News Release
September 2006
Bethlehem, Pa., September 14, 2006—Sandy Bardsley, assistant
professor of history at Moravian College, recently authored Venomous Tongues: Speech
and Gender in Medieval England that examines how women became associated with deviant or disruptive
speech during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The book was written for the Middle
Ages Series, and was published by the University of Pennsylvania Press. It is available
on Amazon.com.
Bardsley emphasizes
how powerful the spoken word was in a society where few people were schooled and
employs literature and works of art together with the law to depict the feminization
of moral failings like lying, gossiping, and quarrelling with others. She demonstrates
how legal charges and punishments for such crimes spanned all social classes. The text
concludes with a discussion addressing how the association of gossip and other forms
of immoral speech have affected the perception of women for centuries.
Venomous Tongues particularly
focuses on scolding, a crime that was judged to be committed only by women. The
offense was interpreted differently by local governments, leading to prosecutions through
to the beginning of the nineteenth century. In general, scolds were women who spoke
in a manner considered to be detrimental to the well-being of their husbands and of the
community at large. A typical punishment for scolds was a turn in the dunking stool – a
chair designed so that its occupant could be strapped in to receive a dunking in cold
water.
Bardsley interests
are medieval, early modern, and women’s history. She is currently completing
a general overview of medieval women for Greenwood Press’s series on Women’s
Roles through History. She has previously published articles in Past and Present and
several essay collections. She earned the B.A. from University of Otago (New Zealand),
the M.A. and Ph.D. from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Moravian College is a private, coeducational, selective liberal arts college located
in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Tracing its founding to 1742, it is recognized as America's
sixth-oldest college. For more information call (610) 861-1491 or visit the web site
at www.moravian.edu.
