WOMEN ADVISING WOMEN
Advice Books, Manuals and Journals for Women, 1450-1837

Part 5: Women's Writing and Advice, 1450-1700

The Women Advising Women series makes available in a convenient form a broad range of advice manuals, conduct books and periodicals aimed at women. These offer comment and advice on courtship and marriage; childbirth and the rearing of children; diet and household management; women’s education and careers; fashion and entertainment; suitable literature and improving role models; and the law and medicine in relation to women. In doing so they tell us a great deal about attitudes towards women, relations between the sexes and the hopes and expectations of women.

Parts 1-4 of this series have concentrated predominantly on the period from 1700 to 1837 (a companion project entitled Women and Victorian Values extends this from 1837 to 1910). This fifth part of Women Advising Women broadens this project in two ways. Firstly, it concentrates on the period c1450-1720, thus providing a background to the first four parts. Secondly, it offers a greater range of women’s creative writing. It was felt necessary to include such works to make up for the lack of journals and advice books in the medieval and early modern period. Novels, poems and plays by women provide many insights into female roles.

Although material for the early modern period is not as plentiful as for later centuries, a wide range of works were produced by, for and about women that reveal much about their lives and expectations. Advice books, ballads, prophesies, plays, poems, letters and memorials all provide unique insights into contemporary perceptions of women and reveal the complex and often contradictory nature of their place and role in society. As well as covering a broad range of works, the years covered by this collection highlights the changing nature of women’s writing. Just one theme highlighted in this collection is the trend away from the mainly devotional and moral works of the medieval period, toward the populist secular works of writers such as Aphra Behn, Delarivier Manley and Susanna Centilevre.

The selection criteria for Women Advising Women Part 5 tried to encompass the whole gamut of writing that concerned women; of most interest were works written by women themselves, but it was also felt necessary to include works for women but which were written by men. The division of early modern society into different social groups and categories was a dominant theme, and thus it was felt that to accurately reflect concerns of the day it was important to look at items concerned with how men thought women should behave and what they should be interested in. Such male authors represented in this collection include:
William Whately - A Bride-bush: The duties of married persons
Patrick Hannay - Directions for a maid to choose her mate
Roger Carr - A Godly Forme of household Government
Gervase Markham - Country Contentments or ,The English Housewife
T E - The Lawes Resolution of Women's Rights
John Milton - The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce
Joseph Swetnam - The Arraignment of Lewde, Idle, Froward, and Unconstant Women

For the convenience of readers we have divided the material up under eight separate sub-headings as follows:

Medieval Women Writers covers manuscript editions of the works of three important writers whose influence in England was significant and who are all well represented in the holdings of the Bodleian Library. Marie de France (twelfth century) is the earliest known French poet. Her writings became very influential, not only in France, but also in medieval England. Christine de Pisan (c1363-1429) was forced to turn to writing as a profession following the death in 1389 of her husband. Her works are well known for their treatment of women’s roles and social positions. The writings of Margarite de Navarre (1492-1549) are significant for their female perspective on issues. In Le Mirior l’ame pecheresse, she refers to the soul as female, whilst the Heptameron emphasises the arguments between female and male storytellers. Le Mirior is doubly interesting as it was translated the young Elizabeth Tudor, later to be Queen of England. Women as Translators pays testimony to the fact that many women entered the academic and authorial sphere through their roles as translators. Margaret Beaufort (1441-1509) Countess of Richmond and mother to Henry VII, Mary Herbert, and Agnes More, a sixteenth century Cambrai nun, were all very different women linked by their multi-lingual abilities. The three texts translated by them that we have chosen, are also of intrinsic interest to those studying advice literature. Elizabeth Tudor’s translation of Le Mirior l’ame pecheresse from the previous section could also have been included here.

Broadsides and Ballads are an important and attractive, but often under-utilised, genre for the study of gender differentiation and stereotyping at a popular level. The Douce Collection consists of over five hundred ballads, collected by the Antiquarian Francis Douce (1757-1834). The majority of ballads in the two volumes reproduced here relate to women in one way or another: many cover the traditional theme of love and marriage, whilst others admonish or warn women against excesses of behaviour or provide examples of virtuous women to be emulated. A number, such as The Politick Maid of Suffolke tell of women outsmarting men. Several, like The Woman to the Plow and the Man to the Hen-Roost and The Female Warrior, take the theme of role reversal. The Douce Collection is followed by The Roxburghe Ballads. Published in 1847, this book counting re-prints of a number of early modern ballads originally collected by the Duke of Roxburghe.

