Book Series Cultural Encounters in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, vol. 44

Women in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages

Studies from Western Europe and North Africa

Éric Fournier, Maijastina Kahlos (eds)

  • Pages: approx. 350 p.
  • Size:156 x 234 mm
  • Illustrations:7 b/w, 5 col.
  • Language(s):English
  • Publication Year:2026


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  • ISBN: 978-2-503-61773-2
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This collection of essays examines the lives of women of all classes during the centuries after the 'fall of Rome' across the various 'Barbarian' kingdoms of the Western Mediterranean and Europe.

BIO

Eric Fournier is Professor of History at West Chester University of Pennsylvania (USA)

Maijastina Kahlos is Principal Researcher at the Centro de Estudos Clássicos of the University of Lisbon (Portugal).

Summary

This collection of essays examines the lives of women of all classes during the centuries during and after the ‘fall of Rome’ across the various ‘Barbarian’ kingdoms of the Western Mediterranean and Europe. In order to address an important gap in current scholarship on women and gender in the post-Roman Western kingdoms, these contributions were assembled based on a series of panels presented at the Leeds International Medieval Conference in 2022. The volume focuses particularly on a bottom-up perspective, to analyse the place, role, and experiences of women in the daily life of the period, and on how such an approach might alter our view of the social, cultural, and religious history of these kingdoms. Limited by our sources, however, we also investigate the absence of women and gender concerns in our texts, and look for alternative fonts of knowledge, such as material culture, archaeology, poetry and epigraphy.

The collection enriches our knowledge of women and gender in early medieval Western Europe and North Africa, especially by paying close attention to the social and cultural realities of lower-class women during this period.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Women in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages: An Introduction
MAIJASTINA KAHLOS AND ÉRIC FOURNIER

‘Forced Mobility’ of Servants and Slave-Girls in Late Antique Christianity
JESSICA VAN’T WESTEINDE

Has geminas artes: Textiles and Poetry in the Work of Attusia Lucana Sabina
HOPE WILLIARD

Women in Vandal Africa
ERIC FOURNIER

Seeking Female Experience in the Verse of Vandal-Era Carthage
MARK TIZZONI

Some Preliminary Evidence from the Letters of Avitus of Vienne on Women and Gender in the Burgundian Hegemony
BECA GROSE

Grace, Free Will, and ‘Unavoidable’ Sex: Women in Service in the Early Medieval West
LISA BAILEY

Images of Women Dissident Ritualists in the Post-Roman World: Comparisons and Continuities
MAIJASTINA KAHLOS

The Late Antique Widow: Liberalitas, Exemplarity and Conflict
MICHAEL HANAGHAN

Memories of Women Martyrs in Late Antique and Visigothic Iberia
MAR MARCOS

Threshold Spaces: Making Female Ascetic Communities in Visigothic-Era Baetica
JAMIE WOOD

Material Perspectives on Women’s Monasticism in Visigothic Iberia
GRACE STAFFORD

Secular Women in the Lombard Kingdom
LAURY SARTI

Conclusions
BONNIE EFFROS

Index