
Brand: Taylor & Francis

Taylor & Francis

Contributing an original dimension to the study of women in 16th-century England, this pioneering work examines the largest corpus of women\u2019s private writings available: their wills. Through an intensive analysis of more than 1200 wills, women from all parts of the country and all strata of society are revealed as articulate, opportunistic, and capable individuals who, despite legal and cultural limitations, exercised authority over their own lives and influenced the lives of their heirs after their death. > Contributing an original dimension to the significant body of published scholarship on women in 16th-century England, this study examines the largest corpus of women\u2019s private writings available to historians: their wills. In these, female voices speak out, commenting on their daily lives, on identity, gender, status, familial relationships and social engagement. Wills show women to have been active participants in a civil society, well aware of their personal auta