MEDIEVAL AND EARLY MODERN WOMEN

Part 2: Household Books, Correspondence and Manuscripts owned by women from the British Library, London

This project brings together a unique collection of manuscripts from the 12th to the 17th centuries describing women's lives, their status, and their literary achievements.  Part 2 is based on the holdings of the British Library and contains:

• Household and Recipe Books of a dozen women from 1465 to 1700, describing their budgets and lifestyles - and with information on diet, cookery, celebrations, illness, childbirth, and the garden.
• Important Association copies - Prayers and Meditations of Katharine Parr; the Hours of Margaret Beaufort; a Compendion Historiall, owned by Jane Wriothsley, 1528; and The Romance of Diana, of Elizabeth Bourchier, 1643.
• Manuscripts from Syon Abbey, including a Vulgate Bible, c1300; the 15th century Confessor Generalis,  and Orders and Constitutions of Nuns; a Martyrologium and Hours of the Virgin. 
• Correspondence and records of ten women including Mary Evelyn and family, 1634-1824; Lady Jane Grey; Arabella Stuart; Dorothy Conway; and the Religious conversations at Little Gidding between John Ferrar, Susanna Collet and her daughters, c1630.