Visibility: Women in Politics, Religion and the Intellectual Sphere, c. 1400-1800

The project will accommodate the growing interest in women’s history, and render visible women’s contributions in politics, religion, and in the intellectual sphere.

In the political sphere a special field is networks of letters written by female rulers. Queens, royal widows and princesses were in constant correspondence with each other. This informal network of family members and other women has so far been overshadowed by European (male) diplomatic research. In the intellectual sphere women found different ways to participate. Excluded from academia, one of the ways open to women was to enter a convent. The so-called jomfrukloster was a place where women read, translated, and composed books. In the religious sphere, many women wrote letters, testimonies, and exegetical treaties, in which they often challenged traditional narratives of gender. Many of the sources were written by women of the lower orders, who seldom have a voice in historical research.