Strong WomenLife, Text, and Territory 1347-1645

Abstract

Men have controlled the writing and keeping of books, in general, so women have long wondered: what will become of me, of the story of my life, when I die? It takes a strong woman, this book argues, to secure bookish remembrance in future times: to see her life becoming a life. David Wallace explores the lives of four Catholic women‐‐ Dorothea of Montau (1347–1394), Margery Kempe (c. 1373– c.1440), Mary Ward of Yorkshire (1585-1645), and Elizabeth Cary of Drury Lane (c. 1585–1639)‐ through their textual remains. All four shock, surprise, and deliberately court historical danger. Dorothea of Montau punishes her body, spends all day in church, and eight of her nine neglected children die; she becomes the first anchoritic, Teutonic saint of the Prussian frontier. Kempe, mother of fourteen, has anchoritic impulses but is impelled to travel; she finds inspiration, in London, to have her life chronicled. Ward, living holily but not behind walls, is denounced as an Apostolic Virago and a galloping girl; her movement eventually conquers the globe. Cary, playwright and author of historical lives, scandalizes her husband by turning Catholic; her four Benedictine nun daughters write her life but find it difficult to imagine their mother as saintly. Each woman is mulier fortis, a strong woman: had she been otherwise, her life would not have been written. Each woman is pressured to accept enclosure, a male-directed imperative to exclude her from public space; new forms of enclosure, the book argues, surround women today.

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