The role played by women in the evolution of religious art and architecture has been largely neglected. This study of upper-class women in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries corrects that oversight, uncovering the active role they undertook in choosing designs, materials, and locations for monuments, commissioning repairs and additions to many parish churches, chantry chapels, and almshouses characteristic of the English countryside. Their preferred art, Barbara J. Harris shows, reveals their responses to the religious revolution and signifies their preferred identities.

Barbara J. Harris is professor emeritus of history and women’s studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

AcknowledgementsPrefaceAbbreviationsIllustrationsIntroductionChapter 1. Tombs: Honoring the DeadChapter 2. Chantries: The Quest for Perpetual PrayersChapter 3. Building for the Congregation: Roofs, Aisles, and Stained GlassChapter 4. Adorning the Liturgy: Vestments, Chapel Plate and Prayer BooksChapter 5. Almshouses and Schools: Prayers and Service to the CommunityChapter 6. Defining ThemselvesChapter 7. The Sequel: Destruction and SurvivalConclusionAppendix 1 Women Patrons of Religious Building Appendix 2 Patrons of TombsAppendix 3 Choice of Whom to be Buried WithAppendix 4 Location of Tombs in ChurchAppendix 5 Patrons of ChantriesAppendix 6 Patrons of Stained Glass WindowsAppendix 7 Patrons of Additions or Major Repairs to ChurchesAppendix 8 Donors of vestmentsAppendix 9 Patrons of Almshouses and SchoolsGlossaryBibliography133 words