The Lady as Lord: The Exercise of Lordship by the Wives, Widows, and Heiresses of Territorial Lords of All Ranks and the Problems It Presented, ca. 1070-ca. 1500

Sponsoring Organization(s)

Seigneurie: The International Society for the Study of the Nobility, Lordship, and Knighthood

Organizer Name

D'Arcy Jonathan D. Boulton

Organizer Affiliation

Univ. of Notre Dame/Univ. of Toronto

Presider Name

D'Arcy Jonathan D. Boulton

Paper Title 1

Formal and Informal Expressions of Power in Twelfth- and Early Thirteenth-Century Flanders: The Public Roles of Mathilda of Portugal, Wife of Philip of Alsace, Count of Flanders (1183-1218)

Presenter 1 Name

Els de Paermentier

Presenter 1 Affiliation

Univ. Gent

Paper Title 2

Isabella of Lennox after the 1425 Executions: Successes and Failures of Female Power in Late Medieval Scotland

Presenter 2 Name

Shayna Devlin

Presenter 2 Affiliation

Univ. of Guelph

Paper Title 3

The Lady as Lord in the Fifteenth-Century Duchy of Bourbon

Presenter 3 Name

Maureen B. M. Boulton

Presenter 3 Affiliation

Univ. of Notre Dame/Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies

Start Date

11-5-2019 3:30 PM

Session Location

Schneider 2345

Description

This session examines the experiences of four women — one countesses and three duchesses — who acquired and successfully exercised high lordly powers in three countries and three centuries: Flanders in the twelfth and early thirteenth century, and Scotland and France in the fifteenth. Their quite different experiences cast considerable light on the range of problems ladies confronted in their capacity as territorial lords, and how they could be dealt with. D'Arcy Jonathan D. Boulton