Perceptions of femininity in early Irish society offers a careful and considered examination of the presentation of women in a range of written sources from the fifth to the ninth centuries, known as the ‘Classical Old Irish period’ (p. 1). The material analysed includes hagiography, law codes, penitential texts, annals, wisdom literature, and vernacular prose and poetry. As Oxenham is aware, the women described in these sources were often idealised or abstract representations of femininity, thereby limiting how much they can tell us about real women in early Irish society. These limitations dictate the book’s structure and the central chapters each lean predominantly on one type of evidence: ‘the feminine norm’ (chapter 2) and law codes; ‘the saintly feminine’ (4) and hagiography; and ‘the sinful feminine’ (5) and penitential texts. The exception is ‘the powerful feminine’ (chapter 3), which engages with a broad range of source types, including legal texts, annals and hagiography. The premise of the book is established in the opening chapter which briefly assesses historiography on gender theory and women in medieval Ireland, considers the place of women and the nature of femininity in the sources, and presents a list of texts on which the volume’s analysis is based. The final chapter offers a short conclusion.

The book successfully challenges many of the generalisations one can encounter in studies of medieval women and effectively demonstrates that the life experience of women (and, indeed, men in medieval Ireland) varied significantly depending on family background and social status: in short, that class rather than gender was the greatest determiner of one’s opportunities in this society. The suggestion that religious people formed a third gender, distinct from men and women in the lay sphere is also refuted, as Oxenham importantly argues that female sanctity was not equivalent to manliness, and religious men and religious women were both distinct from the laity and distinct from each other in early Ireland. The associated critique of much recent historiography of women in medieval Ireland is very good, and Oxenham’s sure command of the source material leads to a nuanced and rounded picture of women in early medieval Ireland that is most welcome. When the Irish evidence is compared with that from other regions in western Europe, the author unfortunately resorts to secondary literature without the same commitment to careful critique. This is especially the case when attention turns to the church fathers and the sensitive handling of the Irish sources is replaced with sweeping generalisations: for example, we are told the fathers regarded women as inherently sinful (pp 158–60) based on Tertullian’s De cultu feminarum and a selection of secondary sources. The supposed patristic focus on women’s sinfulness, which is presented in opposition to the views of certain Irish authors (p. 160), can be challenged in the same chapter’s discussion of ritual purity in which the penitentials indicate that women were impure when menstruating or after childbirth (pp 177–8); Oxenham observes that, in contrast, impurity through non-sinful action is ‘never apparent for men’ (p. 177). The most profound statement on ritual purity from this period is Pope Gregory the Great’s Libellus responsionum (Book of responses) sent to Augustine, first archbishop of Canterbury, around A.D. 600, in which the pope asserted that natural activities such as menstruation and childbirth did not make women impure. Clearly, patristic thought on women was not monolithic, and a more open engagement with this material would better contextualise the Irish views analysed here. The book’s focus on sources pre-A.D. 900, while understandable, also leads to some startling omissions: for example, in discussing the powerful feminine, the most famous of all such early Irish women – Queen Medb – never appears. Medb is the major instigator of the events of the Táin, which Oxenham excluded due to the difficulty of dating the work (p. 37); however, as other powerful mythological women such as Scáthach and Aífe are considered (p. 107: due to their appearance in pre-ninth century sources, see p. 37), and the poem Conailla Medb Míchuru is included in chapter 1’s list of texts (p. 38), the absence of Medb is surprising. These concerns should not detract from the overall value of Oxenham’s study. The comprehensive assessment of her chosen sources and careful explication of the variety of women’s lives, experiences and opportunities makes this volume a worthwhile contribution to our understanding of the presentation and perception of women in early-medieval Ireland.