Description

In the late Middle Ages, the Miracles de Nostre Dame par personnages stood at the cutting edge of popular vernacular theatre. In Medieval French Miracle Plays: Seven Falsely Accused Women, scholar Carol J. Harvey collects, translates, and unpacks a fascinating subset of these plays that focus entirely on female protagonists facing false charges, exile, and systematic injustice.

From queens framed for treason to ordinary women caught in domestic power struggles, each narrative showcases a dramatic journey of survival, culminating in divine intervention by the Virgin Mary. Harvey provides an excellent critical framework, analyzing how these performances mirrored real-world medieval legal systems, social boundaries, and gender double standards. It is an invaluable text for university libraries, theatre history enthusiasts, and scholars of medieval women’s studies.

Critical frameworks explored in this volume:

• Accessible Translation Work: Renders complex 14th-century Old French theatrical verse into clear, readable modern prose.

• Socio-Legal Analysis: Investigates how the plotlines reflected actual medieval courtroom procedures and social anxieties regarding women.

• Elite Academic Standard: A premier resource asset for departments of comparative literature, theatre history, and gender studies.