Date of Award
8-2009
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Arts (MA)
Department
History
Committee Member
Caroline Dunn, Committee Chair
Committee Member
Thomas Kuehn
Committee Member
Stephanie Barczewski
Abstract
Widows who lived in fifteenth-century England present an interesting case study
for their exercises of agency through personal piety because they are underrepresented in
the historiographical discussion on this topic. This thesis focuses largely on widowed
laywomen and the different ways in which they could access agency through personal
piety and the legal system. The examination of their choices in donations, bequests, and
other pious actions reveals widows' ability to express themselves. The chief focus of this
thesis are the ways in which widows' actions of personal piety provided them with access
points to agency, authority, and power. While there has been much study on women's
piety and women's agency, this study seeks to fill historiographical gaps by combining
these aspects of medieval Englishwomen's lives as they experienced them in the fifteenth
century.
Recommended Citation
Bailey, Mikkaela B., "Relict: Widows and Their Expressions of Agency Through Personal Piety and Religious Devotion in Fifteenth-Century England" (2009). All Theses. 3172.
https://open.clemson.edu/all_theses/3172