Book excerpt: A new economy of power relations: female agency in the middle ages / Mary C. Erler and Maryanne Kowaleski -- Women and power through the family revisited / Jo Ann McNamara -- Women and confession: from empowerment to pathology / Dyan Elliott -- "With the heat of the hungry heart": empowerment and Ancrene wisse / Nicholas Watson -- Powers of record, powers of example: hagiography and women's history / Jocelyn Wogan-Browne -- Who is the master of this narrative? Maternal patronage of the cult of St. Margaret / Wendy R. Larson -- "The wise mother": the image of St. Anne teaching the Virgin Mary / Pamela Sheingorn -- Did goddesses empower women? the case of dame nature / Barbara Newman -- Women in the late medieval English parish / Katherine L. French -- Public exposure? consorts and ritual in late medieval Europe: the example of the entrance of the dogaresse of Venice / Holly S. Hurlburt -- Women's influence on the design of urban homes / Sarah Rees Jones -- Looking closely: authority and intimacy in the late medieval urban home / Felicity Riddy.