Abstracts for Articles in SCJ, vol. 31 (2000)
These are alphabetized by author; these letters are linked to the first author with each initial.
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Fishmonger and Shipowners: Women in Maritime Communities of Early Modern Portugal
Darlene Abreu-Ferreira
University of Winnipeg
With the use of archival documents from municipal government collections and port registries, this study will show the extent of womenÕs involvement in maritime trade and attempt to identify possible explanations for the apparent discrepancies in the gender division of labor between northern and southern Europe, especially in early modern Portugal. ShipsÕ rolls, port records, and municipal tax registries suggest that Portuguese women were at the forefront of local and international trade, including the financing of fishing expeditions to Newfoundland. These women were so engaged not as individuals, but as vital members of family units. Even though patriarchy was practiced in these family units, sources leave little doubt that Portuguese maritime women were at the heart of both hearth and purse.
"In my opinion": Charlotte de Minut and Female Political Discussion in Sixteenth-Century France
Susan Broomhall
University of Western Australia
In sixteenth-century France, women published works about politics only rarely. This article examines the contexts in which women published and the nature of their discussion in print, and argues that female political contributions in France differed from those in other European countries. In this light, the unusual political writings of Charlotte de Minut, abbess of the Poor Clares in Toulouse, are explored. In 1587, she published and prefaced two works by her brother, Gabriel de Minut, using her prefaces to appeal to and advise Pope Sixtus V and Catherine deÕ Medici. The works of a cloistered nun, Charlotte de Minut, represent an exceptional attempt by a woman to use the print medium to advise international leaders in post-Tridentine France.
The Trials of Artemisia Gentileschi: A Rape as History
Elizabeth S. Cohen
York University
Lately rediscovered and celebrated as a talented female artist in the great tradition of European painting, Artemisia Gentileschi continues to be represented as strongly defined by her sexuality. Incomplete and anachronistic readings of the records from the 1612 trial for her rape have underpinned an image of Artemisia as, in the older treatments, a flirt and vamp or, in more recent ones, a feminist and resister of male violence. Here a more historical interpretation of the documents restores the painter to her seventeenth-century context and adjusts our understanding of both her behavior during this youthful episode and her later achievements.
Sex and the Virgin Queen: Aristocratic Concupiscence and the Court of Elizabeth
Paul E. J. Hammer
University of Adelaide
Much has been written about Elizabeth I and issues of sex, gender, and political power. This article focuses on an underexplored dimension to this debate, ElizabethÕs dealings with ÒscandalousÓ sexual liaisons among those members of the social and political elite who were her courtiers. For a female sovereign whose own mother had been put to death on charges of treasonous adultery and incest, such affairs were an indicator of the moral tone of her court and an important test of her princely authority. Throughout her reign, Elizabeth responded to these episodes with swift and sometimes harsh punishment. However, the 1590s witnessed a remarkable number of such incidents, which seems to reflect both a marked generational change among ElizabethÕs courtiers and a decline in her personal authority as queen.
Personal Worship, Gender, and the Devotional Portrait Diptych
Andrea G. Pearson
Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania
The devotional portrait diptych, a two-part painting of an individual praying to holy personages, usually the Virgin and Child, was one of the most predominant kinds of pious images in fifteenth- and early-sixteenth-century northern Europe. An unexplored aspect of the works is the nearly exclusive assignment of the paintings to the masculine realm: In almost every example, the worshipers portrayed within the images are male. This phenomenon is examined here by taking a comparative approach to the spirituality of the sexes. The article draws on hagiographic texts and images of worship to suggest that the diptychs associated male devotees with expectations for masculine piety by pulling their personal worship into the public arena. This characteristic worked against womenÕs worship, because female devotees were encouraged to keep their spirituality a relatively private matter.
Spiritual Administration: Gender and Discernment in the Carmelite Reform
Alison Weber
University of Virginia
In 1562, Teresa de Jesœs founded the first of seventeen reformed (discalced) Carmelite convents and drafted the first of a series of monastic constitutions designed to promote certain idealsÑabove all, the opportunity for nuns to practice mental prayer, through which they might act as agents of spiritual renewal for a church in crisis. This article analyzes TeresaÕs innovations in governance; among them, a crucial role for prioresses in spiritual guidance and in discernmentÑa charism generally restricted to priests. Within ten years of TeresaÕs death in 1582, the Constitutions were revised in ways that seriously curtailed the provisions designed to protect the discalced feminine magisterium. Despite conditions which could induce acute psychological distress, the Carmelite reform did for a brief time allow some nuns enhanced opportunities for self-actualization as spiritual teachers and healers.
