Cordelia Beattie

Professor Cordelia Beattie is a Professor of Women's and Gender History at the School of History, Classics and Archaeology. She is the medieval editor for Manchester University Press’s Gender in History series and one of the editors of the journal Gender and History. Cordelia teaches undergraduate and postgraduate courses on medieval women and gender.

Her research interests include:

The history of women and gender in pre-modern Britain and Europe, especially in relation to:

• The law
• Work
• Marriage

She was the Principal Investigator  on the AHRC-funded project, 'Alice Thornton's Books: Remembrances of a Woman's Life in the Seventeenth-Century' (2021-5). She is also pursuing an interest in women’s legal status and activities through an analysis of married women’s ability to own property and make testaments in pre-modern Britain and Ireland.

Cordelia’s recent publications include:

• Beattie, C. et al., 20 Feb. 2025, Alice Thornton's Books: Remembrances of a Woman's Life in the Seventeenth Century. https://thornton.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/ 
• Beattie, C., 13 Apr. 2023, Married Women, Testaments and Property in Sixteenth-century Scotland. The Scottish Historical Review. 102, 1, p. 1-33
• Beattie, C., 31 Dec 2021, Choosing Chancery? Women's Petitions to the Late Medieval Court of Chancery. Litigating Women: Gender and Justice in Europe c.1200-c.1750. Phipps, T. & Youngs, D. (eds.). 1st ed. London: Routledge, p. 99-115 17 p. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429278037
• Beattie, C., 30 Aug 2021, Uncovering the femme couverte: married women and the law in late medieval English towns. La familia urbana: Matrimonio, parentesco y linaje en la Edad Media. Solórzano Telechea, J. Á., Haemers, J. & Liddy, C. (eds.). Instituto de Estudios Riojanos, p. 209-30
• Beattie, C., 31 Dec 2021, Litigating Women: Gender and Justice in Europe c.1200-c.1750. Phipps, T. & Youngs, D. (eds.). 1st ed. London: Routledge, p. 99-115 17 p. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429278037
• Beattie, C., 30 Aug 2021, La familia urbana: Matrimonio, parentesco y linaje en la Edad Media. Solórzano Telechea, J. Á., Haemers, J. & Liddy, C. (eds.). Instituto de Estudios Riojanos, p. 209-30
• Beattie, C. (2019). A piece of the puzzle: Women and the law as viewed from the late medieval court of Chancery. Journal of British Studies, 58(4), 751-767. https://doi.org/10.1017/jbr.2019.87
• Beattie, C. (2019). Married women's wills: Probate, property and piety in Later Medieval England. Law and History Review, 37(1), 29-60. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0738248018000652
• Beattie, C. (2019). The discovery of two missing Alice Thornton manuscripts. Notes and queries, 66(4), 547-553. https://doi.org/10.1093/notesj/gjz116