European Review of Economic History, 27, 506–532 © The Author(s) 2023.

Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the European Historical

Economics Society.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (https://creativecommons.org/
licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
For commercial re-use, please contact [email protected]
doi:10.1093/ereh/heac023 Advance Access Publication Date: January 31, 2023

Women in European academia before

1800—religion, marriage, and human capital
D A V I D D E L A C R O I X* A N D M A R A V I T A L E**
*IRES/LIDAM, UCLouvain, Belgium and CEPR, London, UK

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/ereh/article/27/4/506/7017742 by guest on 08 July 2025

**IRES/LIDAM, UCLouvain, Belgium, [email protected]

We document the participation of women in European academia from the first universities
to the eve of the Industrial Revolution. A total of 108 women taught at universities or were
members of academies of arts and sciences. Most of them were active in Catholic southern
Europe—an unexpected result. We conjecture that Protestantism left less room for women
at the top of the distribution of human capital to exercise their talent. The percentage
of ever-married female scholars is 79%, but a large fraction of them remained childless.
Comparing them with 58,995 male scholars, we find that they were on average better.

1. Introduction

It is well established that most of the scholars and literati who were members of European
universities or academies of sciences and arts during the Middle Ages and the early modern
period were men. Nonetheless, these universities and academies numbered some women
among their members. In this paper, we identify the women belonging to this group, who they
were, whether they were married or nuns, whether they published well, and which institutions
opened their doors to them.
It is often presumed that some parts of Europe were more open to women than others. This
presumption is best illustrated by the following historical anecdote. The actress Adrienne
Lecouvreur died on 20 May, 1730, and the clergy refused to bury her. Voltaire, her friend,
wrote a stirring poem to express his indignation. This text brings to the foreground the idea
that France was asleep under the empire of Superstition, while in England, anyone with talent
was recognized as such (Voltaire 1785):
And Lecouvreur in London would have had tombs
Among the beautiful minds, kings, and heroes.
God! Why is my country no longer
the homeland of glory and talent?

In these verses, Voltaire wanted to contrast two cultural realities: the English one, which
was open and appreciative of all forms of talent, and the French one, which was unable to
appreciate talent and was tied to religiosity steeped in superstition. This perception is aligned
with the opinion that the Protestant Reformation led a modernized northern Europe ahead
of a conservative and reactionary South. The Reformation paved the way for further scientific
developments (Wootton 2015) and was strongly complementary to the Industrial Revolution
(Becker & Woessmann 2008; Henrich & Penguin 2020; Landes 1999; Weber 1930). Such a
clear divide between a modern Europe and a conservative one may have been less true than
commonly believed, as our results show.
 Women in European academia before 1800 507

60qN 60qN

55qN 55qN
Latitude

Latitude
50qN 50qN

45qN 45qN

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/ereh/article/27/4/506/7017742 by guest on 08 July 2025

40qN 40qN

10qW 0q 10qE 20qE 30qE 10qW 0q 10qE 20qE 30qE

Longitude Longitude

Figure 1. Location of covered institutions. Universities (left panel, with female members in
orange), academies (right panel, with female members in yellow)

In this paper, we establish a catalogue of women in academia during the medieval and early
modern periods. This catalogue is based on the prosopographical database UTHC, which
covers scholars and literati who were either teaching at universities or involved in scientific
academies in Europe over the period 1000–1800. The database UTHC is built from about
500 primary and secondary sources on universities and academies, such as the list of members
of the Royal Society, the biographical registers of Oxford and Cambridge, the rotuli (rolls) of
Florence (for the years 1473–1503) or Bologna (for the years 1384–1799), etc. In many cases,
those sources are of excellent quality, providing a comprehensive coverage of the members of
an institution. There are, however, some cases for which comprehensive secondary sources
are missing. This happens for example when the archives of the institution have been lost,
preventing historians to base their work on them. In such cases, it is still often possible to
get a broad coverage of the members by combining books on the history of the institution
with regional biographical dictionaries. We invite the reader interested in the sources in which
women were found to consult our online Appendix. Figure 1 shows the covered institutions,
with universities on the left and academies on the right. Those with women affiliated are in a
different color.
To understand why some women taught at universities, we sought to determine who
they were, how universities and academies were organized, and what their reasons are for
including women. Finally, we wondered how and if the religious changes that came with the
Reformation might have affected women in academia.
Following Voltaire’s view, we expected to conclude that women were more welcome in the
most modern part of Europe, such as the universities of Leiden, Glasgow, Copenhagen, or
Göttingen, and in scientific academies such as the Royal Society, the Swedish Academy of
Sciences, or the Leopoldina. We were surprised to find very few female academic scholars
in Northern Europe, whereas they were more numerous in the South. Women taught at the
universities of Bologna, Padua, and Salamanca and were members of academies in Arles,
Nancy, Lyon, Beziers, Padua, Rome, and Madrid.
508 European Review of Economic History

There was certainly no shortage of women scholars in northern European countries. Anna
Maria von Schürmann (1607–1678), Maria Cunitz (d. 1604), Maria Sybilla Merian (1647–
1717), and Maria Margaretha Winkelmann Kirch (1670–1720) are some illustrious examples
of female intellectuals in literature and science, some of them contributing significantly to
the development of scientific thought. However, none of them were allowed to teach at a
university, even in an informal way, or to be admitted to full membership in an academy of sci-
ence and letters. This echoes the literature on the historical gender gap (Karlsson et al. 2021;
Perrin 2022). It was wider in Sweden than in France during the nineteenth century, and,
as far as Sweden is concerned, it started to shrink late, in the second half of the twentieth

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/ereh/article/27/4/506/7017742 by guest on 08 July 2025

century.
An additional dimension we consider is the quality of the women active in academia. We
measure their quality by the footprint they have left in the catalogues of libraries across the
world. This is obviously an imperfect measure, which might also suffer from an anachronistic
bias, but it does allow for comparisons across space and over time. Our results here are in
line with expectations. The women who published are on average significantly better than
the men who produced some work. This likely reflects a stronger positive selection of women
into academia.
Finally, we document the marital status of women in academia. Abstracting for the
unknown statuses, the percentage of ever-married women is 79%, which is almost in
line with the general population. However, the childlessness rate, including never married
women and married childless women, is 52%, largely above historical childlessness rates
(De la Croix et al. 2019).
Looking at our data from a broader perspective, we call into question the popular idea that
the little divergence between Northern and Southern Europe was driven by Protestantism.
Palma et al. (2021) have already shown that Protestant countries did not display a more
growth-promoting marriage pattern. Here, we challenge the idea that Protestantism was
necessarily more modern and more liberal than Catholicism, at least where the participation
of women in upper tail human capital is concerned.
The paper is organized as follows. First, we present our methodology to find data on women
in academia before 1800 in Europe and provide some statistics on the data collected. We then
adopt a more qualitative approach to the phenomenon and develop a critical assessment of
the sources. Next, we hint at some reasons explaining the pattern observed, with a focus on
the Catholic/Protestant divide. Finally, we report some measures of women’s versus men’s
publications and interpret the gap identified.

