One of the last great female humanist writers active in fifteenth-century Italy, Laura Cereta (born in Brescia, 1469–1499) was the first to put women’s issues and her friendships with women front and center in her CERETA, LAURA
works. The daughter of a Brescian attorney, at the age of fifteen Cereta married a Venetian merchant, Pietro Serina, and was widowed a year later. Schooled in Latin and the classics by nuns, Cereta participated in humanist circles both in Brescia and the monastery at Chiari, where she may have first presented her comic dialogue ‘‘On the Death of an Ass’’ and read selec-tions from her letterbook. Her letters, half of them to women, indicate how fully she saw herself as enmeshed in a historically constituted community of female intellectuals—a republic of women, muliebris respublica, as she portrayed the world she imagined (Robin 1997, p. 80). Containing eighty-two Latin epistles and her satirical dialogue, also in Latin, her collected Epistolae circulated widely, bringing her fame in her own lifetime, although the work did not appear in a printed edition until 1640, in Padua.
Among her most passionately charged letters are those to her husband, revealing her struggle for power in the relationship and later her terrible grief at his death (Robin 1997, pp. 87–113). In a dispatch to the Brescian magistrate Luigi Dandolo she exposes the atrocities of war she witnessed with her own eyes when German troops invaded Rovereto and Calliano (Robin 1997, pp. 160–169). And in a pair of feminist manifestos, she dismisses the institutions of marriage and motherhood as traps to enslave women (to Pietro Zecchi, in Robin 1997, pp. 64–72). She also defends women’s right to higher education, arguing that the female sex already has a brilliant history of poets, orators, scholars, and prophets (to Bibolo Semproni, in Robin 1997, pp. 72–80). Another diptych of philo-sophical letters, to the nun Deodata di Leno and a woman she calls ‘‘Europa solitaria,’’ argues the case for and against Epicureanism. She asks, should the pleasures of the body be chosen at risk of abandoning one’s duties as a citizen (Robin 1997, pp. 115–128)?
Cereta’s letters anticipate themes associated with the early feminism of the Enlightenment: namely, the representation of women as a collective and a commu-nity; the preoccupation with reconceptualizing gender;
the privileging of the emotions in a genre assumed to be the exclusive domain of reason (humanist letters); the construction of housework as a barrier to women’s intellectual aspirations; and the use of the salon and salon writing (for Cereta, the monastery and the letter) as a bridge for women into the public arena.
DIANAROBIN
References and Further Reading
Cereta’s letterbooks are extant in Rome (Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana. Vat. Lat. 3176. Cart. 3.
XVI in 73 fols. Contains eighty-three items); and Venice (Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana. Marc. Cod. Lat., XI.28
[4186] mbr. XV, 154 fols. Includes seventy-four items containing many lacunae.)
Cereta, Laura. Laurae Ceretae Brixiensis Feminae Clarissi-mae Epistolae iam primum e MS in lucem productae, edited by Jacopo Filippo Tomasini. Padua: Sebastiano Sardi, 1640.
———. Collected Letters of a Renaissance Feminist, trans-lated and edited by Diana Robin. Chicago and London:
University of Chicago Press, 1997.
King, Margaret L. and Albert Rabil, Jr. Her Immaculate Hand: Selected Works By and About the Women Huma-nists of Quattrocento Italy. Binghamton, NY: Medieval and Renaissance Texts, 1983.
Palma, M. ‘‘Cereto, Laura,’’ in Dizionario biografico degli italiani 729–730.
Rabil, Albert Jr. Laura Cereta: Quattrocento Humanist.
Binghamton, NY: Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, 1981.
Robin, Diana. ‘‘Space, Woman, and Renaissance Discourse,’’
in Sex and Gender in Medieval and Renaissance Texts: The Latin Tradition, edited by Barbara K. Gold, Paul Allen Miller, Charles Platter. Albany: State University of New York of New York Press, 1996, pp. 165–187.
———. ‘‘Humanism, Italy,’’ pp. 153–157; ‘‘Laura Cereta,’’
pp. 46–48; ‘‘The Querelle des Femmes in Renaissance Italy,’’ pp. 270–273; ‘‘Learned Women,’’ pp. 169–171, in the Feminist Encyclopedia of Italian Literature, edited by Rinaldina Russell, Westport, Conn: Greenwood Press, 1997b, pp. 153–157.
———. ‘‘Culture, Imperialism, and Humanist Criticism in the Italian City-States,’’ in The Cambridge History of Literary Criticism, Volume 3: The Renaissance. 1500–
1700, edited by Glyn P. Norton. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999, pp. 355–363.
———. ‘‘Cereta, Laura,’’ in Encyclopedia of the Renais-sance. Editor in Chief, Paul F. Grendler. New York:
Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1999, 1: 393–394.
———. ‘‘Humanism and Feminism in Laura Cereta’s Pub-lic Letters,’’ in Women in Italian Renaissance Culture and Society, edited by Letizia Panizza. Oxford: Legenda European Humanities Research Centre, University of Oxford, 2000, pp. 368–384.
