The fourth volume in the series [Fragility of her sex? (1997); Women in renaissance and early modern Europe (2000); Studies in medieval and early modern women: pawns or players? (2003)] by established and younger scholars covers a wide time-span and geographical area, ranging from examinations of individual women in their medieval context to those involved in revolutionary Europe.

This book considers the experiences of eighteenth-century women, in the Metropolitan area, as both the victims and perpetrators of a variety of crimes, and as participants, in different forms, in the era's criminal justice system. In doing so, it makes extensive use of primary as well as secondary sources. The book is written so as to be readily accessible to the general reader as well as to academics, and eschews the more arcane language that sometimes surrounds gendered subjects. The eight chapters are broad enough to cover an extensive range of crimes while remaining manageable in size. Vitally, the book considers the impact of what was largely an urban, rather than rural, environment on women's lives, and how this affected their offending and victimisation patterns.

The essays in this collection explore representations of and responses to sexual violence over the course of the long eighteenth century. Contributors examine the underlying ideologies that spawned these representations, confronting the social, political, legal and aesthetic conditions of the day.

This is the first scholarly biography of Cecily Neville, duchess of York, the mother of Edward IV and Richard III. She was said to have ruled Edward IV 'as she pleased' and Richard III made his bid for the throne from her home. Yet Cecily has been a shadowy figure in modern histories, noted primarily for her ostentatious piety, her expensive dresses, and the rumours of her adultery. Here J. L. Laynesmith draws on a wealth of rarely considered sources to construct a fresh and revealing portrait of a remarkable woman. Cecily was the only major protagonist to live right through the Wars of the Roses. This book sheds new light on that bloody conflict in which Cecily proved herself an exceptional political survivor. Skilfully manipulating her family connections and contemporary ideas about womanhood, Cecily repeatedly reinvented herself to protect her own status and to ensure the security of those in her care. From her childhood marriage to Richard duke of York until her final decade as grandmother of the first Tudor queen, the story of Cecily Neville's life provides a rich insight into national and local politics, women's power and relationships, motherhood, household dynamics and the role of religion in fifteenth-century England.

The twelve essays in Women and Wealth in Late Medieval Europe re-examine the vexing issue of women, money, wealth, and power from distinctive perspectives - literature, history, architectural history - using new archival sources. The contributors examine how money and changing attitudes toward wealth affected power relations between women and men of all ranks, especially the patriarchal social forces that constrained the range of women s economic choices. Employing theories on gender, culture, and power, this volume reveals wealth as both the motive force in gender relations and a precise indicator of other, more subtle, forms of power and influence mediated by gender.