The twelve essays in Women and Wealth in Late Medieval Europe re-examine
the vexing issue of women, money, wealth, and power from distinctive
perspectives-literature, history, architectural history-using new
archival sources. The contributors examine how money and changing
attitudes toward wealth affected power relations between women and men
of all ranks, especially the patriarchal social forces that constrained
the range of women's economic choices. Employing theories on gender,
culture, and power, this volume reveals wealth as both the motive force
in gender relations and a precise indicator of other, more subtle, forms
of power and influence mediated by gender.