Women, the Church and Prophets shows the extent to which women have been able to contribute to the shaping of religious thought. Beginning with the anchorite Julian of Norwich (c1343-1413), this section rapidly moves on to cover the turbulent years of the mid seventeenth century. Lady Eleanor (Audley) Douglas (1590-1652) was particularly active during the Civil War period and wrote a number of pamphlets prophesising future events and warning (amongst other things) of the imminent end of the world. Mary (Rand) Cary (1621-c1653) was another pamphleteer who mixed radical religious and political prophesies at this time. A ‘Fifth Monarchist’ in her religious beliefs, she was a fervent supporter of the Parliament’s cause during the Civil War.

Gertrude More (1606-1633) was no less spirited than her radical contemporaries Cary and Douglas, but belonged to a different tradition. Like her aunt Agnes More, she was a devout Catholic, and a founder member of the Benedictine Convent at Cambrai which she helped establish in 1623. Her Spiritual Exercises, published in Paris in 1658 present the ideals and concerns of a mid seventeenth century English Catholic.

Margaret Fell (1614-1702) became a Quaker in 1652 and from that time on she was a leading figure in the movement. She published Women’s Speaking Justified in 1666 as a reasoned and scholarly defence of the rights of women to ‘speak the word of the Lord’ in certain instances.

Advice Books for Women begins with Jacob Rueff’s textbook on childbirth. This is followed by various treatises and sermons extolling the virtues of, and necessary ingredients for, a successful marriage. Reel Six continues the theme with several works by Gervase Markham giving instructions for day-to-day living. Country Contentments gives a wealth of information regarding the domestic duties of a housewife and the different fields in which she was expected to operate. Reel Seven opens with The Lawe’s Resolution of Women’s Rights, perhaps one of the most widely quoted texts on the legal position of women during the seventeenth century. This is followed by the poet Milton’s radical treatise in support of divorce. Also included here is Nicholas Culpeper’s Directory for Midwives a vernacular handbook which makes a fascinating contrast to Rueff’s scholarly Latin work on the same subject. The section ends with Mary Astell’s Serious Proposal advocating the education of women, and Edward Stephen’s Letter to a Lady

Memorials to Women contains funerary orations and biographies of worthy women, providing a good source of literature regarding the conception of the ideal woman. Beginning with the dialogue between the Protestant martyr Anne Askew and her inquisitor, this section also includes Anne Dudley’s biography of Marguerite de Navarre, and Samuel Clarke’s Lives of Sundry Eminent Persons which includes several women. The Monument of Matrones is a fascinating collection that includes many of the most notable writings by sixteenth century women. Patrick Hannay provides two elegies on the death of Anne of Denmark, wife of James I; whilst Anthony Walker’s Sermon Eureka, Eureka pays glowing testimony to Mary, Countess Dowager of Warwick, the most illustrious pattern of sincere piety, and solid goodness this age hath produced. The final item is Elizabeth Jocelyn’s Legacie to her unborn childe, a touching book written for the instruction of her child should she not survive giving birth.

Pamphlet Disputes are a favourite source for students with their robust language and no holds barred approach to argument and debate. Joseph Swetnam starts the first dispute with his 1615 Arraignment of Lewde, Idle, froward and Unconstant Women (the 1733 edition has also been included as an example of how works could be reprinted over a long period of time). His attack on women provokes a rapid response headed by Constantia Munda’s Worming of a Mad Dogge which sets about Swetnam’s work with a righteous fury. Ester Sowerman continues the defence of women kind with her more scholarly but no less spirited pamphlet Ester hath hang’d Haman, which is followed by Rachel Speght’s A Mouzell for Melastomus. The final counter to Swetnam is provided by a play, Swetnam the Women hater, showing how such disputes could spill out into wider context. Other pamphlets cover women’s right to rule Petticoat Government, and its counter The Prerogative of Breeches.

Key Women Writers attempts to provide major works of the key figures of medieval and early modern women authors. Whilst not pretending to be exhaustive, the included works provide a good representative selection.

Margaret Cavendish (1623-1673) is perhaps one of the most fascinating authors in this collection with her wide range of her work that includes plays, poems, philosophy, letters, scientific observations and orations. Although wife of the royalist Duke of Newcastle, most of her major works were first published in England during the Commonwealth and Protectorate periods. This contradiction is mirrored in the corpus of her writings which offer various interpretations on the role of women in society. The Orations, in particular, contains a fascinating selection of arguments highlighting a range opinions regarding the behaviour and expectations of women.

