English noblewomen in the later Middle Ages

"The attempt to recover, and to understand, the contribution that women have made to the societies of the past is often hampered by the shortage and incidental nature of the suviving evidence. This is particularly true for the women of the Middle Ages, who - unless they were nuns, saints or queens - made little mark in the contemporary record, and have even less chance of emerging from that record as individual personalities today." "In the later Middle Ages, however, enough material can be gathered and sifted about the noblewomen of England for a start to be made in portraying the lives of women in at least the upper strata of lay society. This is what Jennifer C. Ward notably achieves in her vivid and pioneering study. The later Middle Ages saw a number of formidable dowagers at the forefront of English society; and Dr. Ward uses one of these - Lady Elizabeth de Burgh (1295-1360), youngest sister of the last Gilbert de Clare, earl of Gloucester, who was killed at Bannockburn - as a continuing case-study through the book, to place the various 'life-roles' of her kind and class in a specific context." "Dr. Ward examines these women in their different roles - as daughters and heires