Imagining a Medieval English Nation

During the late Middle Ages, the increasing expansion of administrative, legal, and military systems by a central government, together with the greater involvement of the commons in national life, brought England closer than ever to political nationhood. Examining a diverse array of texts-ranging from Latin and vernacular historiography to Lollard tracts, Ricardian poetry, and chivalric treatises-this volume reveals the variety of forms "England" assumed when it was imagined in the medieval West.

This study looks at the epistemological significance of maternity in early modern England. It reaches beyond the domestic sphere of the rituals of childbirth, midwifery and wet-nursing and the dominant male discourses articulate in early conduct manuals, sermons and obstetrical tracts. In this book maternity is put centre stage relation to the work of Shakespeare.