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Women and Work through a Comparative Lens

Q: Who wrote "Women and Work through a Comparative Lens"?

"Women and Work through a Comparative Lens" was written by Nena Vandeweerdt. Nena Vandeweerdt is a postdoctoral researcher who studies gendered socioeconomic interactions in late medieval and early modern towns. She holds a PhD in History from the KU Leuven and the University of Cantabria. Her work focuses on urban labor markets, everyday life, and the use of digital humanities in historical research.

Gender and the Urban Labor Markets of Premodern Brabant and Biscay

Nena Vandeweerdt (Author),

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Series: Mediaevalia Lovaniensia 52

Category: Gender Studies, History 500-1500

Language: English

ISBN: 9789462704947

Publication date: December 1, 2025

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Number of pages: 250

Size: 234 x 156 x 13 mm

Number of illustrations: 10

Illustrations and other content description:
Illustrated b/w

Funded by: FWO
KU Leuven Fund for Fair Open Access
Open Book Collective
Fonds Lamberts-van Assche

Stock item: 169447

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For EU: 2 to 3 weeks

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Series: Mediaevalia Lovaniensia 52

Category: Gender Studies, History 500-1500

Language: English

DOI: 10.11116/9789461666970

ISBN: 9789461666970

Publication date: December 1, 2025

Download Free Epub

Number of pages: 250

Number of illustrations: 10

Illustrations and other content description:
Illustrated b/w

Funded by: FWO
KU Leuven Fund for Fair Open Access
Open Book Collective
Fonds Lamberts-van Assche

Series: Mediaevalia Lovaniensia 52

Category: Gender Studies, History 500-1500

Language: English

DOI: 10.11116/9789461666963

ISBN: 9789461666963

Publication date: December 1, 2025

Download Free PDF

Number of pages: 250

Number of illustrations: 10

Illustrations and other content description:
Illustrated b/w

Funded by: FWO
KU Leuven Fund for Fair Open Access
Open Book Collective
Fonds Lamberts-van Assche

Summary
Contents
About the Author
Reviews
FAQs

Urban Markets and Women’s Labor: Navigating Institutional Boundaries in Premodern Europe

Women played a crucial role in medieval and early modern urban economies, yet their labor opportunities varied greatly depending on local institutions. This book compares the guild-structured labor markets of Antwerp and Mechelen in Brabant with Bilbao’s informal economy in Biscay during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. By analyzing these distinct institutional contexts, it offers a multifaceted understanding of women’s economic roles in premodern Europe. Drawing on a wide range of legislative and judicial sources, Vandeweerdt demonstrates how legal frameworks, socioeconomic structures, and individual strategies shaped women’s activities in small-scale trade. Bridging institutional analysis and personal agency, Women and Work through a Comparative Lens sheds new light on the interplay between labor organization and everyday practices in premodern Europe.

List of Figures
List of Tables
Acknowledgements
Abbreviations
A Note on Numbers

Introduction. Comparing Women’s Work
1. Institutions and Their Impact: The Guild Debate
2. “How Society Worked”
3. A North-South Comparison
4. Mapping the Terrain: Biscay and Brabant
Bilbao
Antwerp
Mechelen
5. Sources
6. Chapter Organization

Chapter 1. Tracing Women’s Work
1. Female Labor Sectors, Women’s Work, and Town Ordinances
Bread Trade
Fish Trade
Itinerant Informal Traders
Merchants
Artisan Workers
The Hidden Workforce
2. Women’s Financial Status
3. Conclusion

Chapter 2. Shaping the Framework
1. The Household Economy in Brabant and Biscay
Widows
Spousal Cooperation
Never-Married Household Members
Shifting Away from the Household Paradigm
2. Craft Guilds: The Stronghold of the Brabantine Urban Economy
3. Operating Informally: Main Street or Margins?
4. Conclusion

Chapter 3. Limiting Women’s Work
1. Bilbao’s Council and the “Protection of the Consumer”
2. Brabantine Guilds and Town Councils
Economic Motivations, Gendered Outcomes
The ‘Guild Effect’
3. Growing Restrictions?
4. Conclusion

Chapter 4. Wielding the Framework
1. Influencing Regulation
Wielding Authority
Direct Influence
Consent, Bargaining, and Leverage
2. Going to Court
Biscayan Tradeswomen in Court
Risk-Taking and Forum Shopping
The ‘Poverty Argument’
Group Recognition
3. Conclusion

Understanding Women’s Work

Bibliography
1. Archival sources
Biscay
Brabant
2. Printed sources
Brabant
Biscay
3. Secondary sources
4. Digital sources

Index

Nena Vandeweerdt

Nena Vandeweerdt is a postdoctoral researcher who studies gendered socioeconomic interactions in late medieval and early modern towns. She holds a PhD in History from the KU Leuven and the University of Cantabria. Her work focuses on urban labor markets, everyday life, and the use of digital humanities in historical research.