2. Methodology and global statistics

The full database contains information on 58,995 scholars who were appointed to universities
or were nominated to academies over the period 1000–1800. The data were harvested
manually from about 500 different secondary sources on the history of universities and
academies. We took the list of universities from Frijhoff (1996) and the list of academies
from McClellan (1985) and added to this the language academies, the most important Italian
Renaissance academies from British Library (2021), and several other higher education
institutions which conferred academic degrees.1

1 In view of the large number of academies, and the ephemeral existence of many of them, we have decided to
make a choice. Among the academies indicated by McClellan and those present in the Database of Italian
Academies, we considered those that had more than twenty members. This resulted in the exclusion of some
 Women in European academia before 1800 509

In order to verify that we had not missed any important woman who would not have
been recorded in secondary sources about universities and academies, we also consulted
dictionaries of famous women in science by Ogilvie (1986) and famous women by
Abrantès & Straszewicz (1834) and by Robin et al. (2007). We also considered other more
general sources on the role of women in science (Agnesi et al. 2005; Frevert et al. 2020;
Olsen 1994). We also consulted ancient works that offer portraits of illustrious women.
Indeed, the biographical literature is extensive. Between the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries, several works focused primarily on femmes savantes (learned ladies), thus becoming
a literary genre.2 We conclude that the coverage of women with our corpus of secondary

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/ereh/article/27/4/506/7017742 by guest on 08 July 2025

sources is broader than the one of the biographical literature.
Table 1 shows some descriptive statistics. We found twenty-three female professors, eighty-
one female academicians, and four women who were both professors and academicians. A
complete list is provided in the Appendix. The whole period is divided into eight sub-periods,
corresponding to major historical events: from the urban revolution to the first universities
(1000–1199); from the official foundation of Paris and Oxford in 1200 to the Black Death
(1200–1347); from the Black Death to the invention of the movable-type printing press (1348–
1449); from the printing press to the rise of Protestantism and the foundation of the first
Protestant university in Marburg (1450–1526); from Protestantism to the beginning of the
Thirty Years’ War (1527–1617); from the Thirty Years’ War to the revocation of the Edict
of Nantes (1618–1684); from this revocation to the rise of Enlightened universities and the
foundation of the University of Göttingen (1685–1733); and from Enlightened universities to
1800 (1734–1800).
There are women in all eight periods, but their number is approximatively multiplied by
four in the last three periods from 1618 to 1800. The number of institutions welcoming them
is low but markedly increases in the last period. We can explain this increase by the spread of
academies and their openness to women. We know the birthplaces, sometimes approximately,
of 91.7% of the female scholars.
Finally, 73.1% of the female scholars have a Wikipedia page (in some language) and 67.6%
of them have left a footprint in the catalogues of the libraries of the world, Worldcat, either by
having published some work, or by having been the subject of published books and articles.
For scholars active before the invention of the movable-type printing press in 1450, more
have a Wikipedia page than a Worldcat reference, as several publications of that time did
not survive or are not available in libraries today. Conversely, following the invention of the
printing press, there are more female scholars with publications than with Wikipedia pages.
These figures also tell us that there has always been an interest in scholarly women and their
work. Indeed, their writings have survived time, as have the story of their lives.
Figure 2 shows when institutions were created, their latitude, and what their religious
affiliation was once Protestantism was introduced. The size of the points is proportional to

women in our analysis. Some academies not considered in our analysis are the following: Accademia Trasformati,
Accademia Cloelia Vigilantium, Accademia degli Accesi, Accademia dei Forzati di Arezzo, Accademia degli Unanimi di
Salo’, Accademia dei Concordi di Rovigo, and Accademia dei Sonnacchiosi di Bologna.
2 A famous text is “Prospetto biografico delle donne italiane rinomate in letteratura dal secolo decimoquarto fino a’
giorni nostri” by Ginevra Canonici Fachini (1824), who responded to Lady Morgan’s insinuations (Morgan 1821)
about the Italian women described as uncultivated, backward, and oppressed. Other works we consulted are
Adelaide Gillette Dufrénoy (1820), Mary Hays, (1807), and Alexander Von Ungern-Sternberg (1848). These
texts were useful to confirm or expand information about some figures. They were also helpful in understanding
how women participated in the intellectual life of their time.
510 European Review of Economic History

Table 1. Summary statistics by period

% with % with
Period nb. scholars nb. institutions Wikipedia Worldcat
Start End All Women All With women All Women All Women
1000 1199 317 3 19 1 53.9 66.7 51.1 33.3
1200 1347 1923 6 33 3 20.7 50.0 20.5 0
1348 1449 4759 4 56 2 9.4 100.0 9.1 0
1450 1526 7103 6 85 3 11.5 83.3 16.3 66.7

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/ereh/article/27/4/506/7017742 by guest on 08 July 2025

1527 1617 10493 9 182 7 22.3 66.7 36.8 66.7
1618 1685 9589 24 204 5 25.4 83.3 42 83.3
1686 1733 8231 18 199 9 27.5 55.6 45.4 61.1
1734 1800 16580 38 261 25 38.2 76.3 55.7 81.6
1000 1800 58995 108 346 38 25.8 73.1 39.0 67.6
60
55
Latitude

50
45
40

1000 1200 1400 1600 1800

Official foundation year

Figure 2. Institutions over time. Universities: squares. Academies: circles. Protestant: yellow.
Catholic: purple. Orthodox: white. Size of points proportional to log(nb. of women)

the logarithm of the number of female members. In this picture, we exclude women for whom
the link with the institution is “weak”: either there is some uncertainty about the existence of
the affiliation or the connection with the university or academy is distant, as is the case with
corresponding members to academies, for example.
Several lessons can be drawn. First, the institutions including women comprise both
old and more recent ones. The old institutions include the University of Bologna (1088),
Salamanca (1218), Padua (1222), and Salerno (officially 1231, but active before). The
highest number of women is found at the Accademia dei Ricovrati (1599). Second, few
Protestant institutions (yellow points) included women, and those which did are more
recent institutions: the Leopoldina (1652), the Prussian Academy (1700), the Royal Swedish
Academy of Sciences in Stockholm (1739), and the Royal Physiographic Society in Lund
(1778). Moreover, they only had one or two women among their members. The picture
 Women in European academia before 1800 511

also shows the correlation between latitude (vertical axis) and the presence of Protestant
institutions. Protestantism flourished in regions that were far from the Mediterranean and
thus Christianized later. We will return to this feature in Section 7.

