The Paston Women

The Paston letters form one of only two surviving collections of fifteenth-century correspondence, in their case especially rich in letters from the women of the family. Clandestine love affairs, secret marriages, violent family rows, bickering with neighbours, battles and sieges, threats of murder and kidnapping, fears of plague: these are just some of the topics discussed in the letters of the Paston women. Diane Watt's introduction seeks to place these letters in the context of medieval women's writing and medieval letter writing. Her interpretive essay reconstructs the lives of these women by examining what the letters reveal about women's literacy and education, life in the medieval household, religion and piety, health and medicine, and love, marriage, family relationships, and female friendships in the middle ages. Diane Watt is Professor of English at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth.

ISBN	1843840243	Volumes	1
ISBN13	9781843840244 (What's this?)	Weight (grammes)	254
Publisher	Boydell & Brewer Ltd	Published in	Cambridge
Imprint	D.S. Brewer	Series ISSN	1369-965
Format	Paperback	Series title	Library of Medieval Women
Publication date	25 Nov 2004	Height (mm)	230
Library of Congress	DA240.P37	Width (mm)	152
DEWEY	929.20942	Spine width (mm)	15
DEWEY edition	DC21	Academic level	Professional / Scholarly
Pages	190

		Three generations of women's letters		1
		Relationships between the female correspondents and the Paston family		17
		Calendar		18
		The letters and papers of Agnes Berry Paston		23
		The letters and papers of Elizabeth Paston Poynings or Browne		39
		The letters and papers of Margaret Mautby Paston		45
		The letters of Elizabeth Clere		116
		The letters of Dame Elizabeth Brews		121
		The letters of Cecily Daune and Constance Reynyforth		125
		The letters of Margery Brews Paston		127
		'In the absence of a good secretary': the letters, lives, and loves of the Paston women reconsidered		134

Watt's translations balance both readability and literalness. (...)an accessible edition devoted to one of the most interesting set of extant documents written by late medieval English women. MEDIEVAL REVIEW

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Paston letters.

Diane Watt

Boydell & Brewer Ltd