Future Imperfect Autumn Compilation 2

I was going to ask you about researching women's lives is fraught with problems of access of data, I would think, because an awful lot of records were kept by men, and in particular by ecclesiastical men who have their own issues around women's sexuality, and even thinking women should be kind of kept at bay and not mentioned or not thought about as part of their religious lives.

Have you managed to uncover the data that you need to study this sort of fascinating aspect of society?

You're absolutely right.

It's a problem.

Women in the period I work on were largely illiterate.

So whilst I'm writing about Henry VIII's queens, I've got, in some cases, letters that they've written.

I've got records of their involvement in patronage.

I've got other people reflecting on them, ambassador reports, et cetera, et cetera.

But for the vast majority of women who ever lived, had no literacy and kept no records.

There were no diaries or letters or notions of their own thoughts.

They tended not to own that much.

They don't have many wills.

In courts, they were often covered by their husbands.

When they were married, that meant they couldn't testify.

So we don't get them testifying before court.

So there are real challenges in finding the voices of women before the 18th century.

But in my experience, you can, mediated and curtailed, but you can hear them.

So the way that I have done it is that when I was working on women in 16th century France, I was working through, strangely enough, court, church court records, ecclesiastical records, but records of the Protestant church.

So many Catholic women's stories were told in the secrecy of the confessional to a priest and never written down.

But when people converted to Protestantism, and in some cases I have Catholic women also bringing their stories to this church court, which is called a consistory, the men of the consistory, the scribe of the consistory, wrote down what women said.

This is very unusual by comparison to courts at the time.

And it was also free to approach.

So we have all sorts of stories from servants and from the lowly.

And they are challenging stories.

authority structures, which is fascinating because the consistory itself has been set up to ensure moral probity among the Protestants.

I was going to ask you about researching women's lives is fraught with problems of access of data, I would think, because an awful lot of records were kept by men, and in particular by ecclesiastical men who have their own issues around women's sexuality, and even thinking women should be kind of kept at bay and not mentioned or not thought about as part of their religious lives.

Have you managed to uncover the data that you need to study this sort of fascinating aspect of society?

You're absolutely right.

It's a problem.

Women in the period I work on were largely illiterate.

So whilst I'm writing about Henry VIII's queens, I've got, in some cases, letters that they've written.

I've got records of their involvement in patronage.

I've got other people reflecting on them, ambassador reports, et cetera, et cetera.

But for the vast majority of women who ever lived, had no literacy and kept no records.

There were no diaries or letters or notions of their own thoughts.

They tended not to own that much.

They don't have many wills.

In courts, they were often covered by their husbands.

When they were married, that meant they couldn't testify.

So we don't get them testifying before court.

So there are real challenges in finding the voices of women before the 18th century.

But in my experience, you can, mediated and curtailed, but you can hear them.

So the way that I have done it is that when I was working on women in 16th century France, I was working through, strangely enough, court, church court records, ecclesiastical records, but records of the Protestant church.

So many Catholic women's stories were told in the secrecy of the confessional to a priest and never written down.

But when people converted to Protestantism, and in some cases I have Catholic women also bringing their stories to this church court, which is called a consistory, the men of the consistory, the scribe of the consistory, wrote down what women said.

This is very unusual by comparison to courts at the time.

And it was also free to approach.

So we have all sorts of stories from servants and from the lowly.

And they are challenging stories.

authority structures, which is fascinating because the consistory itself has been set up to ensure moral probity among the Protestants.