Choice Review

In this fine book, Ferrante (Columbia Univ.) considers the crucial roles medieval women played in the composition of various kinds of texts. Although she covers some of the same authors as Peter Dronke's Women Writers of the Middle Ages (CH, May'85), Ferrante looks at that material in a different way and also includes new material. First she investigates women's correspondence, which, she argues, reveals that their male correspondents respected women's political and intellectual authority and that women correspondents (often in positions of secular or religious authority) identified with powerful historical women and were aware of women's history and problems. Second, Ferrante looks at religious, historical, and courtly literatures written at the behest of women and demonstrates that women patrons influenced the content of these works: theological questions posed by women directed women's writing; histories for women focused on women in power; courtly literature presented strong women, ruling their own lands and elevating the heroes to their superior class through marriage. Lastly, Ferrante discusses women writers, religious and secular, who present active, intelligent, and courageous women. Throughout, she emphasizes women's accomplishments rather than the misogyny of the medieval world, which made such accomplishments difficult. Graduate and research collections. J. Cowgill Winona State University