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⁴ Belsey, Catherine, The Subject of Tragedy, Identity and Difference in Renaissance Drama (London, 1985), ix, intro., 149, 192Google Scholar; Dollimore, Jonathan, Radical Tragedy: Religion, Ideology and Power in the Drama of Shakespeare and His Contemporaries, 3rd ed. (Durham, NC, 2004), lviii–lxii.Google Scholar

⁵ Miller, Naomi J., Changing the Subject: Mary Wroth and Figurations of Gender in Early Modern England (Lexington, KY, 1996), chap. 1, esp. 1–6.Google Scholar Miller's book does not include a bibliography, but the extensive notes to chapter 1 support this point. The clear implication of Findley, Sandra and Hobby, Elaine, “Seventeenth Century Women's Autobiography,” in 1642: Literature and Power in the Seventeenth Century, ed. Barker, Francis, Bernstein, Jay, Coobes, John, Hulme, Peter, Stone, Jennifer, and Stratton, Jin (Colchester, 1981), 11–36Google Scholar, is that female subjectivity developed in the seventeenth century although the authors do not focus specifically on that subject.

⁶ Greenblatt, Stephen, Renaissance Self-Fashioning, from More to Shakespeare (Chicago, 1984)Google Scholar, esp. the introduction; Aers, David, “A Whisper in the Ear of Early Modernists,” in Culture and History, 1350–1660: Essays on English Communities, Identities and Writings, ed. Aers, David (Detroit, 1992), 177–202Google Scholar; Matchinske, Megan, Writing, Gender and State in Early Modern England: Identity Formation and the Female Subject (New York, 1998)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Hanson, Elizabeth, Discovering the Subject, Cambridge Studies in Renaissance Literature and Culture, vol. 24 (Cambridge, 1998), 1–20Google Scholar; Wilcox, Helen, “‘Birth Day of My Selfe’: John Donne, Martha Moulsworth and the Emergence of Individual Identity,” in Sixteenth-Century Identities, ed. Piesse, A. J. (Manchester, 2001), 155–56, 167, and 176Google Scholar; and Low, Anthony, Aspects of Subjectivity: Society and Individuality from the Middle Ages to Shakespeare and Milton (Pittsburgh, 2003)Google Scholar.

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⁸ The primary sources used in this article were collected as part of my long-term research on aristocratic women from ca. 1450 to ca. 1550, which I began in the mid-1980s. Initially, my goal was to amass sufficient material on a large enough group of aristocratic women to write a persuasive collective biography of them as a class. I was particularly anxious not to depend on the handful of women who have been studied repeatedly. I began, therefore, by reading systematically through categories of documents, such as wills probated in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury, Chancery cases, State Papers, and the Cotton and Harleian Collections at the British Library, and included any woman who fit my definition of the aristocracy in my study. From there I moved on to family archives and local record offices. Ultimately, I visited twenty of them. Altogether I collected far more evidence than I had ever expected to find. It included hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of letters by, to, or about aristocratic women, 763 male and 266 female wills, and 551 cases in Chancery, Star Chamber, or the Court of Requests. In addition, but in smaller numbers, there were marriage contracts, household and estate accounts, crown grants, private bills, and inventories. I also compiled genealogical files on all the women whose names appeared in the archival and printed sources I used. Ultimately, I had information on about 1,200 aristocratic couples and their children. In connection with my current project, The Fabric of Piety, I have added some 100 wills and worked systematically through antiquarian sources and local histories in print and manuscript form that have information on monuments and churches. Material in the Cole Collection in the Additional Manuscripts at the British Library was particularly helpful on tombs. I used this material as the basis for all the statistics that appear in this article. I am entirely responsible for them.

⁹ This figure is based on genealogical information about 1,086 couples who together had at least 2,473 daughters. Within this group, information indicates what happened to 2,209 of them. Of those who did not marry, 4 percent died young, and 2 percent became nuns. Harris, Barbara J., “A New Look at the Reformation: Aristocratic Women and Nunneries, 1450–1540,” Journal of British Studies 32, no. 2 (April 1993): 89–113CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 92–93, has different absolute figures because I have collected additional information since it was published, but the percentages remained the same.

¹⁰ This figure refers to the offspring of all of the marriages of 2,557 women. Since some women had children with only one of their husbands, the percentage of infertile couples is somewhat higher. Of 2,654 couples, 87 percent had children. T. H. Hollingsworth gives a similar figure, 86 percent, for couples in which the wives were peers’ daughters born 1550–74. T. H. Hollingsworth, Demography of the British Peerage: “Supplement to Population Studies, v. 18, no. 2” (1964), 46, table 36.

¹¹ Rosenthal, Joel T., Patriarchy and Families of Privilege in Fifteenth-Century England (Philadelphia, 1991), 182Google Scholar, found that 68 percent of the peers summoned between 1399 and 1500 left widows.

