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"A valuable collection that makes an important contribution to a topic very current in medieval feminist scholarship.... The articles successfully combine close readings with critical sophistication."--Nancy A. Jones, College of the Holy Cross and Brandeis University "Will appeal to the growing number of medievalists in English, history, French, and Spanish who are interested in the study of women in the Middle Ages."--Elizabeth Robertson, University of Colorado This volume brings together specialists from different areas of medieval literary study to focus on the role of habits of thought in shaping attitudes toward women during the Middle Ages. The collection is unusual in the breadth of its coverage and diversity of its critical approaches. The essays range from Old English literature to the Spanish Inquisition and encompass such genres as romance, chronicles, hagiography, and legal documents. In its use of well-known authors (Chaucer and Christine de Pizan) and lesser-known writers, this collection provides a rich and useful survey for researchers in women's studies and medieval literature. Introduction: Violence against Women and the Habits of Thought, by Anna Roberts The Violence of Exegesis: Reading the Bodies of lfric's Female Saints, by Shari Horner Women, Power, and Violence in Orderic Vitalis's Historia Ecclesiastica, by Jean Blacker The Mont St. Michel Giant: Sexual Violence and Imperialism in the Chronicles of Wace and Laamon, by Laurie Finke and Martin Shichtman Consuming Passions: Variations on the Eaten Heart Theme, by Madeleine Jeay The Rhetoric of Incest in the Middle English Emaré, by Anne Laskaya "Quiting" Eve: Violence against Women in the Canterbury Tales, by Angela Weisl Rivalry, Rape, and Manhood: Gower and Chaucer, by Carolyn Dinshaw Gender Subversion and Linguistic Castration in Fifteenth-Century English Translations of Christine de Pizan, by Jane Chance Domesticating the S