Aphra Behn (1640-1689) was one of the leading playwrights of the restoration and (probably) the first English woman to earn a living from writing. Her works ,noted for their wit and pace, were often first staged at the Duke of York’s Theatre. Many of her plays, such as The Roundheads and The The Banish’t Cavaliers, are of a distinctly Tory flavour, poking fun at the Whigs and their Parliamentary sympathies. Sex and relations between the sexes is another recurrent theme in her works, The Luckey Chance, The Dutch Lover and Love Letters all deal in various ways with such topics.

Delarivier Manley (1663-1724) is often viewed as the successor to Aphra Behn as the leading female playwright and novelist. Her thinly disguised satire on the Duchess of Marlborough, The Secret History of Queen Zarah, gained her some notoriety and helped establish her Tory credentials. Like Behn, many of her works take sex relations as a theme, Rivella in particular, is an autobiographical work that looks in depth at attitudes to women’s sexual behaviour.

Susanna Centilevre (1669-1723) was a contemporary of Manley writing upon similar themes, although from a Whiggish perspective. Her plays including Love's Contrivance, The Mans Bewitched, The Stolen Heiress, The Wonder: a woman keeps a secret, and A Bold Strike for a Wife, are all marked with a sense of wit and fast paced action.

The Comptesse de la Fayette (1634-1693) was another highly influential author. Probably her greatest work, The Princess of Cleves, was translated into English in 1679 and has been described as "a landmark of fiction". It is reproduced here alongside her biography of Henrietta, daughter of Charles I.

Madeleine de Scudery (1607-1701) was, like the Comptesse de la Fayette, another French writer popular in England. Her works, published under the name of her brother Georges, were influential to English authors throughout the later seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries.

In most cases the works included here are the earliest editions held by the Bodleian Library, in a few cases a later edition has also been included to show how that work developed over the years to appeal to a later generation. Most of the items in Part 5 are printed material in English, which should provide few problems even for those unaccustomed to working with early source material. A few items though, particularly on Reel One, are hand-written in a variety of scripts , but on the whole they are very legible and should not pose a great problem to those experienced in using such manuscripts, or learning about medieval palaeography. Each item is preceded by an identification target giving its Bodleian shelf mark.

Some of the items have been bound together by previous owners to form a single volume. In some instances, works not strictly relevant to this project have been included if they constituted a small part of such a volume (eg Simon Harward’s treatise on propagating plants in Reel Six, George Grenville’s and Elkanah Settle’s plays on Reel Fourteen). This is only done where the item is a small part of the total volume and helps to give the context for the pertinent works. Where relevant items form a minority of a large volume, only the relevant portion has been filmed. For example, Constantia Munda’s The Worming of a Mad Dogge (43pp), is part of a collection of thirteen pamphlets (of over 200 pages), twelve of which are not strictly appropriate. In cases such as this the other items have not been included. Items that have been bound into volumes can be recognised by their shelf mark which will end in a number in brackets referring to its position in the volume. For example, Mary Chudleigh’s The Female Advocate has the shelf mark 2699 f. 3 (13), indicating that it is the thirteenth item in volume 2699 f. 3.

Attention should also be drawn to the nature of the original material. Despite their age and usage, most of the items included in this collection are in excellent condition and have been reproduced with great clarity. Inevitably with this kind of material, a few items have suffered discolouration or staining of the paper rendering the original document difficult to read. The majority of the original items in Part 5 are printed items bound into volumes. Again this can lead to problems in a very few cases where the tightness of the binding has caused some difficulty in filming. It is also worth noting that many of the works included in this collection have erratic pagination. This is due to errors on the part of the original printer when setting the type. Thus, the pagination and foliation given in the Detailed Listing should be taken only as an estimate of the size of each work.

Women Advising Women Part 5 brings together a fascinating selection of material that gives a good representation of women's writing from the early modern period and its development over the years. Whether used on its own, or as background to Parts 1-4 of this series, this collection provides a unique reference for historians and literary scholars.
Thomas Gray

NOTE
As an additional aid to scholars, we have also provided a list of items appearing in Part 1 and Part 2 of Women Advising Women, which relate to the period 1450-1720. A detailed list of the most relevant of these, along with their location can be found on page 53 of the guide.