¹² Ann J. Kettle found even higher percentages of men appointing their widows as their sole or coexecutors in the early fifteenth century, but her sample was different from mine because she drew it from a broader socioeconomic group. In a sample of 116 male testators with living wives between 1414–43, 78 percent named their wives as their executors; between 1280–1500, 80 percent of the men with living wives in the Lincoln episcopal registers appointed them as their executors; in Bristol between 1381 and 1500, 82 percent of those whose name were entered in the Great Orphan Book did so. Kettle, Ann J., “‘My Wife Shall Have It’: Marriage and Property in the Wills and Testaments of Later Medieval England,” Marriage and Property, ed. Craik, Elizabeth M. (Aberdeen, 1984), 100–101.Google Scholar

¹³ According to Joel T. Rosenthal, Patriarchy and Families of Privilege, 215, fifteenth-century noble widows survived their husbands for somewhat shorter periods—49.5 percent of the widows in a sample of ninety-one survived their husbands for more than ten years; 27.4 percent for more than twenty years—but their longevity was still impressive.

¹⁴ Thomasine Barrington (d. 1498), Dame Jane Fitzwilliam (d. 1540), and Margaret, countess of Bath (d. 1562) are three of many examples.

¹⁵ This number is extracted from the 281 female wills that provide basic data for this article; it includes both women who built tombs and women who did not.

¹⁶ Sir William Danvers (d. 1504), The National Archives (TNA): Public Record Office (PRO), PROB 11/14/5, and Dame Anne Danvers (d. 1531), TNA: PRO, PROB 11/24/4; Sir Edward Ferrers (d. 1535), TNA: PRO, PROB 11/25/29, and Dame Constance Ferrers (d. 1551), TNA: PRO, PROB 11/34/29; Sir Thomas Willoughby (d. 1544), TNA: PRO, PROB 11/30/40, and Dame Bridget Reade Willoughby (d. 1558), TNA: PRO, PROB 11/40/37; William Parr, Lord Parr of Horton (d. 1547) and Mary, Lady Parr (d. 1555), TNA: PRO, PROB 11/ 31/6; and Bridges, J., History and Antiquities of Northamptonshire, 2 vols. (London, 1791), 1:370Google Scholar; Sir Edmund Knyvett (d. 1539) and Jane Bourchier Knyvett, Lady Berners (d. 1562), Norfolk Record Office, Knyvett-Wilson Papers, KNY 435 371X9; Sir Thomas Stanley and Dame Margaret Vernon Stanley, in G. H. Boden, The History of Tong Church, College and Castle, 2nd rev. ed. (Wolverhampton, n.d.), 10; and Bindoff, S. T., The House of Commons, 1509–1558, 3 vols. (London, 1982), 3:373.Google Scholar

¹⁷ George Manners, Lord Roos (d. 1513), and his wife, Lady Anne were buried in a chantry that her father, Thomas St. Leger, had founded at St. George's Chapel, Windsor. Lady Anne may have participated in building the family mausoleum since she referred to it as “her chantry.” TNA: PRO, PROB 11/22/16 (1535); Cokayne et al., Complete Peerage, 5:215–16, n. c, 9:108. Sir John Verney (d. 1505 or 1509) and his wife Margaret were buried at Ashridge monastery in her father, Sir Robert Whittingham’s, tomb. Verney Papers, Camden Society, Old Series, 56 (1853), 37, 39, Dame Margaret Whittingham Verney (d. 1509); Victoria County History (henceforth VCH), A History of the County of Hertfordshire, ed. Page, William, 3 vols. (London, 1906), 2:147.Google Scholar

¹⁸ TNA: PRO, PROB 11/6/33 (1478). She had no sons.

¹⁹ TNA: PRO, PROB 11/25/33 (Sir William's will); TNA: PRO, PROB 11/29/10 (Dame Jane's will); Bridges, History and Antiquities of Northamptonshire, 2:516.

²⁰ “Margaret Paston's Will,” Norfolk Archaeology 3 (1852): 160–62.Google Scholar

²¹ Kingsford, Charles Letherbridge, ed., The Grey Friars of London: Their History with the Register of Their Convent and an Appendix of Documents, British Society of Franciscan Studies (Aberdeen, 1915), 6:74Google Scholar; Cokayne et al., Complete Peerage, 4:381 (Fitzwarren, d. 1516); TNA: PRO, PROB 11/11/17 (1497); Cokayne et al., Complete Peerage 12, pt. 2:664 (Willoughby).

²² Nicolas, Nicholas Harris, Testamenta Vetusta (London, 1826) 1:358Google Scholar; the date of will is 1480.

²³ TNA: PRO, PROB 11/40/19 (1557).

²⁴ Finch, Jonathan, Church Monuments in Norfolk before 1850: An Archaeology of Commemoration (Oxford, 2000), 63.Google Scholar

²⁵ Harris, “A New Look at the Reformation.”

²⁶ TNA: PRO, PROB 11/22/10; Richard Almack, “Kedington alias Ketton, and the Barnardiston Family,” Proceedings of the Suffolk Institute of Archaelogy 4 (1864–74), 131n; visit by author, June 2003.