The book’s strength is its careful examination of the institutional structures that allowed or restricted women’s access to trade in each setting; in particular, the author exposes how guilds in the southern Netherlands helped determine women’s roles as distributors and producers, thus providing a clear contrast with the situation in Bilbao. This is a valuable contribution to the growing empirical literature concerning women’s work in premodern Europe. - Martha C. Howell, Columbia University

Nena Vandeveert’s study of women’s work in Brabant and Biscay exemplifies the benefits of a comparative approach. This deeply researched volume teases out the multiple forces that impacted women’s work, and offers a nuanced analysis of how institutions (or their absence) and cultural norms in patriarchal societies worked in tandem to constrain women’s participation in local economies. Significantly, this book compliments a growing body of scholarship challenging the longstanding assertion that women in Northern and Southern Europe had markedly different economic opportunities. This close reading of municipal ordinances, court records, and guild membership lists proposes a fresh look at the economic opportunities available to women workers and the various mechanisms that worked to limit those opportunities. - Susan McDonough, University of Maryland, Baltimore County

Vandeweerdt makes an important contribution to the study of women's labor by contrasting urban economic structures in premodern northern Iberia and Belgium. Offering a complex study of lower-class and middling level women's involvement in labor markets, she makes visible women's contributions to small-scale trade and production, especially in informal markets. Her study underscores how premodern women employed a variety of strategies to safeguard their income and could even influence and shape the very regulations that attempted to limit their economic activities. - Michelle Armstrong-Partida, Emory University

Frequently Asked Questions

What is "Women and Work through a Comparative Lens" about?

Urban Markets and Women’s Labor: Navigating Institutional Boundaries in Premodern Europe

Who wrote "Women and Work through a Comparative Lens"?

"Women and Work through a Comparative Lens" was written by Nena Vandeweerdt.

Is "Women and Work through a Comparative Lens" part of a series?

Yes, "Women and Work through a Comparative Lens" is part of the "Mediaevalia Lovaniensia" series. It's book 52 in the series.

GPRC

The longstanding, peer-reviewed book series Mediaevalia Lovaniensia. Studies in Medieval History, Society, and Culture publishes high-quality scholarship on the history and culture of the Middle Ages (c. 500–1550). Topics of particular interest to the series include, but are not limited to, social behaviour and power relations in medieval society, processes of identity formation, religious and urban culture, medieval thought and literature, and gender history. The series focuses on Europe and the wider Mediterranean world and is particularly rich in interdisciplinary approaches. By means of monographs and edited volumes, the series explores thematic frontiers and embraces innovative methodological approaches in historical and philological scholarship that is based on an in-depth source-based study.

Mediaevalia Lovaniensia accepts monographs as well as thematically coherent volumes in English. Moreover, it offers scholars the possibility to publish critical editions of primary texts with broader relevance to the understanding of medieval culture and society. The series aspires to publish books that have the potential to become reference works in the field of Medieval Studies.

We encourage early career (postdoctoral) researchers to submit a reworked version of their PhD thesis to this series. Leuven University Press provides authors with two publishing scenarios: traditional (non-Open Access) and the option to publish in Open Access (including language editing).

Editorial Board

Geert Claassens (KU Leuven)
Jelle Haemers (KU Leuven)
Jeroen Deploige (Ghent University)
Brigitte Meijns (KU Leuven)
Chanelle Delameillieure (KU Leuven - KULAK)
Baudouin Van den Abeele (UCLouvain)

Proposals

Proposals and enquiries can be sent to one of the editorial board members. Please send a short abstract. Upon approval of the proposal, the full manuscript will be submitted to international blind peer review by two (external) experts. The editors strive towards completing the review of proposals within one month and of complete manuscripts within five months after submission. Manuscripts should preferably be (+/-) 80.000 to 120.000 words in length.

Please make use of the submission form to present your manuscript or proposal to our board.
Authors interested in Open Access can consult the available funding options.

Links & Resources

Proposal Submission Form

Open Access & Funding Options

Is "Women and Work through a Comparative Lens" available Open Access?

Yes, "Women and Work through a Comparative Lens" is published Open Access. It is available under a BY-NC-ND license.

Who funded the publication of "Women and Work through a Comparative Lens"?

Publication of "Women and Work through a Comparative Lens" was funded by FWO
KU Leuven Fund for Fair Open Access
Open Book Collective
Fonds Lamberts-van Assche
.

What is the Table of Contents for "Women and Work through a Comparative Lens"?

List of Figures
List of Tables
Acknowledgements
Abbreviations
A Note on Numbers

Understanding Women’s Work

Bibliography
1. Archival sources
Biscay
Brabant
2. Printed sources
Brabant
Biscay
3. Secondary sources
4. Digital sources

Index

What is the DOI for "Women and Work through a Comparative Lens"?

The Digital Object Identifier (DOI) for "Women and Work through a Comparative Lens" is 10.11116/9789461666963.

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