Introduction: Authority, Gender, and Emotions in Late Medieval and Early Modern England

Abstract

This collection explores how situations of authority, governance, and influence were practised through gender ideologies and emotional performances in medieval and early modern England. Authority is inherently relational — it must be asserted over someone who allows or is forced to accept this dominance. The capacity to exercise authority is therefore a social and cultural act, one that is shaped by identities such as gender and by practices that include emotions. The essays in this volume explore how gender and emotions shaped the ways in which different individuals could assert or maintain authority, or indeed disrupt or provide alternatives to conventional practices of authority.