Review Reviewed Work(s): Women of Ancient Rus' by N. L. Pushkareva Review by: Valerie Kivelson Source: The American Historical Review, Vol. 96, No. 5 (Dec., 1991), pp. 1519-1520 Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of the American Historical Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2165314 Accessed: 12-09-2017 21:16 UTC JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://about.jstor.org/terms Oxford University Press, American Historical Association are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The American Historical Review This content downloaded from 35.1.37.254 on Tue, 12 Sep 2017 21:16:36 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms Medieval history of Sigismund's reign. This part of the study is 1519 According to N. L. Pushkareva's optimistic interpre- particularly good at tracing the careers of individuals tation, women of medieval Russia enjoyed a wide and showing how Sigismund's "Order of the Dragon" range of possibilities for economic and political par- (founded in 1408) constituted both a support for his ticipation. In her view, women already enjoyed sig- own person and a limit on royal power in general. nificant rights in the tenth century, when Grand The section on foreign policy deals chiefly with Pol- Princess Ol'ga ruled as regent for her son Sviatoslav, ish, Bohemian, and especially Venetian matters. The and their situation improved steadily until the end of next chapter treats the issue of defense and analyzes the fifteenth century, the chronological limit of the the structure and social implications of Sigismund's book. Pushkareva's interpretation contests a popular important military reorganization after the defeat at Nicopolis (1396), the militia portalis, which was de- signed to defend against and wage war with the Ottoman Turks. Subsequent chapters analyze in detail the lesser nobility (whom Sigismund tried to strengthen as a counterbalance to the great barons), the middle class, the peasantry, the intelligentsia (that is, the clergy), and the king's relations with the church. The book concludes with a short treatment of general population trends and an extended analysis of culture in Hungary in this era. The author is by no means uncritical of Sigismund and the implications of his reign for Hungarian history. Indeed, his detailed presentation reveals the weakening of royal power and the explosive social and economic tensions that afflicted Hungary. Malyusz does not gloss over personality and character weaknesses in Sigismund: the ten-page section (pp. 49-59) on Sigismund's person is especially effective. But, on balance, his portrait of the king and his role is more generous than previous scholars. In a revealing section (pp. 155-57) in which the younger king is compared with the older, Malyusz speaks of Sigismund's wisdom and prudence and the way he had mastered the art of ruling and had gained popularity. Successful and impressive as this book is, it is not without flaws. Malyusz's thesis in chapter 5 that "the municipal population of the Anjou period developed into a [real] bourgeoisie in the first half of the conception of Russian women's abject subjugation to their husbands in the seclusion of the terem, the women's quarter. The book provides a useful com- pendium of information and a synthesis of Russian and Soviet work to date, but it celebrates moments of female independence often without placing those inspiring exceptions in the grimmer context of most women's experiences. This book belongs to the Soviet category of "scien- tific-popular" publications, intended for a wide audi- ence. This undoubtedly helps to account for its shifting tone and eclectic organization. The book surveys many aspects of women's lives across six centuries in five loosely integrated chapters. Although Pushkareva attempts to discuss all classes, the overwhelming majority of evidence pertains to the wives and daughters of the princely elite. A lively "Gallery of Famous Russian Women" opens the book. The second and third chapters examine women's roles within the family and their legal status. Women's fashions occupy the fourth chapter, and the final chapter provides a historiographic review. The introduction poses the central polemic of the work: were women competent, independent mem- bers of society, or were they secluded prisoners? This question addresses the central debate of the historiography, but the answers seem to lie beyond the chronological terminus of the book. Most recent work on Russian women accepts that only elite women were relegated to the terem, and then not until the sixteenth fifteenth century" (p. 187) may be true (although it is century. Because Pushkareva concludes her study in the late fifteenth century, it is not surprising that she in rather narrow economic and institutional terms. It finds little evidence of female seclusion in this period. Coming out of the Soviet context, Pushkareva's does not fully develop the content of this urban work understandably lacks the latest conceptual and outlook. Similarly, the chapter on culture concentheoretical framework that one might expect in a trates more on mechanical matters than aesthetic and Western work on women's history. Theoretical conliterary considerations. The dominance of courtly cerns aside, the book suffers from the uncritical and chivalric culture is rightly emphasized, but, for outline of medieval Russian history that serves as example, there is no real assessment of the signifibackground to its investigation of women. For incance of Oswald von Wolkenstein's literary activity in stance, the book's extensive discussion of women's Hungary. One cannot do everything in a single property rights ignores the current debate in Kievan volume, however, even if it is the capstone of a career. history, initiated by I. la. Froianov, who maintains This important study of Sigismund and his time is that large-scale landholding, male or female, did not sure to be recognized as a standard work. exist in the early centuries of Kiev. PAUL W. KNOLL Nonetheless, in its exuberant chronicling of women University of Southern California owning land, appearing in court, acting as guardians, or expressing opinions on political affairs, PushkareN. L. PUSHKAREVA. Zhenshchiny drevnei Rusi [Women of va's book makes an important contribution to the Ancient Rus']. (Bibliotechnaia seria.) Moscow: Mysl'. history of women and society in medieval Russia. She 1989. Pp. 286. 