Virtue, Liberty, and Toleration Political Ideas of European Women, 1400-1800 [Hardcover]

This volume serves as an introduction to a rich and as yet under-explored period in the history of womens ideas. The volume provides a partial insight into the richness and complexity of womens political ideas in the centuries prior to the French Revolution. The essays in this collection examine womens political writings with particular reference to the themes of virtue (especially the virtue of phronesis or prudence), liberty, and toleration.

The essays in this collection examine womens political writings with particular reference to the themes of virtue (especially the virtue of phronesis or prudence), liberty, and toleration. The figures discussed include Christine de Pizan, Catherine dAmboise, Isabella dEste, Elizabeth I, Katherine Chidley, Elizabeth Poole, Margaret Cavendish, Damaris Masham, Mary Astell, Elizabeth Carter, Catharine Macaulay, Mary Wollstonecraft, and Corn?lie Wouters.List of Illustrations.- Acknowledgements and Note on the Text.- Notes on Contributors.- Introduction; Jacqueline Broad, Karen Green.- 1. Political Thought as Improvisation: Female Regency and Mariology in Late Medieval French Thought; Earl Jeffrey Richards.- 2. Phronesis Feminised: Prudence from Christine de Pizan to Elizabeth I; Karen Green.- 3. Catherine dAmboises Livre des Prudents et Imprudents: Negotiating Space for Female Voices in Political Discourse; Catherine M. M?ller.- 4. Machiavelli in Skirts Isabella dEste and Politics; Carolyn James.- 5. Liberty and the Right of Resistance: Womens Political Writings of the English Civil War Era; Jacqueline Broad.- 6. Margaret Cavendish and the False Universal; Hilda L. Smith.- 7. The Social and Political Thought of Damaris Cudworth Masham; Regan Penaluna.- 8. Our Religion and Liberties: Mary Astells Christian Political Polemics; Michal Michelson.- 9. Virtue, God, and Stoicism in the Thought of Elizabeth Carter and Catharine Macaulay; Sarah Hutton.- 10. Catharine Macaulay and Mary Wol6