———. ‘‘Laura Cereta: Biography, Latin Texts, Transla-tions,’’ in Laurie Churchill, ed., Women Writing Latin, Vol. 3. New York: Routledge, 2002, pp. 83–108.
See also Defenses of Women; Fedele, Cassandra;
Humanism; Italy; Letter Writing; Nogarola, Isotta;
Renaissance, Historiography of; Sanuti, Nicolasa Castellani; Women Authors: Latin Texts
CHARIVARI
From the French, charivari was a pervasive and pop-ular ritual of shaming and humiliation, designed to single out, mock, punish and ultimately absorb devi-ant couples. The early versions of the ritual are found in the literature, iconography, and drama of the Mid-dle Ages, but the charivari comes to us in full-blown form during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The charivari is found across Europe and in various per-mutations. In English it is called ‘‘rough music,’’ the CERETA, LAURA
‘‘Skimmington ride,’’ or ‘‘the riding of the stang’’: in Italian, the scampanate and mattinata; in German it appears in various versions of the haberfeld-treiben, thierjagen, and katzenmusik.
Charivaris were characterized in general by noisy processions, attended by ‘‘rough music,’’ cacophonies of banging pots, lampooning songs or rhymes, pounding marrow bones and whistles, animal blad-ders filled with rattling peas, shouts, and sometimes gunshots. The term charivari, was meant to mimic the noise made during the ritual. Charivaris frequently occurred at night (often on successive nights), and although they may have had various functions as censors of societal behavior outside the norm, they were largely associated with deviance in marriage, the most usual subjects being: the age difference between couples who were about to marry; the censure of premarital sex; the exposure of adultery and cuckold-ry; the punishment for wife-beating; or the humilia-tion of the hen-pecked husband and/or the shrewish wife. They were also commonly used when a wedding deviated from expectation, for example, when a ritual
‘‘fee’’ in the form of either money, food, or drink to the guests was withheld.
Besides ‘‘rough music,’’ the charivari might be com-posed of several other dramatic elements. These might include the parading and/or burning of effigies; the
‘‘production’’ of a mime or play upon a cart; imagined hunt; parodies of religious or legal rituals; the parading of men ‘‘armed’’ with household weapons such as pitchforks and coalrakes; and the display of horns.
But the most important and pervasive aspect of the charivari involved the ‘‘riding’’ of the subject(s). This involved a mount of some sort, either a donkey or a horse, sometimes a cart, or a substitute horse;
in England a ‘‘cowlstaff’’ or ‘‘stang’’ pole carried on men’s shoulders. The riders might be the victims themselves, or there might be a proxy victim or an effigy; and riders might be presented as transvestite or unmasculine in nature. Sometimes victims were pelted with filth and might end up being ducked, sometimes with a ‘‘cucking stool,’’ into a shallow pool of dirty water, a duck pond, or a ditch. Often a rider was made to face backwards, and sometimes ridings were seasonal, actually imbedded in local festivals, as opposed to the singling out of a particular couple.
The ride of the victim(s) could range from comic to violent, resulting sometimes only in humiliation, other times in injury or even death.
THERESIA DEVROOM
References and Further Reading
Klapisch-Zuber, Christiane. Women, Family and Ritual in Renaissance Italy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
1985. See the chapter ‘‘The Mattinata in Medieval Italy,’’ pp. 261–282.
Mathews, Grieco S. F., ‘‘The Body, Appearance, and Sexu-ality.’’ In A History of Women in the West: Resistance and Enlightenment Paradoxes, edited by Natalie Zemon Davis and Arlette Farge. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1993, pp. 46–84.
Vroom, Theresia de. ‘‘In the Context of ‘Rough Music’:
The Representation of Unequal Couples in Some Medieval Plays.’’ European Medieval Drama 2 (1998):
237–260.
See also Honor and Reputation; Marriage, Christian;
Sexuality: Extramarital Sex; Sexuality: Female Same Sex Relations; Sexuality: Male Same-Sex Relations;
Sexuality, Regulation of; Sexuality: Sex in Marriage
CHARMS
See Magic and Charms
CHARTERS
Charters are documents written in a standardized way certifying such legal acts as contracts, donations, or testaments, as well as juridical, royal, or papal instruc-tions. From the downfall of the Roman administration until the sixth century, recording and keeping the for-mer more temporary charters to testify a juridical act was of increasing importance in the Middle Ages. For its value it was vital to include all people related to the act in the written testament as well as to name as many witnesses as possible. Charters therefore are consid-ered valuable sources because, contrary to normative texts, they describe authentic situations, and further unintentionally reveal information regarding social, political, and religious history. On the other hand, charters were subject to severe stylization. This resulted in the generous addition of invented details, where the common form required them; at the same time, uncommon features were left out.
Although limited in their ability to exercise and defend their rights, medieval women participated in these documented transactions as issuers, recipients, or subjects, but rarely as witnesses. Furthermore, noble women and abbesses had the privilege of certi-fying documents with their own seals from the twelfth century onward.