3. Women in universities

Throughout the history of universities in Europe from the beginning of the eleventh century
until the nineteenth century, very few women held teaching positions at universities. From
history, we know some names, although their very existence is often called into question

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/ereh/article/27/4/506/7017742 by guest on 08 July 2025

(Cavazza 1997a; Duranti 2020; Green 1999; Tappy 2019; Torres 2019). The absence of insti-
tutional documentation, at least until universities began to have official records, has increased
the legendary dimension linked to their person and activity, turning these figures into real
myths. This is the case, for example, of Trotula de’ Ruggiero whose identity and existence
has long been the subject of study and debate.3 Trotula’s status as a university professor
must also be reconsidered in light of the fact that the Salerno School of Medicine cannot be
considered a university to all intents and purposes. As will be shown, even the existence
or non-existence of these women can be explained by considering the different religious
doctrines that characterized Europe during the historical period considered. Other examples
are those of Dorotea Bocchi in Italy and Beatriz Galindo and Lucia de Medrano in Spain.4
Through all the secondary sources used in building the prosopographical database, we
found twenty-three female professors: in some cases, they held their own professorships; in
others, they temporarily replaced their fathers, and in others yet, they simply read or gave
orations. Among these twenty-three professors, we have strong evidence of teaching for twelve
of them. The other eleven are considered as having weaker or more uncertain links with
universities (as written above for Trotula). We find the strongest links respectively at the
universities of Bologna, Padua, Salamanca, and Alcalá. In Italy, at the Alma Mater (Bologna),
we find Laura Bassi (1711–1788), Clotilde Tambroni (1768–1817), Maria Gaetana Agnesi
(1718–1799), Novella d’Andrea (d. 1333), Maddalena Bonsignori (d. 1396), and Bettisia
Gozzadini (1209–1261). In Padua, we identify Bettina d’Andrea (d. 1335) and Cassandra
Fedele (1465–1558). In Spain, in Salamanca, we find Luisa de Medrano (1484–1527), Beatriz
Galindo (1465–1535), and Juana Contreras (sixteenth century). At the university of Alcalá,
we find María Isidra de Guzmán y de la Cerda (1767–1803) and Francisca Lebrija (fifteenth
century). The universities where these women were able to teach are among the oldest in
Europe. Thus, these universities share a long history and a focus on expanding knowledge.
Another common element is the Catholic cultural environment in which they developed.

3 The medieval historian Monica Green has carried out in-depth studies and has demonstrated that the name
Trotula refers to a set of treatises on medical subjects and not to a single person (Benton 1985; Green 1999,
2013). The treaty De curis mulierum (On Treatments for Women) is the only one that has been attributed to a
female practitioner of medicine, not a scholar, named Trocta/Trota. The gender identity of the authors of these
works is not certain either. It is certain that in Salerno there were women healers (mulieres salernitanae) (women
of Salerno) who worked within the Medical School of Salerno passing on their knowledge to new generations of
healers and leaving some writings.
4 Even these figures have also been questioned by recent studies, highlighting a certain manipulation of histori-
ographic information (Torres 2019). Although whether these women existed or not cannot be determined with
certainty, what caught our attention was the fact that they were in academic institutions in southern Europe.
512 European Review of Economic History

We did not include some scholars in our analysis. This is the case of Dorotea Bocchi, whom
historiography has long considered a professor of practical medicine in Bologna in 1436 as a
substitute for her father. Recent studies have ruled out the possibility of her teaching at the
university and questioned her very existence (Duranti 2020). Other women professors at the
University of Bologna whose existence or teaching has been denied are Accursia or Accorsa
Accorso (ca. 1230–1281) and Alessandra Giliani (1307–1327).
As has been pointed out by university historian Paul Frederick Grendler, universities in
the North differed greatly from those in the South in their teaching, organization, numbers
of students and professors, and quality of teaching (Grendler 2004). In general, during the

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/ereh/article/27/4/506/7017742 by guest on 08 July 2025

first period of their existence and throughout the Renaissance, Italian and Spanish universities
favored the teaching of law and medicine, while northern universities favored the teaching
of theology and the arts. In the case of Bologna, this interest in law can be explained by the
significant demographic increase and economic development that occurred in Italy during
the eleventh century. The need to organize and regulate the city and to counter the many
disputes between citizens and the administration led to an interest in legal disciplines and in
particular to the study of Roman law (Grendler 2004).
Another distinctive element is the organization and operation of universities: the univer-
sities of the North were characterized by a strict organizational structure, which included
rectors, deans, and a senate with well-defined rules to follow. In Italy, at least at first,
universities were communities of students and professors. The rectors were students elected
by student organizations. Their power eventually waned, and by the middle of the sixteenth
century in some Italian universities, rectors were no longer elected (Grendler 2002). Another
relevant aspect in the organization of universities is the influence exerted by political power,
which was stronger in Northern Europe. Sovereign authorities there sought to reinforce their
power by imposing themselves in all domains, and the foundation of a university itself was
a political act, as well as an expression of the desire to modernize the state. This was the
case with Scottish and Scandinavian universities (Riché & Verger 2013). In Germany, princes
were directly involved in the organization and in the most important decisions of universities.
For example, it was up to them to decide which professors were hired or dismissed. The
intervention of political power in the organization of universities determined the introduction
of financial privileges and the possibility of fixed salaries. In Cracow, the sovereign exerted
a strong influence over the universities, and the salaries of the professors were secured
from the proceeds of royal customs (Ridder-Symoens 1991). The city administration of
Louvain, at least in the early years of the university, chose the scholars who were entrusted
with the new chairs and also paid their salaries (Moulin 2013). When Northern European
political authorities embraced the new ideas that the Protestant Reformation brought, this
had repercussions on the organization of universities as well. Their rigid structure left no
room for change and openness, in particular when it came to opening doors for women. On
the contrary, in the south of Europe, universities were much less subject to governmental
pressure: the very fact that they were often not located in cities that were the seats of political
or religious power is a sign of this independence.
As far as the teaching disciplines are concerned, women were not allowed to teach theology,
and even the in-depth study of this discipline was also severely limited for them. An exemplary
case is that of Elena Lucrezia Cornaro Piscopia, who is famous for being the first woman to
have obtained a university degree. Initially, she prepared her thesis in theology in Padua.
The Republic of Venice did not hinder her request, knowing that it would bring prestige to
the university. Also, the theology professors at Padua, after having consulted their colleagues
from Paris and Louvain, gave their agreement, with the clause that she would not be allowed
 Women in European academia before 1800 513

