International Conference at University of Cologne, 29–30 September 2022
Considering how service was perceived, regulated and practiced in relation to gender, speakers take into account the diversity of late medieval forms of service and focus on a broad spectrum of lifelong or periodic service work. This includes domestic service, service work within workshops, brothels, religious communities and poorhouses or military and diplomatic services provided for cities. The conference brings together scholars from different countries, various disciplines and at all career stages to discuss, e.g., divisions of tasks and responsibilities, degrees of coercion and autonomy as well as the monetary and cultural value attached to different forms of service and groups of servants from a gendered perspective.
Registration:
Participation is free, to register please send an email to Eva-Maria Cersovsky until 26 September 2022: cersovse@uni-koeln.de.
Programm
Thursday, 29 September 2022
09.30–10.00h
Welcome and Introduction
Eva-Maria Cersovsky (University of Cologne) and Julia Exarchos (RWTH Aachen)
10.00–11.00h KEYNOTE
Jeremy Goldberg (University of York): “They Put Them Out, Both Males and Females, to Hard Service and in the Houses of Other People”: English Servanthood in Comparative Perspective
Chair: Karl Ubl (University of Cologne)
11.00–11.30h Coffee Break
SESSION 1: DOMESTIC SERVICE AND WORK IN URBAN AND RURAL CONTEXTS
Chair: Sabine von Heusinger (University of Cologne)
11.30–12.15h: Dorothee Rippmann (UZH Zürich): Gender, Work, and Visibility: The Examples of Agriculture and Textile Production (15th and 16th Centuries)
12.15–13.00h: Eyal Levinson (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem): “If there Is an Elderly Woman in the Home, there Is a Treasure in the Home”: Work, Old Age, and Conceptualizations of Gender Among Medieval Ashkenazi Jews
13.00–14.00h: Lunch Break
14.00–14.45h: Jacqueline Turek (RWTH Aachen): Gender-Specific Aspects of Domestic Service: Work, Wages, and Migration of Male and Female Servants in Late Medieval Southern Germany
SESSION 2: PROSTITUTION AND UNFREE LABOR
Chair: Julia Exarchos (RWTH Aachen)
14.45–15.30h: Jamie Page (Independent Scholar): Sex, Work, and Social Identity: Evidence from Late Medieval Europe
15.30–16.00h: Coffee Break
16.00–16.45h: Michael Hammer (University College of Teacher Education Styria): Prostitution in the Late Medieval “Frauenhaus” – Sex Work between Slavery and Protection?
16.45–17.30h: Angela Zhang (Harvard University): “She Keeps the House”: Enslaved Labor in the Racializing Processes of Late-Medieval Florence
17.45–18.45h KEYNOTE
Judith Bennett (University of Southern California): Poor Women and the Intimate Labor of Sex in Late Medieval England
Chair: Eva-Maria Cersovsky (University of Cologne)
Friday, 30 September 2022
SESSION 3: MILITARY AND DIPLOMATIC SERVICES
Chair: Julia Bruch (University of Cologne)
09.00–09.45h: Edward Loss (I Tatti, Harvard University Research Center): Far from the Exception: Female Couriers and Information Gatherers in Late Medieval Italy
09.45–10.30h: Markus Jansen (University of Cologne): Women of War. Urban Women and Martial Service in the Late Middle Ages
10.30–11.00h: Coffee Break
SESSION 4: SERVING AND WORKING IN RELIGIOUS COMMUNITIES
Chair: Lioba Geis (University of Cologne)
11.00–11.45h: Adrian Kammerer (University of Cologne): Male and Female Tertiaries as Workers at Dominican Convents: A Gendered Approach
11.45–12.30h: Emma Gabe (University of Toronto): Lay Sisters, Social Status, and Labor in Late Medieval Female Monasteries
12.30–13.30h: Lunch Break
SESSION 5: SERVING AND WORKING IN TEXTILE PRODUCTION
Chair: Milan Pajic (Free University of Berlin/ Université Catholique de Louvain)
13.30–14.15h: Marco Tomaszewski (University of Freiburg): Gender, Age, and Status in the Export-Production of Linen. A Multi-Relational Approach (St. Gallen, 15th/16th Century)
14.15–15.00h: Ivana Lemcool (University of Belgrade): Donors or Embroiderers: Late Medieval Serbian Noblewomen and their Votive Textiles
15.00–15.15h: Coffee Break
15.15–16.00h: Meagan Khoury (Stanford University): Silken Sensualities and Wayward Women: High and Low Cultural Labor in Early Modern Bologna
16.00h: Concluding Remarks
Eva-Maria Cersovsky
E-Mail: cersovse@uni-koeln.de