Description
Book SynopsisThe role played by women in the evolution of religious art and architecture has been largely neglected. This study of upper-class women in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries corrects that oversight, uncovering the active role they undertook in choosing designs, materials, and locations for monuments, commissioning repairs and additions to many parish churches, chantry chapels, and almshouses characteristic of the English countryside. Their preferred art, Barbara J. Harris shows, reveals their responses to the religious revolution and signifies their preferred identities.
Trade Review"Harris has assembled a large amount of material, and while she warns about the dangers of statistics, her selective use of them makes a compelling case for aristocratic women’s patterns and priorities in making pious bequests. [...] [The references in the book] make available to readers the raw materials that underlie her book and provide a tremendous resource for scholars to mine."
- Katherine L. French,
Early Modern Women Journal, Vol. 15, No. 2, Spring 2021
"
English Aristocratic Women is useful for scholars and more general readers interested in women's piety and their responses to the religious culture of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Readers interested in the role of women in the evolution of religious art and architecture of the period will also appreciate the author's profound insights, accessible writing, and thorough research."
- Sheryl A. Kujawa-Holbrook,
Anglican and Episcopal History Vol. 89, 4 (2020)
"In this deeply informative and important work of scholarship Harris demonstrates time and again that, through provision for their souls and their bodies, many aristocratic women living through the Yorkist and Tudor reigns sought to affirm in death their own vision of self-hood often denied to them in life."
- Kelcey Wilson-Lee,
Church Monuments 33 (2018)
Table of ContentsAcknowledgements Preface Abbreviations Illustrations Introduction Chapter 1. Tombs: Honoring the Dead Chapter 2. Chantries: The Quest for Perpetual Prayers Chapter 3. Building for the Congregation: Roofs, Aisles, and Stained Glass Chapter 4. Adorning the Liturgy: Vestments, Chapel Plate and Prayer Books Chapter 5. Almshouses and Schools: Prayers and Service to the Community Chapter 6. Defining Themselves Chapter 7. The Sequel: Destruction and Survival Conclusion Appendix 1 Women Patrons of Religious Building Appendix 2 Patrons of Tombs Appendix 3 Choice of Whom to be Buried With Appendix 4 Location of Tombs in Church Appendix 5 Patrons of Chantries Appendix 6 Patrons of Stained Glass Windows Appendix 7 Patrons of Additions or Major Repairs to Churches Appendix 8 Donors of vestments Appendix 9 Patrons of Almshouses and Schools Glossary Bibliography 133 words