to teach. However, the bishop of Padua, Gregorio Barberigo (1625–1697) was opposed to
her studying theology, fearful as he was of public criticism. In 1678, after a long mediation
that forced Elena Cornaro to change the title of her thesis to make it look like a thesis in
philosophy and not in theology, she obtained the title of Doctor of Philosophy (magistra et
doctrix in philosophia). She was later aggregated to the college of physicians and philosophers,
but without being able to participate in the activities (Maschietto 2007).
With regard to the profiles of these female scholars, we have been able to find several
commonalities. In fact, even if the existence of some of them remains shrouded in mystery,
just as their university education is uncertain, these women who had easy access to the

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/ereh/article/27/4/506/7017742 by guest on 08 July 2025

cultural world of their time and to the—rare and expensive—written texts could count on the
economic and cultural support of their families. From the biographical study of these scholars,
we have seen that their education was always encouraged by their fathers and husbands, who
were often also university teachers or famous scholars. It was the latter who fought with the
authorities of the time so that the former could practice teaching in university classrooms. For
the aristocratic families of the time, the erudition of a young woman could give opportunities
to strengthen alliances with the most influential political forces. The aforementioned cases
of Elena Lucrezia Cornaro Piscopia in Padua or of Maria Vittoria Delfini Dosi in Bologna
perfectly illustrate the complexity of the social realities and political games that could be
hidden behind the assignment of a university title to a woman.5
In Spain, however, it was Queen Isabella of Castile who encouraged the erudition of
women. This created the conditions that allowed some of them to teach at universities. The
Queen surrounded herself with cultured ladies-in-waiting. Beatriz de Galindo belonged to the
nobility that supported the royal family. At a very young age, she was called to court to teach
the queen and her daughters Latin. Due to her great erudition, she was able to have access to
university libraries. On several occasions, she was called a lecturer (De Arteaga 2007). Luisa
de Madrano was also under the queen’s protection, as well as under that of her brother Luis
as a professor and rector of the University of Salamanca.
These erudite women are exemplary cases. In fact, throughout the historical period
considered, there were very few women who were able to have access to a form of schooling,
whether official or informal (Frova 2019; Grendler 1990). It was mostly women from the
upper classes who could go to libraries and enjoy the teachings of preceptors. In most cases,
women’s education in letters had as its only goal reading devotional literature, missives, and
notarial acts. The other possibility for women to have a form of schooling was to join religious
communities. Convents were places where women were allowed to teach as well as learn. In
many abbeys, Latin, Greek, and Hebrew were taught. There was room for literature and
poetry, as well as religious writings.

5 In 1719, the promoter and father of Maria Vittoria Delfini Dosi asked that his daughter obtain a university
degree in law. Behind this request was the desire to strengthen the ties of the Dosi Dolfini family with the
Spanish monarchy and to reaffirm the autonomy of the Bolognese aristocracy from the Roman government
(Findlen et al. 2009). Cornaro’s doctoral degree, on the other hand, served to redeem her family’s honor and
luster. In fact, his marriage with a woman of dubious customs excluded Giovan Battista Cornaro, Elena’s father,
from Venetian noble circles. To obtain titles for his children, he had to pay large sums. His daughter’s intellectual
gifts and the extraordinary nature of the event allowed him to regain a place in the Venetian society of the time
(Maschietto 2007).
514 European Review of Economic History

4. Women in academies

While the history of women in universities is one of exclusion or relative inclusion, it is not
the same for academies (Noordenbos 2002). During the Renaissance throughout Europe
numerous scientific, literary, and artistic academies were created. This was the result of
humanist culture and the patronage of princes who were eager to increase their power through
knowledge and art. Once again, it is Italy that boasts the primacy of the first academies and
of the first female academicians. The number of academies was very high (Maylender 1930):
some were composed of a few members and had a strong private character, while others,

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/ereh/article/27/4/506/7017742 by guest on 08 July 2025

such as the Academy of the Ricovrati or the Crusca, had a large number of scholars. These
institutions were an alternative to university classrooms for scholars, allowing them to increase
their prestige. Academies were largely financed by the aristocracy (protectors) and this gave
scholars the means to acquire the scientific instruments needed to carry out their activities. In
our study of university professors, we have shown that universities belonged to both a market
and a network through which people and ideas began to circulate, uniting the whole of Europe
(De la Croix et al. 2020). With academies, this network was further expanded, allowing those
excluded from the university circuit to engage and interact with other scholars. Academies
allowed women to enter this network. These institutions also opened their doors to women
who did not belong to the aristocracy of the city, or, as we have seen, who had no family
support. Another crucial aspect of opening academies to women was the use and promotion
of the vernacular language. The knowledge of Latin was no longer a prerequisite to access
the world of knowledge, as was the case for universities.
Thanks to the creation of this alternative to universities, the institutionalized presence
of women in the knowledge network is significantly greater, although still with limitations.
We found eighty-one women who were members of significant academies in Europe. They
were part of them in different ways. In some cases, they were admitted as honorary
members, attending meetings and proposing dissertations. In most cases, they were external
or corresponding members and their presence was severely limited. However, some of them
had the opportunity to publish their work in the proceedings of academies, although they were
never admitted. For the purposes of our research, which is mainly concerned with scientific
academies, we counted eighty-two women, but the number is much larger if one takes into
account exclusively literary and artistic academies. One example of a literary academy with
a large number of women is the Academy of Arcadia in Italy. This academy consisted of
numerous sections found in the country’s main urban centers. The Siena section counted
about six hundred women during its existence (Paoli 2012).
The question of whether women should participate in the activities of academies became a
topic of debate even within Italian academies. Referring to the querelle des femmes (the woman
question) and the role of women in society, a debate arose as to whether women should be
allowed to attend academic meetings and more generally whether they should have access to
the study of science and letters. The Academy of the Ricovrati addressed the issue in 1723.
The discussion was initiated by physician and university professor Antonio Vallisneri (1661–
1730) and lasted a full five years.6 During these years, male and female scholars from all
nations participated. The best contributions were published in a volume that concluded with