However, because of problematic and imbalanced textual traditions, charters of interest to ecclesias-tical institutions are better preserved than, for exam-ple, charters of endowment or grants in marriage, which are known through formularies and example-collections. Nevertheless, considering the chances of survival, important differences in time and area and even between male and female religious communities CHARTERS
must be noted. In Italy, for example, traditions of late antiquity resulted in early municipal documentation preserving private charters in great numbers.
Overall research on charters with regard to gender is still in its early stages. Herlihy (1962) undertook a quantitative analysis of the surviving early medieval private charters to gain an overview of the participa-tion of women in donaparticipa-tions to churches. Based on the results, he noted changes in women’s general abilities to possess land. He, as well as Wemple (1981), who concentrated her study on charters from the monas-tery of Lorsch, tried to explain the fluctuations in their statistics of donations through changes in law of succession and family structures. However, new research found that these changing patterns of inter-action were caused by declining interest in recording details: the more accepted the institution was, the less interest there was in documenting all persons partici-pating in the transaction. The transactions of female donors especially got lost.
Unintended documented details about social life in private charters and testaments such as information about tenure structures and family organization, ca-sual remarks about inheritance or purchase of hold-ings, as well as listings of owned or dedicated objects are rather more informative than quantitative studies.
Donations can inform us about cults of saints, com-memoration, and liturgical practices. However it is important to be aware of the formulaic and stylized elements in these documents.
Up to now, research regarding royal charters and women has focused on queens using their influence to intercede on behalf of prote´ge´es, and on situations in which queens issued charters themselves. Both situa-tions concern women’s political influence at royal courts.
As recipients female monasteries have also figured in studies interpreting the number and relevance of charters they received, and whether they could draft, copy, or archive them properly. Recent discussions have shown that religious women possessed fewer charters than their male counterparts, but whether that is due to lesser political relevance or a smaller chance of survival remains to be seen.
Overall the investigation of charters as sources, especially for women’s history, is still in the process of development. There are still voluminous collections of private charters and even complete monastic archives, which are not edited or even catalogued, especially regarding late medieval documents, which deserve more attention. Basically, while using charters as sources, one has always to consider the special forms of these texts, as well as the individual interests, chances of survival, and context of transmission.
KATRINETTEBODARWE´
References and Further Reading
Bodarwe´, Katrinette. ‘‘Fru¨hmittelalterliche Urkunden als frauengeschichtliche Quelle - Schenkerinnen und Zeugin-nen in Fulda.’’ In Vielfalt der Geschichte: LerZeugin-nen, Lehren und Erforschen vergangener Zeiten, edited by Sabine Happ and Ulrich Nonn. Berlin: Wiss. Verl. Berlin, 2004, pp. 86–108.
———. ‘‘Gender and the Archive. The Preservation of Charters in Early Medieval Communities of Religious Women.’’ In Saints, Scholars and Politicians: Gender as a Tool in Medieval Studies: Festschrift in Honor of Anneke Mulder-Bakker, edited by Mathilde van Dijk and Rene´
Nip. Turnhout: Brepols, 2005, pp. 109–130.
Broer, C. J. C. ‘‘Echtgenote, deelgenote, lotgenote: Over oorkonden als bron voor de vrouwengeschiedenis.’’ In Vrouw, familie en macht. Bronnen over vrouwen in de Middeleeuwen, edited by Marco Mostert and others.
Hilversum: Verloren, 1990, pp. 147–165.
Goetz, Hans-Werner. Frauen im fru¨hen Mittelalter: Frauen-bild und Frauenleben im Frankenreich. Weimar: Bo¨hlau, 1995.
Gold, Penny S. ‘‘The Charters of le Ronceray d’Angers.
Male/Female Interaction in Monastic Business.’’ In Me-dieval Women and the Sources of MeMe-dieval History, edi-ted by Joel T. Rosenthal. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1990, pp. 122–132.
Hellmuth, Doris. Frau und Besitz. Zum Handlungsspielraum von Frauen in Alamannien (700–940). Sigmaringen:
Thorbecke, 1998.
Herlihy, David. ‘‘Land, Family and Women in Continental Europe (701–1200).’’ Traditio 18 (1962): 89–120 Signori, Gabrieli. Vorsorgen - Vererben - Erinnern:
kinder-und familienlose Erblasser in der sta¨dtischen Gesellschaft des Spa¨tmittelalters. Go¨ttingen: Vandenhoeck &
Ruprecht, 2001.
Skinner, Patricia. Women in Medieval Italian Society, 500–
1200. Harlow: Longman, 2001.
Stieldorf, Andrea. Rheinische Frauensiegel : zur rechtlichen und sozialen Stellung weltlicher Frauen im 13. und 14.
Jahrhundert. Cologne: Bo¨hlau, 1999.
Wemple, Suzane Fonay. Women in Frankish Society: Mar-riage and the Cloister (500 to 900). Philadelphia, Pa.:
University of Pennsylvania Press, 1981.
See also Administration of Estates; Monasticism and Nuns; Records, Ecclesiastical; Records, Rural; Re-cords, Urban