²⁷ Llewellyn, Nigel, Funeral Monuments in Post-Reformation England (Cambridge, 2000), 148.Google Scholar

²⁸ Ibid., 146–49; Harding, Vanessa, The Dead and the Living in Paris and London, 1599–1670 (Cambridge, 2002), 172.Google Scholar

²⁹ TNA: PRO, PROB 11/19/32.

³⁰ Author's visit to church, June 2003.

³¹ TNA: PRO, PROB 11/32/15 (1548).

³² SirPevsner, Nikolaus B. L., North-West and South Norfolk: Buildings of England (New York, 1962), 582.Google Scholar

³³ TNA: PRO, PROB 11/24/4 (Lady Danvers's will); Elias Ashmole, The Antiquities of Berkshire, 3 vols. (London, 1719–23), 2:322.

³⁴ Saul, Nigel, Death, Art, and Memory in Medieval England: The Cobham Family and Their Monuments, 1300–1500 (Oxford, 2001), 227–28Google Scholar; Llewellyn, Funeral Monuments, 35–42; Macklin, Herbert W., The Brasses of England (London, 1907), 2.Google Scholar For a dissenting view, see Trivick, Henry H., Craft and Design of Monumental Brasses (New York, 1969), 17.Google Scholar I have modernized quotations throughout this article.

³⁵ Bertram, Fr. Jerome, “Iconography of Brasses,” Monumental Brasses as Art and History, ed. Bertam, Fr. Jerome (Stroud, 1996), 62–63.Google Scholar

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⁴⁰ “Margaret Paston's Will.”

⁴¹ Richmond, Colin, The Paston Family in the Fifteenth Century: Fastolf's Will (Cambridge, 1996), 44, 74, 124, 129–30CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Cotman, John Sell, Engravings of the Sepulchral Brasses in Norfolk and Suffolk, 2 vols. (London, 1839), 2:13Google Scholar; pl. 17.

⁴² TNA: PRO, PROB 11/14/34.

⁴³ Nicolas, Testamenta Vetusta, 2:588–89.

⁴⁴ Llewellyn, Funeral Monuments, 118, 275.

⁴⁵ Macklin, The Brasses of England, 191.

⁴⁶ Kite, Edward, The Monumental Brasses of Wiltshire (London, 1860), 53–54.Google Scholar “Here lieth Dame Anne Lady Dauntsey; To Sir John Danvers spouse in conjunction; To Sir John Dauntsey by line descension; Cosyn and heir, whose heritage highly fastly be firmed in Christ his mansion.”

⁴⁷ Macnamara, F. N., Memorials of the Danvers Family of Dauntsey and Culworth (London, 1895), 251.Google Scholar

⁴⁸ TNA: PRO, PROB 11/8/13 (1488).

⁴⁹ F. W. Weaver, ed. Somerset Medieval Wills, 1383–1500, Somerset Record Society (1902), 16:245. St. Sunday was a personification of the day of the week.

⁵⁰ VCH, The History of the County of Oxford, ed. Lobel, Mary, 13 vols. (London, 1962), 7:229Google Scholar; VCH, The History of the County of Warwick, ed. Salzman, L. F., 7 vols. (London, 1947), 4:17.Google Scholar

⁵¹ TNA: PRO, PROB 11/21/20 (1523).

⁵² TNA: PRO, PROB 11/8/12 (1487).

⁵³ TNA: PRO, PROB 11/20/10 (1508).

⁵⁴ H. W. Lewes, “The Testament and Last Will of Elizabeth, Widow of John de Veer, Thirteenth Earl of Oxford,” Transactions of the Essex Archaeological Society, n.s., 20 (1930), pt. 1:10.

⁵⁵ TNA: PRO, PROB 11/7/2 (1480).

⁵⁶ TNA: PRO, PROB 11/28/6, Dame Margery Waldegrave.

⁵⁷ TNA: PRO, PROB 11/4/11, Anne Holland, duchess of Exeter (d. 1456); TNA: PRO, PROB 11/7/6, Dame Margaret Leynham (d. 1482); TNA: PRO, PROB 11/20/10, Dame Isabell Manningham (d. 1521); TNA: PRO, PROB 11/28/28, Dame Susan Fettiplace Kingston (d. 1540); Katherin, countess of Northumberland (d. 1542), in Collectanea Topographica and Genealogica 6 (1840): 374; TNA: PRO, PROB 11/34/7, Anne, countess of Derby (d. 1550); TNA: PRO, PROB 11/37/26, Jane, duchess of Northumberland (d. 1554).

⁵⁸ TNA: PRO, PROB 11/15/32.

⁵⁹ TNA: PRO, PROB 11/40/37.

⁶⁰ TNA: PRO, PROB 11/32/1 (1547); for other examples, see TNA: PRO, PROB 11/33/29, Dame Margery Seymour (d. 1549); TNA: PRO, PROB 11/28/20, Margaret, countess of Kent (d. 1540); TNA: PRO, PROB 11/39/40, Dame Mary Fitton (d. 1553).

⁶¹ Finch, Church Monuments, 77; her will is at the Norfolk Country Record Office, NCC Corant 9; she died in 1549.