6 This debate arose after Maria Vittoria Delfini Dosi failed to obtain her degree. In the same year, some Venetian
women attended university lectures by Professor Vallisneri, wearing a bauta (Venetian mask) in order not to be
recognized (Martini & Sorba 2021).
 Women in European academia before 1800 515

an essay in favor of women studying written by the young Maria Gaetana Agnesi, who in
1750 was offered a chair of mathematics at the University of Bologna (Volpi 1729).
In northern Europe, women were not so fortunate to participate in the intellectual life of
academies. Their entry was very late and always a source of great reflection and discussion.
However, it is worth mentioning two cases: Margaret Cavendish (1623–1673) and Maria
Winkelmann (1670–1720). These two figures, without ever being admitted to the Royal
Society and the Prussian Academy of Sciences respectively, associated their names with these
two academies. Cavendish was the first woman to visit the prestigious London academy in
1667. She expressed criticisms with respect to the merits of the microscopes used by Henry

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/ereh/article/27/4/506/7017742 by guest on 08 July 2025

Power and Robert Hooke (Habinek 2021; Wilkins 2014). She was critical of the experimental
method advocated by the two scholars and the academy itself. Her ideas, her eccentricity,
and undoubtedly her gender did not allow her to become a member of the Royal Society;
however, her position as an “outsider” (Wilkins 2014) allowed her to freely express her ideas
and question the objectivity of the academy.7
Another woman who came close to being admitted to an academy was Maria Kirch
Winkelmann. The German astronomer was the wife of mathematician Gottfried Kirch, a
member of the Prussian Academy of Sciences. Maria was his assistant and together they
produced calendars and almanacs with astronomical information useful for navigation and
astronomical studies. The Prussian Academy had a monopoly on the sale of calendars
(De la Croix et al. 2021). When her husband died, despite the support of Leibniz, the
president of the academy, Maria was not admitted. The board claimed that the appointment
of a woman would create a precedent contrary to a tacit rule of the academy that prohibited
the entry of women (Schiebinger 1987). Winkelmann’s case is also interesting in another
aspect. Maria grew up in the Protestant environment of seventeeth century Germany. Her
father, a Lutheran minister, wanted to give her an education equal to that of male children.
Orphaned by her father’s death, she learned her trade from an uncle and then from her
husband. For Maria, learning astronomy was possible because this discipline, although not
considered a guild, included elements of practice. In fact, it was possible for women to belong
to guilds and learn a trade from their fathers or husbands (Crowston 2008). Her position as
an assistant allowed her to continue practicing astronomy even after her husband’s death.
However, the socio-cultural limitations of the time did not allow her to pursue university
studies or even to be an official member of the academy.
Finally, the case of Hedvig Gustava Malmsten beautifully illustrates the saying, “It is the
exception that proves the rule.”8 She was a full member of the academy in Lund, Sweden,
but it was by mistake. Hedvig Gustava Malmsten was elected as a member of the Royal
Physiographic Society in Lund on 22 June, 1789. The reason for this is unclear and there is
no motivation for this in the original statutes. She was the wife of Olof Malmsten, a member
of the academy, who was the director of Swedish industries for dyeing textiles and died in
1790. In 1795, Hedvig Gustava married Anders Christophersson (1750–1804) who was a royal
doctor of medicine, and like Hedvig Gustava was elected as a member of the society on 22
June, 1789, which seems to be strange coincidence. When they married, Hedvig Gustava was
61 years of age, whereas her husband was 41 years. Apparently, the society made a mistake,
or was unaware of its 1,778 statutes, in which the third paragraph states that the members

7 Cavendish was posthumously nicknamed Mad Madge. This nickname was due to her outlandish sense of style
and her exuberant and flirtatious manners (Whitaker 2002).
8 We warmly thank Per Alm, the Permanent Secretary and Treasurer of the Royal Physiographic Society in Lund
for his help with this case.
516 European Review of Economic History

of the society were to be men. In 1952, the statutes were changed so that women could be
elected as members of the society and Dora Jacobsohn, a professor of physiology, was elected
as a member. Since then, several women have been elected as members and have even been
presidents of the society.

5. Women patrons

Even if we did not include them in our database, we mention here briefly some women
who, in different capacities, founded academies or universities. Patronage was a widespread

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/ereh/article/27/4/506/7017742 by guest on 08 July 2025

practice, with the nobility all over Europe displaying generosity by supporting culture and art.
Women from the nobility played an important role, providing financial support to numerous
academies. These women were often excluded from cultural debates, so that patronage
became an opportunity for them to participate in the creation of such cultural debates, and
of course, a way to go down in history.
In medieval times, Margaret Beaufort (1443–1509), the mother of Henry VII, was one of
the most powerful personalities of her era, devoting herself to scientific and literary patronage
during her son’s reign. In 1505, she re-founded Christ’s College in Cambridge. After her
death, St. John’s College was founded following her initiative. Lady Margaret also founded
other schools, but not at the university level.
In Russia, where the creation of universities and academies came late compared with
the rest of Europe, the academies that were founded featured women, such as the Saint
Petersburg Academy of Sciences. This institution, created by Peter the Great in 1724,
reached its apogee with Catherine I, who appointed the most renowned European scholars
at the time as members. Under Catherine II (who was formally made member of the
Academy), this academy became a more Russian institution by hiring national scholars
(De la Croix & Doraghi 2021). Catherine II also created the Russian Academy in 1783 which
was dedicated to the study of the Russian language following the example of the Académie
Française. Both of these prominent academies were presided over by Ekaterina Dashkova, a
very important female figure in eighteenth century Russia. In fact, Dashkova founded the
Russian Academy with the empress, was the director of the Saint Petersburg Academy of
Sciences from 1783 to 1796, and became an honorary member of the Royal Academy of
Sciences of Sweden in 1783.
In the eighteenth century, two other important figures participated in the circulation of
the ideas of the time. These were Maria Theresa of Austria, who in 1772 decreed the
birth of the Royal Academy of Science, Letters, and Fine Arts of Brussels (also called La
Thérésienne) and gave it the title of imperial academy. Maria Theresa also had other merits in
the field of education. In 1774, she introduced compulsory primary education, and she wanted
reform (in terms of organization and teaching) of the University of Pavia. She wanted the
establishment of the chair of natural sciences and called the famous physician and biologist
Lazzaro Spallanzani (1729–1799) to Pavia.9
The other queen is Mary I of Portugal. She recognized the scientific relevance of the
already existing Academy of Sciences and became its protector. From this time, the academy
took the name Royal Academy of Sciences of Lisbon. With royal support, this academy

