Virtue, Liberty, and Toleration
Political Ideas of European Women, 1400-1800
Editors: Broad, Jacqueline, Green, Karen (Eds.)
Free Preview- Includes both English and continental women thinkers
- Provides an introduction to the thought of little known women thinkers
- Treats women’s ideas with philosophical sophistication as part of the history of political thought
- Examines a period (1400-1600) that has received little attention in the history of women’s ideas
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- About this book
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This volume challenges the view that women have not contributed to the historical development of political ideas, and highlights the depth and complexity of women’s political thought in the centuries prior to the French Revolution.
From the late medieval period to the enlightenment, a significant number of European women wrote works dealing with themes of political significance. The essays in this collection examine their writings with particular reference to the ideas of virtue, liberty, and toleration. The figures discussed include Christine de Pizan, Catherine d’Amboise, Isabella d’Este, Elizabeth I, Katherine Chidley, Elizabeth Poole, Margaret Cavendish, Damaris Masham, Mary Astell, Elizabeth Carter, Catharine Macaulay, Mary Wollstonecraft, and Cornélie Wouters. These women actively contributed to the political practice and discourse of their times. Some of the women question their exclusion from political power and argue in favour of women’s virtue, prudence, and capacity to govern. Others aim to demonstrate women’s spiritual equality with men, to defend liberty of conscience, and to highlight the importance of education as a means to moral development. And some women explore the notion of female citizenship or attempt to come to terms with issues of religious freedom and religious toleration.
Virtue, Liberty, and Toleration serves as an introduction to a rich and as yet under-explored period in the history of women’s ideas.
- Table of contents (11 chapters)
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Political Thought as Improvisation: Female Regency and Mariology in Late Medieval French Thought
Pages 1-22
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Phronesis Feminised: Prudence from Christine de Pizan to Elizabeth I
Pages 23-38
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Catherine d'Amboise's Livre des Prudents et Imprudents: Negotiating Space for Female Voices in Political Discourse
Pages 39-56
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“Machiavelli in Skirts.” Isabella d'Este and Politics
Pages 57-75
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Liberty and the Right of Resistance:Women's Political Writings of the English Civil War Era
Pages 77-94
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Table of contents (11 chapters)
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Bibliographic Information
- Bibliographic Information
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- Book Title
- Virtue, Liberty, and Toleration
- Book Subtitle
- Political Ideas of European Women, 1400-1800
- Editors
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- Jacqueline Broad
- Karen Green
- Series Title
- The New Synthese Historical Library
- Series Volume
- 63
- Copyright
- 2007
- Publisher
- Springer Netherlands
- Copyright Holder
- Springer Science+Business Media B.V.
- eBook ISBN
- 978-1-4020-5895-0
- DOI
- 10.1007/978-1-4020-5895-0
- Hardcover ISBN
- 978-1-4020-5894-3
- Softcover ISBN
- 978-90-481-7470-6
- Series ISSN
- 1879-8578
- Edition Number
- 1
- Number of Pages
- XXII, 216
- Topics