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Female Work Arrangements in the Datini Letters: Exploring the Semantic Roles and Negotiating Scopes of Servants, Slaves, and Wet Nurses.
- Source :
- Österreichische Zeitschrift für Geschichtswissenschaften; 2023, Vol. 34 Issue 2, p126-149, 24p
- Publication Year :
- 2023
-
Abstract
- In the letters preserved in the Datini archive, women could take the epistolary stage when it came to their (pre-)entry into a labour relation with the Datinis or their social network. The negotiating scope of women during these entries is the analytical focus of this paper; to negotiate and/or to be negotiated is the central question. Based on 53 letters from the years 1393-1398, four different search and recruitment processes for three different types of female workers - servants, slaves, and wet nurses - are comparatively examined by way of a historical semantic reading. Taking the verb-oriented method as a starting point, this study proposes two methodological extensions: an attribute-oriented method and an adaption of the semantic roles approach from linguistics. The paper argues that this historical semantic trio of methods can help to understand group-related and individual degrees of (non-)control over actions in the arrangement of labour relations in late medieval Tuscany by bringing positions of power to the epistolary surface. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
Details
- Language :
- English
- ISSN :
- 1016765X
- Volume :
- 34
- Issue :
- 2
- Database :
- Complementary Index
- Journal :
- Österreichische Zeitschrift für Geschichtswissenschaften
- Publication Type :
- Academic Journal
- Accession number :
- 173955221
- Full Text :
- https://doi.org/10.25365/oezg-2023-34-2-7