ABSTRACT
Recognizing the many contributions made by women fundamentally alters our perception of that culture and requires new descriptions of performative traditions in England during the medieval and early modern periods. One result has been to confirm substantial contributions by women within all aspects of that society. The evidence from Lincolnshire parish guilds provides a more comprehensive and accurate picture than do the traditional histories of life as it was actually lived at the parish level, describing a local culture, especially before the Reformation, in which women contributed as equals, performatively and otherwise. In the important port and market town of Boston, one payment confirms that women participated in public performances. In the performances by sons and daughters alike at Grimsthorpe one can see the universal cultural suffrage that is routinely ignored in discussions of the participation by women in performance during that period.
