Wench and Maiden: Women, War and the Pictorial Function of the Feminine in German Cities in the Early Modern Period

Examines how the imagery of the female city in wartime reflected and affected attitudes toward women. In the early modern period, it was common to personify continents, lands, and cities as female. The city in Germany was often portrayed as a virgin, testifying to civic order and compulsive nature constrained. During wartime this feminine representation invested women's courage or licentiousness with meaning. Print representations of violations and the violated city, stories about women who took up arms or otherwise acted courageously, and city records of women who had relations with soldiers all demonstrate the importance of this imagery.