Why read Women and Authority in Early Modern Spain?

Book cover of Women and Authority in Early Modern Spain: The Peasants of Galicia

Book description

While scholars have marvelled at how accused witches, mystical nuns, and aristocratic women understood and used their wealth, power, and authority to manipulate both men and institutions, most early modern women were not privileged by money or supernatural contacts. They led the routine and often difficult lives of peasant women…

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European history

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Why read it?

1 author picked Women and Authority in Early Modern Spain as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Amanda Scott

Author

This book centers the experience of global empire on the ordinary women left behind in northwest Spain. In many parts of the peninsula, the empire was felt most acutely and at the day-to-day level through absence: Galicia, in particular, had extremely high levels of male migration, creating communities dominated by women. Drawing upon court cases, marriage contracts, testaments, and Inquisition records, Allyson Poska shows how peasant women seized legal and social power in the sometimes-permanent absence of their spouses, eschewing norms on sexuality, property, and family.

From Amanda's list on The best books about Spain’s golden age.