Katherine L. French

University of Michigan, History, Faculty Member

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I'm a historian of medieval England, and have written extensively about parishes and women. I am currently starting a project on material culture and late medieval London households.

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Justine Firnhaber-Baker

University of St Andrews

Alejandra B Osorio

Wellesley College

Andrea Peto

Central European University

Mantha Zarmakoupi

University of Pennsylvania

NUKHET VARLIK

Rutgers at Newark

Lucie Dolezalova

Charles University, Prague

Florin Curta

University of Florida

Viktória Kiss

Hungarian Academy of Sciences

Gary Feinman

Field Museum

Kati (Katalin) Prajda

University of Vienna

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Books by Katherine L. French

The Ties that Bind: Essays in Medieval British History in Honor of Barbara A. Hanawalt,

Parish in English Life, 1400-1600

Women and Gender in the Western Past

The Good Women of the Parish: Gender and Religion after the Black Death

People of the Parish: Community Life in a Late Medieval English Diocese

Papers by Katherine L. French

99.07.14, Shinners and Dohar, eds., Pastors and the Care of Souls in Medieval England

The Medieval Review, Jul 1, 1999

11.11.07, Rousseau, Saving the Souls of Medieval London

The Medieval Review, Nov 1, 2011

99.03.07, Watt, ed., Medieval Women in Their Communities

The Medieval Review, Mar 1, 1999

03.05.21, Poos, Lower Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction in Late-Medieval England

The Medieval Review, May 1, 2003

Sara M. Butler, The Language of Abuse: Marital Violence in Later Medieval England. (Later Medieval Europe, 2.) Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2007. Pp. xiii, 286; 4 black-and-white figures and tables. €96

Speculum, 2008

Page 1. 966 Reviews delve into exploring its cultural constructions. To the mind of the present r... more

Marjorie Keniston McIntosh, Poor Relief in England: 1350–1600. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012. Pp. xiii, 351. $99. ISBN: 9781107015081

Speculum, 2013

Review Hill, Women and Religion in Late Medieval Norwich. (Royal Historical Society Studies in History.) Woodbridge, Suffolk, UK: Boydell Press, 2010. Pp. xiii, 220; color and b&w figs. and 1 map. $90. ISBN: 9780861933044

Speculum, 2012

Fasti ecclesiae Anglicanae, 1066-1300, 6: York

Speculum, 2002

Women’s Voices in Tudor Wills, 1485–1603: Authority, Influence and Material Culture, by Susan E. James

The English Historical Review, 2016

The Midwives of Seventeenth-Century London (review)

Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 2001

Sacred Folly: A New History of the Feast of Fools by Max Harris (review)

Journal of Social History, 2013

Lay Religious Life in Late Medieval Durham

English Historical Review, 2008

Margaret Harvey's book is a welcome addition to the growing list of local studies on pre-Ref... more Margaret Harvey's book is a welcome addition to the growing list of local studies on pre-Reformation religious life. As with most such studies, one of the implied questions is how the quality and character of local religious life influenced the implementation of the Reformation. Harvey concludes ...

Alcohol, Violence, and Disorder in Traditional Europe (review)

J Interdiscipl Hist, 2010

Fearful Spirits, Reasoned Follies: The Boundaries of Superstition in Late Medieval Europe, by Michael D. Bailey

The English Historical Review, 2015

Daily Life during the Black Death

The Sixteenth Century Journal, 2008

The Ties that Bind: Essays in Medieval British History in Honor of Barbara A. Hanawalt,

Parish in English Life, 1400-1600

Women and Gender in the Western Past

The Good Women of the Parish: Gender and Religion after the Black Death

People of the Parish: Community Life in a Late Medieval English Diocese

99.07.14, Shinners and Dohar, eds., Pastors and the Care of Souls in Medieval England

The Medieval Review, Jul 1, 1999

11.11.07, Rousseau, Saving the Souls of Medieval London

The Medieval Review, Nov 1, 2011

99.03.07, Watt, ed., Medieval Women in Their Communities

The Medieval Review, Mar 1, 1999

03.05.21, Poos, Lower Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction in Late-Medieval England

The Medieval Review, May 1, 2003

Speculum, 2008

Page 1. 966 Reviews delve into exploring its cultural constructions. To the mind of the present r... more

Marjorie Keniston McIntosh, Poor Relief in England: 1350–1600. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012. Pp. xiii, 351. $99. ISBN: 9781107015081

Speculum, 2013

Speculum, 2012

Fasti ecclesiae Anglicanae, 1066-1300, 6: York

Speculum, 2002

Women’s Voices in Tudor Wills, 1485–1603: Authority, Influence and Material Culture, by Susan E. James

The English Historical Review, 2016

The Midwives of Seventeenth-Century London (review)

Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 2001

Sacred Folly: A New History of the Feast of Fools by Max Harris (review)

Journal of Social History, 2013

Lay Religious Life in Late Medieval Durham

English Historical Review, 2008

Alcohol, Violence, and Disorder in Traditional Europe (review)

J Interdiscipl Hist, 2010

Fearful Spirits, Reasoned Follies: The Boundaries of Superstition in Late Medieval Europe, by Michael D. Bailey

