ABSTRACT
In any period language is a powerful signifier of position and status. Despite two decades of work on gender in early modern criticism and historiography, little is known about the relationship of women to language, or the place occupied by gender in the complex linguistic alignments found in the period. Few of the linguists who have delineated and described early modern English have paid more than passing attention to women's language. Women's exclusion from humanist training led them towards popular, vernacular works, much to the consternation of some commentators. Education reinforced existing social distinctions, largely due to the specifically goal-orientated nature of educational philosophy. The Renaissance school curriculum has four key elements: it is programmatic; it is explicitly functional, tied to social status and future occupation; it is almost exclusively confined to boys, especially at the more advanced stages; it is not confined to institutional sites of learning.