9 In his funeral oration in honor of Queen Maria Theresa of Austria, Turchi (1819) recalls the sovereign’s merit in
restoring the University of Pavia to its former glory by nominating prominent professors.
 Women in European academia before 1800 517

Table 2. Women scholars and family

Status Number of women
Married women with children 40
Married childless women 26
Never married women 18
Unknown marital status 24
Total 108

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/ereh/article/27/4/506/7017742 by guest on 08 July 2025

became important for the study of the natural resources found in the Portuguese colonies
(Vitale 2022).

6. Marital status of female scholars

Another aspect we considered in our analysis is the marital status of women in academia.
Having a small sample allowed us to analyze the biographies of these female scholars and draw
additional information from them. The results are presented in table 2. We know that sixty-
six scholars were married, while eighteen women chose religious life, or a solitary, withdrawn
life. Two of them took religious vows. The poetess Maria Serafina Arcoliniani (1734–1803) of
the Academy of the Ricovrati (Maggiolo 1983), entered the order of Dimesse nuns, and Elena
Lucrezia Cornaro Piscopia took the habit of Benedictine oblate without becoming a nun.
In the past, there were several reasons that led women to enter the monastic life. In most
cases, families forced their daughters to enter convents. In other cases, as with these two
female scholars, we know that they did so voluntarily with the support of their families. As
already stressed by Nekoei & Sinn (2021), women’s power has sometimes been a side effect
of nepotism.
Other women, even though they could not become nuns, chose a retired life. This is
the case, for example, of Maria Gaetana Agnesi, who at the age of 21 years asked her
father for permission to become a nun. Her father’s health forced her to sacrifice her own
inclinations, with the vow of no longer taking part in worldly life and of being allowed to
go to church whenever she wished (Mazzotti 2007; Vettori Sandor 1988). These sometimes
painful choices made it possible to put to rest any negative rumors that might have been
circulating about them. The society of the time did not accept that an unmarried woman
should frequent public places, academies, or anatomical theaters, conferring with men.
Marriage or nunship, even when secular, were solutions that suited learned women and their
families.
In the case of marriage, the choice of the groom was also important, and he had to agree to
let his wife carry out her research activities. Laura Bassi married a doctor, Giuseppe Veretti,
also a professor and researcher, with whom she could share family affections and scientific
discoveries (Cavazza 1997b). Some of the female scholars studied were scholars’ daughters,
sisters, or wives. Kinship ties certainly helped these women gain or maintain their academic
standing. It is worth noting that the notoriety they were able to achieve often exceeded that
of their fathers or husbands (see Section 8).
It is interesting to compare the female scholars studied to women in other cultural domains,
where the situation is different. For example, in the world of painting, out of a compara-
ble (non-exhaustive) sample of seventy-seven women painters, twenty-seven followed the
518 European Review of Economic History

teachings of their fathers or other family members, and nine were nuns. These almost all
lived in the medieval period, when religious women devoted themselves to the art of miniature
painting.10
Finally, table 2 shows a very high rate of childlessness among female scholars, equal to 52%
(= (26+18)/(26+28+40)). This is largely above historical childlessness rates, such as the 13%
found in pre-industrial England among the upper social class (De la Croix et al. 2019), or the
12% found among the gentry in pre-industrial Rouen (Brée & De la Croix 2019). Such a high
rate echoes the rising childlessness rate observed by Baudin et al. (2015) in the US census
among the highest education category, which the authors interpret as voluntary/opportunity-

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/ereh/article/27/4/506/7017742 by guest on 08 July 2025

driven childlessness.

7. Why do we not find women in Northern European universities?

The weak presence of women in academies and universities in Protestant Europe is confirmed
when computing the barycenter of the places of birth of female scholars versus male scholars.
Figure 3 shows the barycenter, with coordinates R. We restrict the analysis to published
scholars with known birthplaces (19,609 male and 83 female). If each scholar i is born in
space with coordinates ri , the barycenter is such that

(ri − R) = 0.
i

It gives equal mass to each scholar. It is the center of mass of a distribution of birthplaces in
space, sometimes referred to as the balance point. To fix ideas, the barycenter for men is found
at (48.71,7.88), close to Strasbourg (the seat of the European Parliament). The barycenter
for women is at (46.28,8.27), in the Alps, North-West of Locarno (Switzerland).
The absence of women in academies in northern Europe can be understood by considering
one of the cultural aspects that most divided Europe from the sixteenth century onwards,
namely the opposition between Catholic and Protestant Europe. The Protestant Reformation,
initiated in 1517 by Luther, brought about a cultural change with strong repercussions on the
social and political life of Europe at the time. In fact, the Lutheran doctrine became a political
weapon for German princes who saw in it the possibility of escaping imperial authority
and obtaining ecclesiastical goods. In France and Flanders, it led to a division between
Catholics and Protestants, who competed for state leadership. Until then, the Church of
Rome had exercised its monopoly by shaping public and private moral systems, imposing
cultural choices, and exerting strong pressure on the political decisions of states.
The literature has long addressed the relationship between Luther’s theology and his
relationship with women (Jurgens 2020), sometimes crediting the Reformation with a
certain degree of women’s emancipation (Blaisdell 1972; Davis 1975; Stjerna 2017), and
other times questioning its openness toward women (Classen & Settle 1991; Hill 1997;
Roper 1989). Clearly, Luther’s attitude toward women was ambiguous, and while on the
one hand he favored a degree of emancipation, on the other his opinion of women remained
negative (Wiesner 1990). Luther allowed for spiritual equality but saw the possibility of
expression only within the family context, where they could read, preach, interpret, and

