Urban Women: Life, Love, and Work in the Medieval Low Countries

Exploring women’s stories of work, protest, and power in the medieval Low Countries

The Middle Ages--a time often cast as a dark period when violence reigned and men dominated society. Women, as the deeply rooted cliché would have it, played scarcely any part. But this book tells a different story, one in which women step forward as the main characters. In the southern Low Countries, townswomen held substantial rights, which they used to conduct business, voice their opinions, and assert their will.

Urban Women presents a different and lesser-known image of the late Middle Ages, from 1250 to 1550. The authors trace the lives of women protesting, marrying, making love, working, and engaging in the daily life of Low Countries towns. In doing so, this book gives voice to wealthy businesswomen, laborers, religious women, criminals, and sex workers, spotlighting the remarkable figures who shaped a ＂women’s town＂ within a man’s world.

English translation of Wijvenwereld, Chanelle Delameillieure, Andrea Bardyn, Jelle Haemers (red.), (Uitgeverij Vrijdag 2021)

Jelle Haemers is professor in Medieval History at KU Leuven. He teaches the political and social history of the Middle Ages. The urban history of the southern Low Countries is the focus of his research.

Andrea Bardyn (PhD) studies inequalities between men and women in the medieval economy and marital power relations.

Chanelle Delameillieure is lecturer in Medieval History at KU Leuven-KULAK. Her expertise and research focus are on the social and cultural history of the late medieval Low Countries.