Feeding on the Seed of the Woman: Dorothy Leigh and the Figure of Maternal Dissent

Gray, Catharine

doi:10.1353/elh.2001.0023

Cited by 18 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 35 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…For, though written by a man, Breton's work of poetic moral and theological instruction produces a public persona of maternal concern that Leigh can later adapt (Poole 1995, 70;Gray 2001, 567-568). In this adaptation, she critically answers monarchal and patriarchal texts by James I and others, as we will see, and perhaps responds to the biblically based misogyny of the querelle des femmes (Gray 2001(Gray , 2007Combs 2017).…”

Section: Sources Content and Genrementioning

confidence: 85%

Leigh, Dorothy

Gray¹

2020

The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Early Modern Women's Writing

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Dorothy Leigh was an early seventeenth-century writer who published one, very popular book: The Mother's Blessing (1616). A bestseller that went through 23 editions by 1674, with another four editions in the early eighteenth century, it was perhaps "the most reprinted woman's text of the seventeenth century" (Brown, Women's Writing in Stuart England: The Mothers' Legacies of Dorothy Leigh, Elizabeth Joscelin, and Elizabeth Richardson. Sutton Publishing, Thrupp/Stroud, 1999, vi). At the forefront of a new expansion in the tradition of mother's advice books and maternal legacies, The Mother's Blessing presents itself as a mother's dying words to her three sons, thus fusing the limited maternal authority accorded women in the early modern household with the liminal authority of the deathbed utterance. Like other godly conduct books of the period, the book's content is partly pedagogical and prescriptive: comprising a textual toolbox for readers' self-fashioning, it offers extensive counsel on family organization and routine, socioeconomic transactions, and, in particular, religious practice and belief. As it does so, however, Leigh intervenes in some of the most sensitive religio-political issues of her day, such as the legitimacy of Sunday sports, congregants' rights to "gad" to preachers outside their parishes, and whether prayer should have set forms. She also addresses a readership that quickly expands from her three sons to include men and women, masters and servants, preachers and congregants, a princess and perhaps even (covertly) a king. This breadth of address may partially account for the book's steady popularity, but by broaching matters of political import and hailing an extended print public, Leigh also transforms the trope of maternity into a figure of moderate religio-political dissent from the Church of England. The Mother's Blessing therefore offers an important example of female-authored popular piety, while also promoting an expansive Anglo-Calvinist community of pious activism and publication centered on the zealous lay mother rather than the church minister or monarch.

show abstract

Section: Sources Content and Genrementioning

confidence: 85%

Leigh, Dorothy

Gray¹

2020

The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Early Modern Women's Writing

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Clinton signals this political intent through references to the book of Isaiah, particularly 49:23, which she rephrases in her suggestion that the newborn is "perhaps one of Gods very elect, to whom to be a noursing father, is a Kings honour; and to whom to be a noursing mother, is a Queens honour" (Clinton 1622, D1r). The nursing father role claimed by James I had already been challenged by Dorothy Leigh's 1616 The Mothers Blessing (Gray 2001(Gray , 2007). Clinton's dismissal of husbandly authority in favor of God's "providence" and the "counsell of syncere, and faithfull Preachers" (Clinton 1622, C1v, D2v) evokes the early modern equation of family and state, and implicitly undermines the authority of the king.…”

Section: Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

Clinton, Elizabeth, Countess of Lincoln

Bassnett¹

2020

The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Early Modern Women's Writing

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Elizabeth Clinton (née Knevitt, also Knyvett), Countess of Lincoln (c. 1574-c. 1630), was the first woman to publish a tract advocating maternal breastfeeding. The Countesse of Lincolnes Nurserie (1622) was dedicated to Clinton's daughter-in-law, Bridget Fiennes Clinton, who had chosen to nurse her own children rather than employing a wet nurse, as was usual for early modern elites (Fildes 1986). Clinton's work was unique in its direct address to other women and its suggestion that women should choose maternal nursing despite their husbands' wishes. Arguing that nursing one's own child is both natural and godly, Clinton presents Bridget as an exemplar for all women and establishes herself and her daughter-in-law as authorities whose advice and practices are blessed by God.

show abstract

L eigh, D orothy

Snook¹

2017

The Encyclopedia of English Renaissance Literature

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Dorothy Leigh (d. in or before 1616) is the author of The mothers blessing , the most frequently reprinted text by a woman in the seventeenth century. We know from the work itself that she was the mother of three sons, George, John, and William, and a widow at the time of writing; she died sometime before 1616 when The mothers blessing was published. The most recent biographical research suggests that her father was William Kempe of Essex and that she was the wife of Ralph Leigh of Essex, who served under Robert Devereux, earl of Essex, in Spain. Her birth date is unknown.

show abstract

Feeding on the Seed of the Woman: Dorothy Leigh and the Figure of Maternal Dissent

Cited by 18 publications

References 35 publications

Leigh, Dorothy

Leigh, Dorothy

Clinton, Elizabeth, Countess of Lincoln

L eigh, D orothy

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About