2017 Berkshire Conference on the History of Women, Genders and Sexualities

June 01 - 04, 2017

This panel brings together scholars from gender and historical backgrounds to explore women's access to legal redress in late medieval Britain and Ireland. The historiography of women and the law in Britain and Ireland, c.1400-c.1800 has grown immensely in recent decades, but remains largely dominated by the English experience. The three papers in this panel will focus on the experiences of women from Ireland, Scotland and Wales (parts of which were subject to the English state), and address a number of important questions: how did societal expectations of women influence their legal outcomes; how did different legal frameworks in Ireland, Wales, Scotland and England determine women’s experience; and finally, what legal strategies did women use in these different courts in order to achieve their desired aims. The commentator will draw together common themes and highlight how examining legal cases from the perspective of the female litigant challenges and furthers our understanding of the intersection of law, state and patriarchal values, and how women adapted, gained advantages from - or were prejudiced by - their gender.