Kim M. PhillipsCritiques

A very solid study that focuses on young women (post-pubescent but pre-marital, roughly 12-early 20s) in later medieval England. Kim Phillips explores the experiences of these "maidens" with care, and I appreciated how she walks the reader through her thinking about various sources. I could see this book being good to use in an undergraduate classroom to help students think through how to assess the actions of women who had agency but within a society where their actions were circumscribed by issues of gender and class.

I found this book very disappointing and not a little frustrating to read. Having read it cover to cover, I still do not know what the authors' arguement is.
It reads like an undergraduate work: structure is sorely lacking, the writing is unclear, the quotations badly integrated, there is no discernable methodology, and there is no bibliography.
It is not hyperbole to say that there is an endnote for every second sentence - this is not only irritating while reading, but also speaks of a misunderstanding of what referencing is about. The lack of a bibliography is also very frustrating - any texts you may wish to follow up have to be marked in the very copious endnotes at the time of reading or have to be dug out again afterwards (a time-consuming task). Again, this is reminiscent of an undergraduate out to prove just how much they have read, rather than an academic setting out a new line of historical inquiry.
The authors have done a lot of research; as the endless endnotes illustrate, they have a selection of primary and secondary material, as well as taking the medieval period into consideration properly (somewhat rare among such large studies, as the medieval period is usually brushed over with little regard for its complexity). Yet the book reads a little like an overview of historians' current and past ideas on sexuality.
I was honestly unable to discern what thesis the authors were promoting; for me, that constitutes a badly written book. Regardless of the amount of research, the time invested in collating the information and the promotion of a new way of looking at something: if you can't communicate it, you might as well not have written about it.½