The attempt to recover, and to understand, the contribution that women have made to the societies of the past is often hampered by the shortage and incidental nature of the suviving evidence. This is particularly true for the women of the Middle Ages, who - unless they were nuns, saints or queens - made little mark in the contemporary record, and have even less chance of emerging from that record as individual personalities today.
In the later Middle Ages, however, enough material can be gathered and sifted about the noblewomen of England for a start to be made in portraying the lives of women in at least the upper strata of lay society. This is what Jennifer C. Ward notably achieves in her vivid and pioneering study. The later Middle Ages saw a number of formidable dowagers at the forefront of English society; and Dr. Ward uses one of these - Lady Elizabeth de Burgh (1295-1360), youngest sister of the last Gilbert de Clare, earl of Gloucester, who was killed at Bannockburn - as a continuing case-study through the book, to place the various 'life-roles' of her kind and class in a specific context.
Dr. Ward examines these women in their different roles - as daughters and heiresses, as wives and mothers, as widows, as patrons and religious benefactors. Their political opportunities were few, and in a male-dominated world their concerns and status were those of their menfolk: yet, as Dr Ward shows, they could be powerful figures themselves. For, in a landed society, although noblewomen were married by their families in the family interest, as wives they took on the responsibility of running their households, and often their estates, during the frequent absences of their husbands. Moreover, if the wife became a widow, she often became responsible for her late husband's affairs, and for the defence of her inheritance on behalf of her children and her family.
Noblewomen enjoyed a luxurious and showy lifestyle, using wealth and display to enhance their standing and prestige. Dr Ward reveals how, through the exercise of hospitality and patronage, they not only kept in touch with their friends and maintained the standards of their rank, but also built up their affinities - networks of clientage, obligation and mutual interest. The noble lady was expected to be charitable, to extend her patronage to many different social groups, and to be strict in her religious observance and benefaction - for the honour of her house and for the ultimate salvation of herself and her family.
This is a thorough and authoritative study that fills important gaps in medieval and social history, and in the rapidly-expanding and increasingly-popular field of women's history. It is however, a book of far wider appeal than the students and academics at whom it is primarily aimed; and anyone who cares about the past, and the place of women in society, will find a wealth of material in it to interest and enjoy.