The English Historical Review, 2015

Daily Life during the Black Death

The Sixteenth Century Journal, 2008

Façade as Spectacle: Ritual and Ideology at Wells Cathedral

The Sixteenth Century Journal, 2006

Lincoln Wills, Vol. 4, 1532-1534

The Sixteenth Century Journal, 2003

Art and Architecture of Late Medieval Pilgrimage in Northern Europe and the British Isles

Renaissance Quarterly, 2006

... 405 Sarah Blick Chapter Seventeen Pilgrim Ampullae from Vendôme: Souvenirs from a Pilgrimage ... more

Patterns of Piety: Women, Gender and Religion in Late Medieval and Reformation England

Renaissance Quarterly, 2005

Acceso de usuarios registrados. Acceso de usuarios registrados Usuario Contraseña. ...

Images of Plague and Pestilence: Iconography and Iconology

Renaissance Quarterly, 2003

“Competing for Space: the Monastic-Parochial Church in Dunster”

“The Legend of Lady Godiva and the Image of the Female Body”

“Women in the Late Medieval English Parish”

“To Free Them From Binding: Women in the Late Medieval English Parish,”

“I Leave My Best Gown as a Vestment: Women’s Spiritual Interests in the Late Medieval English Parish”

“Maidens’ Lights and Wives’ Stores: Women’s Parish Guilds in Late Medieval England”

“Social History, Women’s History, and the British Archive System”

“The Seat Under Our Lady: Gender and Seating in the Late Medieval English Parish Church”

“Women Churchwardens in Late Medieval England”

“Loving Friends: Surviving Widowhood in Late Medieval Westminster”

Although medieval moralists routinely warned against women socialising with either men or women, ... more Although medieval moralists routinely warned against women socialising with either men or women, this article argues that friendships were instrumental in helping women survive widowhood. In medieval Europe, widowhood was frequently a time of vulnerability and poverty. Unscrupulous businessmen and other opportunists often preyed upon widows. Looking at the different ways men and women in Westminster made their wills and analysing those chosen to administer them reveals that widows frequently turned to the husbands of their friends to execute their wills and oversee their estates.

“Margery Kempe and the Parish”

“Rebuilding St. Margaret’s: Parish Involvement and Community Action in Late Medieval Westminster,”

“Medieval Sources for Women’s History,”

Well-Behaved Women Can Make History:Women’s Friendships in Late Medieval Westminster

Writing Women’s Lives, eds. Amy Livingstone and Charlotte Newman Goldy (Basingstoke: Palgrave/MacMillan, 2012), 247-65.

“Painted Cloths in Late Medieval London Houses,”

Setting the Scene, European Painted Cloths from the Fourteenth to the Twenty-First , eds. Christina Young and Nicola Costaras (London: Archtype Press, 2013), 27-33.

“Nouveaux Arts de la table et convivialitiés sexuées (Angleterre, fin de l’epoque médiévale),” Clio, 40:1(2014), 45-67.

"'An Honest Bed': The Scene of Life and Death in Late Medieval England."

by Kathryn A Smith, Katherine L. French, and Sarah Stanbury

Our paper explores the bed as a moral object that projects notions of status, decorum, and aspira... more Our paper explores the bed as a moral object that projects notions of status, decorum, and aspiration. We are also interested in the strategies of mimesis and allegory that inhere in the bed, bedding, and the bedroom in late medieval England, as described in wills and household accounts, and as evoked in literary and artistic imagery. We situate our analysis in relation to literal and represented household beds, those associated with birth and inheritance and also those portrayed in images of death. “Childbed” and “deathbed” are terms that not only frame the human lifecycle, but also invoke a space rich in moral innuendo and social commentary.

“Material Culture of Childbirth in Late Medieval London and its Suburbs,” Journal of Women’s History 28: 2(2016): 126-48.

Outside the experiences of a few royals and aristocrats, we know relatively little about medieval... more Outside the experiences of a few royals and aristocrats, we know relatively little about medieval childbirth. To recover something of the concerns and priorities of medieval women as they carried, birthed, and nurtured infants, this article analyzes the material culture that bourgeois women in late medieval London used in childbirth. While late medieval women feared infertility, miscarriage, a long and painful labor, and the possibly of death for themselves or their child, the curation of childbirth items after the fact shows us that childbirth invoked family stories and was an investment in family lineage at a time when London families rarely lasted more than three generations through the male line. The items and their curation demonstrate that women valued their own role in the process of bringing babies into the world.

"'An Honest Bed': The Scene of Life and Death in Late Medieval England"

by Kathryn A Smith and Katherine L. French

Our article explores the bed as an object that projects notions of status, aspiration, decorum, a... more Our article explores the bed as an object that projects notions of status, aspiration, decorum, and morality. We are interested in the economic and symbolic values that accrue to the bed, bedding, and the bedroom in late medieval England, as described in wills and household accounts, and as evoked in literary and artistic imagery. We situate our analysis in relation to literal and represented household beds, those associated with birth and inheritance and also those portrayed in images of death. " Childbed " and " deathbed " are terms that frame the human lifecycle. They also invoke the most important item of furniture in the premodern household.

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