1 r. 40 k. has gathered an astonishing number of shards of probably overstated), but his treatment of this issue is AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW DECEMBER This content downloaded from 35.1.37.254 on Tue, 12 Sep 2017 21:16:36 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 1991 1520 Reviews of Books evidence, all of which indicate that at least some with establishing foedus as a better translation of the women, primarily members of the princely elite, biblical covenant than testamentum, a significant matter participated energetically in the economic and polit- in the rise of federal theology; and the international ical lives of their time. Although no single chapter character of Reformed theology is underlined. appears very persuasive on its own, in its proliferation Weir's book is a fine example of the genre of of examples the book shows that some women could historical theology and, although primarily genetic in play an active role in medieval Kievan society. its description of theological development, it has much to teach Reformation historians. But two quesUniversity of Michigan, tions need further discussion. First, in his considerAnn Arbor able sympathy for Perry Miller's approach to the VALERIE KIVELSON covenant, which he describes as mistaken only in MODERN EUROPE details (p. 16), Weir, although nuanced in his argument, perhaps makes too much of federal theology as DAVID A. WEIR. The Origins of the Federal Theology in a weakening or as an alternative to unconditional Sixteenth-Century Reformation Thought. New York: double predestination-a point at which Miller was Clarendon Press of Oxford University Press. 1990. Pp. xi, 244. $49.95. Covenant theology has been of great interest to historians because of its importance for the Puritan background of Anglo-American culture as well as for the political theory of early modern Europe. David A. Weir, regarding federal theology as a "specific type" (p. 3) of covenant theology and defining it as adherence to a prelapsarian covenant of works alongside the earlier postlapsarian covenant of grace taught by John Calvin and other theologians, has made some interesting discoveries in the process of substantiating a thesis about the origins of double covenant federalism. Weir's argument is that the emergence of the covenant of works arose from theological discussions in the Palatinate concerning Adam's fall and was first broached by the Heidelberg theologian Zacharias Ursinus in 1562. According to Weir, Ursinus's motive was that of theodicy, to offer a "milder" explanation of the fall than that offered by Theodore de Beza's supralapsarianism (pp. 63, 108). From Ursinus, Weir traces the double covenant to other reformed schools mistaken in more than details. Double covenant and double predestination went together well in seventeenth-century Calvinism. Second, Weir's stress on the Palatinate discussions on the Fall as the single origin for the doubling of the covenant lacks compelling evidence and overlooks other factors. These other factors, such as Ramist dichotomizing, the needs of the spiritual life (at which Weir hints on page 108), contractual modes of thinking, anti-Pelagian emphasis on grace, and the impact of the Bible, did not all influence Ursinus, but they provided the larger context for the appearance and success of his idea. Weir specifically denies any role to anti-Pelagianism and biblical exegesis in the rise of the covenant of works, but the doubled covenant may have been a way of freeing grace from all taint of legalism, as Michael McGiffert has argued, as well as a way of organizing theology consonant with the historical character of the biblical record. Weir's thorough and careful scholarship has produced an essential book for students of Reformation thought, especially for those who wrestle with the problem of the covenants. DEWEY D. WALLACE, JR. of the Palatinate and to the theologians Caspar Olevianus and FranciscusJunius. It was also picked up by the Puritan leader Thomas Cartwright, who was at Heidelberg in 1573-74, and by his protege Dudley LORRAINE DASTON. Classical Probability in the Enlighten- Fenner. After 1590, the two covenants became a ment. Princeton: Princeton University Press. 1988. Pp. standard point of Reformed theology and often its organizing principle. Double covenant federalism appeared in the Irish Articles of 1615 and The Westminster xviii, 423. $49.50. Confession of Faith of 1646. Weir claims that the covenant of works had significant ramifications: it provided a basis for human activities such as logic or the history of probability theory and statistics has science in a "covenant of works in creation" (p. 7), shifted piety to a concept of duty (p. 154), obliged believers to "work to make even the unregenerate obey the law of God" (p. 100), and meant that "the state could be entrusted with enforcing the law of God" (p. 6), including that concerning the Sabbath, on everyone. Other interesting points are made along the way: a passage in Augustine is cited as possibly the first appearance of a prelapsarian covenant of works; Sebastian Castellio, no friend of Calvin, is credited AMERICAN HISTORICAL George Washington University During the last thirty years, publication of works in constantly increased. In this respect the field can compete with the most research-active fields in the history of mathematics. Contributors to the history of stochastics, however, have different backgrounds and interests, and at least four groups can be identified: statisticians, probabilists, and historians of mathematics specializing in the history of stochastics, who are mainly concerned with the historical background of the mathematical concepts and tools of the subject; historians of science (and of mathematics), who try to unravel the intellectual conditions that influenced the solution of certain problems; philosophers of science, REVIEW DECEMBER This content downloaded from 35.1.37.254 on Tue, 12 Sep 2017 21:16:36 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 1991