Book contents
- Lives, Identities and Histories in the Central Middle Ages
- Lives, Identities and Histories in the Central Middle Ages
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Contributors
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- Part I Entwined Lives and Multiple Identities
- 1 Mother and Motherhood in the Vita et Passio Willelmi Norwicensis
- 2 Prayer for the Dead:
- 3 Authority over Men and the Allocation of Riches:
- 4 Flemish Settlement and Maritime Traffic in the South-West Peninsula of Britain, c. 1050–1250
- 5 Cistercians and the Laity in Twelfth- and Thirteenth-Century Upper Normandy
- 6 Memory and Trauma:
- 7 New Charters of the Empress Matilda, with Particular Reference to Her Reception at Gloucester in 1139
- 8 Female Identity before 1250:
- Part II Historians, Lawyers and Exegetes: Writing Lives and Identities
- Index
1 - Mother and Motherhood in the Vita et Passio Willelmi Norwicensis
from Part I - Entwined Lives and Multiple Identities
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 September 2021
- Lives, Identities and Histories in the Central Middle Ages
- Lives, Identities and Histories in the Central Middle Ages
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Contributors
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- Part I Entwined Lives and Multiple Identities
- 1 Mother and Motherhood in the Vita et Passio Willelmi Norwicensis
- 2 Prayer for the Dead:
- 3 Authority over Men and the Allocation of Riches:
- 4 Flemish Settlement and Maritime Traffic in the South-West Peninsula of Britain, c. 1050–1250
- 5 Cistercians and the Laity in Twelfth- and Thirteenth-Century Upper Normandy
- 6 Memory and Trauma:
- 7 New Charters of the Empress Matilda, with Particular Reference to Her Reception at Gloucester in 1139
- 8 Female Identity before 1250:
- Part II Historians, Lawyers and Exegetes: Writing Lives and Identities
- Index
Summary
Chapter 1 explores the motherhood in the Vita et passio Willelmi Norwicensis, a mid-twelfth century text composed by a monk of Norwich Cathedral Priory. This was a hagiographical account of the twelve-year-old William's life and his death, as his family claimed, at the hands of Jews. Motherhood was frequently invoked: in foretelling the future martyr's birth, as witness to his precocious religiosity and to enhance the pathos of a child's death. William's mother was not only his intimate nurturer, but also a weak female, whose failure betrayed William to the Jews. The chapter also considers the experience of a feminist scholar as mother: can she draw on experience to further historical understanding?
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- Information
- Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2021