The Female Life Course at San Zeno: An Exploration of Women as the Makers and Keepers of Family Memory in Lombard Italy
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Authors
Crow, Madison
Issue Date
2023
Type
Thesis
Language
en_US
Keywords
Archaeology , History , Women's Studies
Alternative Title
Abstract
This thesis investigates women's experiences in Lombard Italy (sixth-eighth century). I explore various aspects of women's life courses, particularly fertility and reproductive loss. As documentary sources discussing Lombard women are scarce, generally hostile towards women and written by men, I rely on archaeological sources to explore the female life courses. I contextualize grave good assemblages, osteological evidence, and cemetery organization alongside texts which reveal underlying cultural attitudes towards women, such as Paul the Deacon's Historia Langobardorum ("History of the Lombards"). My project also explores how legal texts attempted to regulate women's reproductive lives, in light of how women organized funerary spaces and chose to commemorate motherhood. Ultimately, this study calls for medieval Italian archaeology to disrupt androcentric narratives by granting more attention to domesticity and women’s reproductive lives.