10 To create this list of female painters, we consulted Fachini (1824). Francioni Vespoli (1825) and the “Global
Makers” database, available at https://adhc.lib.ua.edu/makers/s/makers/page/home-2-15-2.
 Women in European academia before 1800 519

0km 200km 400km

54qN

52qN

50qN
Latitude

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/ereh/article/27/4/506/7017742 by guest on 08 July 2025

48qN

46qN

44qN

42qN Gender:
Women

Men
40qN

10qW 5qW 0q 5qE 10qE 15qE 20qE 25qE

Longitude

Figure 3. Barycenter of places of birth, for published scholars

teach their children.11 The cultural change introduced by the Reformation brought changes
to women’s living conditions as well, both in the religious and social spheres. Luther promoted
literacy without excluding women. The Bible began to be translated into vernacular languages
thanks to him, broadening its audience and allowing women to read scripture as well. He
allowed women to access public schools and ensured that the basics were taught (reading,
writing, and arithmetic) (Becker & Woessmann 2009). In his sermons, he urged families to
send their children to school so that they could read the Bible (1530). In general, there were
more Protestant women than Catholic women who could read and write, but according to
some scholars, their condition underwent only an apparent change toward emancipation.
Considering the case of the Augsburg Reformation, Roper (1989) shows how even those
women who enjoyed an independent status (nuns and prostitutes) had to adapt to the
patriarchal protectorate.
Marriage had to remain the only possible moral, legal, and social institution for women
and was strongly regulated by religious and political authorities. As historian Margaret King
notes, during the Renaissance, the sacredness of marriage was reinforced in the Catholic
world through a series of regulations concerning marriage decided during the Council of

11 In a commentary on Genesis written in 1535, Luther explains that Eve is also part of God’s image. Luther
compares women to the moon, men to the sun, and animals to the stars. Both the sun and the moon play an
important role; both have authority but in different ways. Men and women are therefore equal before God and
this translates, in the family, into a partnership in governing the home. In daily life and before the law, men and
women accomplish different tasks and have different talents, but not before God: salvation is not achieved by
following one’s role in society but only through faith.
520 European Review of Economic History

Trent (1545–1563). The Protestant world, which does not recognize the sacred character of
marriage, tried to consolidate the marriage institution through the suppression of confession.
The figure of the priest confessor was removed from the family circle, encouraging intimacy
and mutuality between spouses. However, this further centralized the control of women by
their husbands (King 2008). Moreover, since women were not allowed to pursue careers
in medicine, law, teaching, or public positions, they were barred from entering universities
(Schiebinger 1991). Theology also long remained an exclusively male discipline: women were
allowed to teach in the private space of the home and only to their own children.
In the Catholic world, the view of the role of women was not much different, but there was a

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/ereh/article/27/4/506/7017742 by guest on 08 July 2025

substantial difference in the regulation of women’s lives. Through the formal centralization of
decisions, the Church could control the women who occupied public space. This also allowed
room for exceptions, influencing, albeit marginally, traditional patterns. This is probably what
happened in Italian and Spanish universities. Protestants, on the other hand, defined and
regulated the role of women in society primarily through the judgment and will of their
husbands or fathers.
Regarding socio-cultural reasons, as we have seen, the culture of the time did not allow
women to take care of anything else than their domestic duties. This was true both in the
Protestant and Catholic worlds. Luther wondered at length about women, their difference
from men, and their role in society. His conclusion was that women had been entrusted
with an important task, that of motherhood. This unique prerogative elevated women
(Stjerna 2017), and because of this, their main purpose had to be and to remain the care
of children and the home.
There were also more practical reasons, which were closely related to the female condition
of the time. In order to enter academies, especially scientific ones, a university degree was
often required Schiebinger (1991). The knowledge developed in the private sphere of the
home, as was the case for women, did not have the same value as that developed in the
public sphere of universities and academies (see the case of Maria Winkelmann). This,
again, excluded them from the circles of knowledge. Furthermore, the possibility for women
to be remunerated through intellectual work was inconceivable, as they were supposed to
be supported by their husbands and fathers (Noordenbos 2002). However, these proposed
explanations apply both to Catholic and Protestant culture and do not take into account the
specific influence of Protestant culture.
A more political motivation can also be identified. In some cases, the need to count women
among the distinguished figures of universities had a political significance. Including a few
exceptionally learned women in the history of a university was a way of exalting its greatness
and an effective strategy for promoting university and governmental institutions. Cardinal
Lambertini (1675–1758)12 was an attentive promoter of the university and the city of Bologna.
The decision to assign a professorship to Laura Bassi was part of a strategy to reinforce the

12 Prospero Lambertini was the Archbishop of the city of Bologna from 1731 to 1740, before being elected pope
under the name Benedict XIV (1740–1758). He was a figure of great importance for the Catholic Church and for
the city of Bologna. He is remembered as a man of conciliatory character. During his pontificate, he concluded
a series of concordats and ecclesiastical conventions with many European sovereigns, striving not to exacerbate
those jurisdictional conflicts that were one of the characteristics of the eighteenth century. He showed the same
balance in the dispute between Jesuits and anti-Jesuits and, without going against the theological and moral
doctrines of the Society, he condemned (1742 and 1744) the Jesuit practice concerning the Chinese and Malabar
rites. As temporal prince, he established freedom of trade between the various parts of the Papal States. His name
is essentially linked to his work in canon law.
 Women in European academia before 1800 521

prestige of the university, drawing on the medieval tradition of women teachers. Even though
the Catholic world disapproved of the presence of women in universities, she was assigned a
teaching position. In the resolutions authorizing teaching for Laura Bassi, the senators limited
her activity in the Archiginnasio, with the restriction ratione sexus (on the basis of gender)
(Cavazza 1997a). This operation was very successful: in fact, many scholars and students
from all over Europe came to Bologna to listen to and confer with the young mathematician
(Fantuzzi & Bazzani 1778). For this reason, therefore, some female figures were invented or
their roles within the institutions was exaggerated. In Spain, in the same time period, King
Charles III (1716–1788) implemented a policy very similar to that of Cardinal Lambertini.

