Women in Ancient History

Ancient Civilizations - Videos and Scholarly Articles

In ancient Mesopotamia, women filled many roles that brought strength to their communities. Among these women were a few in the city of Ur, who held powerful positions as rulers and religious leaders.

Timeline Documentary - the video recounts the queens of Egypt.

Ancient Greek women had very different outcomes in life depending on where they were born, and the class they were born into.

How did the young, wealthy women of Ancient Rome spend their days? Meet Domitia and her sister Domitia and her sister Domitia and her sister Domitia. Ray Laurence sketches the domestic life of leisure that these young girls lived, despite little recorded information on women from this otherwise well-documented era.

In ancient Rome, Vestal Virgins were tasked with keeping vigil over the flame of Vesta, the virgin goddess of the hearth. The flame represented two things: the continuation of Rome as a power in the world and the continuing virginity of Vesta’s priestesses. But what was life really like for these Vestal Virgins? Peta Greenfield goes back in time to find out.

E-book Resources for Ancient Civilizations

Women's Influence on Classical Civilization by Fiona McHardy (Editor); Eireann Marshall (Editor)
ISBN: 0415309573
Publication Date: 2004-06-15
Written by an international range of renowned academics, this volume explores how women in antiquity influenced aspects of culture normally though of as male. Looking at politics, economics, science, law and the arts, the contributors examine examples from around the ancient world asking how far traditional definitions of culture describe male spheres of activity, and examining to what extent these spheres were actually created and perpetuated by women. Women¿s Influence of Classical Civilization provides students with a valuable wider perspective on the roles and influence of women in the societies of the Greek and Roman worlds.
A Companion to Women in the Ancient World by Sharon L. James (Editor); Sheila Dillon (Editor)
ISBN: 1119025540
Publication Date: 2015-06-15
Selected by Choice as a 2012 Outstanding AcademicTitle Awarded a 2012 PROSE Honorable Mention as a Single VolumeReference/Humanities & Social Sciences A Companion to Women in the Ancient World presents aninterdisciplinary, methodologically-based collection ofnewly-commissioned essays from prominent scholars on the study ofwomen in the ancient world.
In Search of the Lost Feminine by Craig S. Barnes
ISBN: 1555914896
Publication Date: 2006-05-01
Here, for the first time, an author weaves together threads that explain the mysterious disappearance of ancient cultures in which women and the environment were at the center, a loss that has dramatically influenced 3,500 years of Western history.
Women at the Beginning by Patrick J. Geary
ISBN: 0691124094
Publication Date: 2006-02-19
In these four artfully crafted essays, Patrick Geary explores the way ancient and medieval authors wrote about women. Geary describes the often marginal role women played in origin legends from antiquity until the twelfth century. Not confining himself to one religious tradition or region, he probes the tensions between women in biblical, classical, and medieval myths (such as Eve, Mary, Amazons, princesses, and countesses), and actual women in ancient and medieval societies. Using these legends as a lens through which to study patriarchal societies, Geary chooses moments and texts that illustrate how ancient authors (all of whom were male) confronted the place of women in their society. Unlike other books on the subject, Women at the Beginning attempts to understand not only the place of women in these legends, but also the ideologies of the men who wrote about them. The book concludes that the authors of these stories were themselves struggling with ambivalence about women in their own worlds and that this struggle manifested itself in their writings.

Early European History - Videos and Scholarly Articles

Who were the women of the early church? What was their role in the formation of the faith? Why do we know so little about them? We recorded this documentary on location in Rome, Italy. The video tells the story of women in the first three centuries of Christianity. We tell stories about women like Perpetua, Helena, Thecla and others.

Women in the Early Church from Tim Frakes on Vimeo.

Article on 10 of the greatest Queens of England

From ferocious Boudica to 'Good Queen Bess' and Queen Elizabeth II, this article will discuss the most powerful women to have ruled in British history.

Queens and Power in Medieval and Early Modern England by Carole Levin (Editor); Robert Bucholz (Editor)
ISBN: 0803229682
Publication Date: 2009-03-01
In Queens and Power in Medieval and Early Modern England, Carole Levin and Robert Bucholz provide a forum for the underexamined, anomalous reigns of queens in history. These regimes, primarily regarded as interruptions to the "normal" male monarchy, have been examined largely as isolated cases. This interdisciplinary study of queens throughout history examines their connections to one another, their constituents' perceptions of them, and the fallacies of their historical reputations.

