During this period of training, which often lasted until marriage, a girl would learn how to sew, sing, embroider, dance, tell stories, ride horses and hunt. They often learned proper social graces from any number of handbooks that existed to instruct them – such as John Russell’s “Book of Nurture” – which were wielded by nursemaids and tutors.Īt age seven, noble girls were sent to a more influential household to serve the lady of the castle and learn how to behave as a noblewoman. Children were expected to speak only when spoken to. To be born a girl to such a world of men.”Ĭhildhood was not a time for coddling in Tudor England. An examination of each possible role a Tudor woman could play during her life shows how apt is the statement uttered by Catherine to her newborn daughter, “Poor child. A fortunate few benefited from participating in a husband’s business or education at a convent when they existed. If they were lucky enough to outlive their husbands, they might enjoy a brief period of independence in widowhood. They began life as daughters to their fathers, lived it as wives to husbands and mothers to their children. Women had very few options and even more limited education. Outspoken and unafraid to address the treatment of women in her time, in the book Catherine so values Christine depicts a symbolic city in which women are recognized for their gifts and defended from harm.īut real life in Tudor England was not nearly so utopian. As the first known woman to make a living writing books, Christine was definitely the exception to the rule for her sex. It is no accident that Kennedy chose as Catherine’s most prized possession a copy of The Book of The City of Ladies by Christine de Pizan (1364-1430). This leads naturally to the question of the role of a woman in Tudor England, especially one who suddenly finds herself without a vocation or station. The main character, Catherine Overton, has already weathered the transition from nun to wife, but many of her former sisters have not been as fortunate. Besides being a wonderful work of historical fiction, City of Ladies by Sarah Kennedy is a poignant look into the lives of women after the dissolution of the monasteries in England under Henry VIII.
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