Mapping Women's Movement in Medieval England

• Main Author: Clement, Claire
• Format: Others
• Published: VCU Scholars Compass 2012
• Subjects: women; mobility; gender; pilgrimage; medieval; Middle Ages; England; GIS; digital humanities; spatial humanities; Historical GIS; public private; Social and Behavioral Sciences; Urban Studies and Planning
• Online Access: http://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/etd/367; http://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1366&context=etd

This thesis investigates women’s geographical movement in medieval England from the perspective of mobility and freedom. It uses pilgrimage accounts from medieval miracle story collections and to gather information about individual travel patterns. The study uses GIS to analyze gendered mobility patterns, and to investigate whether there were noticeable differences in the distance which men and women traveled and the geographical area of the country they originated. It also analyzes the nearness of men’s and women’s respective origin towns to alternative pilgrimage locations, as a means of examining the factors determining gendered travel mobility. The study finds that women’s travel distances were less than men’s, especially in the later medieval period, but that they were in fact more likely than men to come from areas proximate to alternative pilgrimage sites. This suggests the existence of higher mobility capacity for women living in areas with greater contact with other travelers.