E-book Resources for Women in European History

Women of the Renaissance by Margaret L. King; Catherine R. Stimpson (Foreword by)
ISBN: 1487593082
Publication Date: 1992-12-15
In this informative and lively volume, Margaret L. King synthesizes a large body of literature on the condition of western European women in the Renaissance centuries (1350-1650), crafting a much-needed and unified overview of women's experience in Renaissance society. Utilizing the perspectives of social, church, and intellectual history, King looks at women of all classes, in both usual and unusual settings. She first describes the familial roles filled by most women of the day—as mothers, daughters, wives, widows, and workers. She turns then to that significant fraction of women in, and acted upon, by the church: nuns, uncloistered holy women, saints, heretics, reformers,and witches, devoting special attention to the social and economic independence monastic life afforded them. The lives of exceptional women, those warriors, queens, patronesses, scholars, and visionaries who found some other place in society for their energies and strivings, are explored, with consideration given to the works and writings of those first protesting female subordination: the French Christine de Pizan, the Italian Modesta da Pozzo, the English Mary Astell. Of interest to students of European history and women's studies, King's volume will also appeal to general readers seeking an informative, engaging entrance into the Renaissance period.
Renaissance Woman by Kate Aughterson
ISBN: 0415120454
Publication Date: 2003-09-02
Renaissance Woman: A Sourcebook is an invaluable collection of accounts of women and femininity in early modern England.
Women and Christian Origins by Ross Shepard Kraemer (Editor); Mary Rose D'Angelo (Editor)
ISBN: 0195103963
Publication Date: 1999-02-11
This new collection of fourteen integrated, original essays by prominent scholars and experienced teachers provides a comprehensive and accessible entree to current research on women and the origins of Christianity. Engaging for both the interested reader and the specialist in religion, Womenand Christian Origins is sensitive to feminist theory and attentive to distinctions between the (re)construction of women's history in early Christian churches and ancient constructions of gender difference
Goddesses Who Rule by Beverly Ann Moon (Editor); Elisabeth Anne Benard (Editor)
ISBN: 0195121309
Publication Date: 2000-09-21
Goddesses often are labeled as one-dimensional forces of nature or fertility. In examining a number of goddesses whose primary role is sovereignty, this volume reveals the rich diversity of goddess traditions. Drawn from a variety of cultural and historical settings, the goddesses describedhere include Inanna of ancient Sumer, Oshun of Nigeria, and Cihuacoatl of pre-historical America.

Medieval World - Videos and Scholarly Articles

Women in the Middle Ages
British Museum Website
A Brief History of Women's Work in the Middle Ages
This animated short challenges enduring myths, spawned by fairy tales and romances, about women in medieval society. It explores the differences and similarities between that distant period and our own, and shows what medieval women’s lives were really like.

Two women get dressed in the medieval fashion of 14th century England. Costumes based on the illustrations in the Luttrell Psalter.

Very interesting video on "cheek rending" an odd habit by women in the Middle Ages.

E-book Resources for Women in the Middle Ages

Unmarriages by Ruth Mazo Karras
ISBN: 0812222989
Publication Date: 2014-03-06
The Middle Ages are often viewed as a repository of tradition, yet what we think of as traditional marriage was far from the only available alternative to the single state in medieval Europe. Many people lived together in long-term, quasimarital heterosexual relationships, unable to marry if one was in holy orders or if the partners were of different religions. Social norms militated against the marriage of master to slave or between individuals of very different classes, or when the couple was so poor that they could not establish an independent household. Such unions, where the protections that medieval law furnished to wives (and their children) were absent, were fraught with danger for women in particular, but they also provided a degree of flexibility and demonstrate the adaptability of social customs in the face of slowly changing religious doctrine.
The Fourth Estate by Shulamith Shahar
ISBN: 0415308518
Publication Date: 2003-05-30
Did women really constitute a `fourth estate' in medieval society and, if so, in what sense? In this wide-ranging study Shulamith Shahar considers this and the whole question of the varying attitudes to women and their status in western Europe between the twelfth and the fifteenth centuries.
Women in Medieval Society by Susan Mosher Stuard (Editor)
ISBN: 0812210883
Publication Date: 1976-04-01
Early medieval women exercised public roles, rights, and responsibilities. Women contributed through their labor to the welfare of the community. Women played an important part in public affairs. They practiced birth control through abortion and infanticide. Women committed crimes and were indicted. They owned property and administered estates. The drive toward economic growth and expansion abroad rested on the capacity of women to staff and manage economic endeavors at home. In the later Middle Ages, the social position of women altered significantly, and the reasons why the role of women in society tended to become more restrictive are examined in these essays.
A Medieval Woman's Companion by Susan Signe Morrison
ISBN: 1785700790
Publication Date: 2015-11-30
What have a deaf nun, the mother of the first baby born to Europeans in North America, and a condemned heretic to do with one another? They are among the virtuous virgins, marvellous maidens, and fierce feminists of the Middle Ages who trail-blazed paths for women today. Without those first courageous souls who worked in fields dominated by men, women might not have the presence they currently do in professions such as education, the law, and literature. Focusing on women from Western Europe between c. 300 and 1500 CE in the medieval period and richly carpeted with detail, A Medieval Woman's Companion offers a wealth of information about real medieval women who are now considered vital for understanding the Middle Ages in a full and nuanced way.

Western Civilization - HIST 130 - Fordham: Women in Ancient History