Cordelia Beattie's monograph focuses less on the lived experiences of women in late medieval England and more on the ways in which an analysis of the situational category of 'single woman' can help us to better understand how social classification worked at the time. She examines who had the power to classify, how classifications could overlap, and how we should contextualise classifications, through a close examination of several different primary sources: tax returns, penitential texts, guild returns and registers. It's a really impressive use of such a disparate array of sources, particularly given that many of these sources are often mined rather shallowly by historians. Beattie's methodology could probably be adapted to others working on other periods or aspects of women's history. Definitely worth the read for those with an interest in the field. ( )