This collection explores how situations of authority, governance, and influence were practised through both gender ideologies and affective performances in medieval and early modern England. Authority is inherently relational it must be asserted over someone who allows or is forced to accept this dominance. The capacity to exercise authority is therefore a social and cultural act, one that is shaped by social identities such as gender and by social practices that include emotions. The contributions in this volume, exploring case studies of women and men's letter-writing, political and ecclesiastical governance, household rule, exercise of law and order, and creative agency, investigate how gender and emotions shaped the ways different individuals could assert or maintain authority, or indeed disrupt or provide alternatives to conventional practices of authority.

Kathleen Neal, Monash University, Australia Anne M. Scott, University of Western Australia, Australia Stephanie Downes, University of Melbourne, Australia P. J. P. Goldberg, University of York, UK Merridee L. Bailey, University of Adelaide, Australia Stephanie Tarbin, University of Western Australia, Australia Sarah Randles, University of Melbourne, Australia Diana Barnes, University of Queensland, Australia Amanda L. Capern, University of Hull, UK

Introduction: Authority, Gender and Emotions in Late Medieval and Early Modern England; Susan Broomhall
1. From Letters to Loyalty: Aline la Despenser and the Meaning(s) of a Noblewoman ' 's Correspondence in Thirteenth-Century England; Kathleen Neal
2. The Role of Exempla in Educating through Emotion: The Deadly Sin of ' 'Lecherye ' ' in Robert Mannyng ' 's Handlyng Synne (13031317); Anne M. Scott
3. How to be ' 'Both ' ': Bilingual and Gendered Emotions in Late Medieval English Balade Sequences; Stephanie Downes
4. St Richard Scrope, the Devout Widow, and the Feast of Corpus Christi: Exploring Emotions, Gender, and Governance in Early Fifteenth-Century York; P. J. P. Goldberg
5. Anxieties with Political and Social Order in Fifteenth-Century England; Merridee L. Bailey
6. Raising Girls and Boys: Fear, Awe and Dread in the Early Modern Household; Stephanie Tarbin
7. Authority in the French Church in Later Sixteenth-Century London; Susan Broomhall
8. ' 'The Pattern of All Patience ' ': Gender, Agency, and Emotions in Embroidery and Pattern Books in Early Modern England; Sarah Randles
9. A Subject for Love in The Merry Wives of Windsor; Diana Barnes
10. Emotions, Gender Expectations and the Social Role of Chancery, 15501650; Amanda L. Capern