"ein dapfer manlich wib": Working women and worried men - gender in alpine communities in the 15th and 16th century.

Living in an alpine village during the Late Medieval and Early Modern Period came with many challenges, which necessitated a careful marshaling of communal resources. This included both regulating who had to contribute to communal labour as well as who was allowed to profit from communal rights and property.
This paper will explore how alpine villages attempted to manage these and related issues of in- and exclusion, with a focus on the question of the role women played in these systems and associated perceptions of gender.
While there are a number of studies which investigated similar topics regarding gender, the roles and agency of women in courtly or city contexts, there is as of yet a lack of research of this kind looking at rural communities.
I will use a selection of case studies from the alpine area, ranging from Valais to Tyrol, to explore the ways in which the work and knowledge of women played a pivotal part in their communities, be it as witnesses, herders, road workers or investors. The presented findings are part of the preliminary results of my Doc.CH/SNF-project «Lebende Landschaften. Umweltadaption und Ressourcenmanagement durch die alpine Bevölkerung, 1400-1550» and are intended to aid in furthering the understanding both of alpine communities generally and how the inclusion of gender approaches can enrich historical research.

Main themes:
• The ways in which labour and tasks were assigned in alpine communities.
• Definitions and perceptions of gender both past and present and their influence on historical research.