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/ereh/article/27/4/506/7017742 by guest on 08 July 2025

In fact, he allowed Maria Isdra Guzman to be admitted to the University of Alcalá, where in
1785, she obtained her doctorate (the first woman in Spain to receive this title) and later was
elected honorary professor of Modern Philosophy and advisor for life at the same university.
In 1784, the king himself gave his consent to admit her as an honorary member of the Royal
Academy of Spain. This interest in Guzman was part of a political strategy to shape the public
image of Charles III and show the greatness of his reign (Fernández Quintanilla 1979). Before
Charles III, Queen Isabel I of Castile had promoted the cultural growth of Spain by involving a
number of Spanish and Italian women scholars. She was the main inspiration for the Castilian
humanist movement, and it is thanks to her that Lucia de Medrano was able to practice in
university classrooms.
We cannot exclude that another reason for the difference in openness to women between the
Protestant North and the Catholic South can be found in religious practice and particularly
in devotional practice. Protestants do not share Catholics’ practices of Marian devotion, and
in general, they condemn all forms of veneration of saints, which they consider to be a form of
idolatry. In particular, Mary lost her character of mediatrix of God and is not considered by
Protestants as an exceptional case, unique in the history of the church. Not finding a reference
to a female figure out of the ordinary in scripture leads Protestants to think that such an
individual cannot exist in real life. Catholics, on the other hand, accept the possibility that
a woman may have uncommon gifts, which may give her notoriety and consideration equal
to men. It should be noted that in the Catholic tradition, an abbess (the head of an abbey)
has the same rank as a bishop. Such practices probably allowed some women to become
university professors and to acquire a form of “secular sanctity” throughout the history of
universities. This can still be found today in some universities, where adoration practices of
statues of women professors are observed, as if they were endowed with supernatural powers.
In Padua, for example, the statue of Elena Lucrezia Cornaro Piscopia is touched by new
graduates in a gesture of good luck for their future careers.
Different dispositions toward women can also be observed in iconography. In medieval
iconography, especially Catholic, it is possible to find a woman in her capacity as a reader
and educator. In later centuries, women were also represented while reading. Their portraits
were meant to represent the ideal of the “woman of the palace” (Castiglione 1822), that is
a virtuous and intellectual woman. On the contrary, seventeenth-century Flemish painting,
which was influenced by the Protestant Reformation, is characterized by the representation
of domestic life, as a mirror of the morality of its inhabitants. Women are therefore repre-
sented in the private space of the home, writing letters or keeping the household accounts
(Graziani 2019; Miglio 2019).
These cultural and theological explanations lead us to further considerations. Particularly,
in this strong divide between Northern and Southern Europe that we have described, we
might find the “gender equality paradox” proposed by Stoet and Geray (2018) This paradox is
based on the observation that countries with high overall levels of gender equality show greater
522 European Review of Economic History

gender disparities in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. The hypothesis is

that high gender inequality drives some women to invest in professions typically associated
with men. Referring to the historical period we considered and to our specific case, we can
say that the paradox would be confirmed as we find the presence of high-level women in
Catholic academia with the view that Protestant countries are more gender equal. In reality,
as we have seen, Protestant countries were no more egalitarian than Catholic countries, and
although there were women actively engaged in scientific research, they did not have the
opportunity to carry out this activity publicly.
Another approach that may help us explain the difference between the Catholic and

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/ereh/article/27/4/506/7017742 by guest on 08 July 2025

Protestant worlds is one that considers the prominent role of the Catholic Church in the
dissolution of clan-based European society (De la Croix & Mariani 2015; Schulz 2022; and
later Schulz et al. 2019).13 Church marriage regulations were first established in the different
regions of the former Roman Empire. In these regions, such rules implied the dissolution
of strong kin networks and were associated with a decline in the patriarchy. They may in
turn have fostered women’s agency and a shift in norms surrounding emancipation. On the
contrary, regions that were Christianized later and happened to eventually become Protestant
(North-Eastern parts of Europe) were exposed to Christian marriage regulations for a much
shorter time span and may thus have been less willing to accept women in academic positions.

8. Women and their publications

A novelty of our approach consists in constructing an index of human capital qi for each
scholar. Our index proxies individual notability as seen today in contemporary sources,
Worldcat and Wikipedia. Worldcat provides a comprehensive measure of scientific output
and citations, as books about the person are included in the measure. Wikipedia supplements
this measure by putting more weight for those who had few or no publications. To combine
the information provided by Worlcat and Wikipedia into one measure, we compute the first
principal component of five indicators: (1) the log of the number of characters of the longest
Wikipedia page across all languages, (2) the log of the number of languages in which a
Wikipedia page exists, (3) the log of the number of works (by or about) in Worldcat, (4)
the log of the number of publication languages in Worldcat, and (5) the log of the number of
library holdings in Worldcat. To include observations with missing Wikipedia and/or Worldcat
pages, we assume that having no Wikipedia page is similar to having one page with a length
of sixty characters and that having no Worldcat page is similar to having a page with one work
in one language held by one library.
The first principal component explains 80.6% of the variance; hence, it is enough to build
the index. The results lead to the following: the individual human capital index qi of an

13 This empirical work dove-tails a larger literature (De la Croix et al. 2018; Greif 2006; Greif & Tabellini 2010) on
kinship structure and Europe’s development. It is also in line by work of Van Zanden et al. (2019) on kinship and
women’s agency in Europe.
 Women in European academia before 1800 523

individual i is given by

qi = − 1.28 + 0.43 ln(no. of characters of the longest Wikipedia page)

+ 0.40 ln(no. of Wikipedia pages in different languages)
+ 0.47 ln(no. of works in Worldcat)
+ 0.45 ln(no. of publication languages in Worldcat)
+ 0.47 ln(no. of library holdings in Worldcat)

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/ereh/article/27/4/506/7017742 by guest on 08 July 2025

The constant −1.28 normalizes qi at 0 when there is neither a Wikipedia page nor a
Worldcat page.
Figure 4 shows the names of all the female scholars with a positive human capital index,
i.e., with either a Worldcat or a Wikipedia page, or both. The top panel concerns university
scholars from 1050 to 1800CE. The bottom panel shows academicians from 1550 to 1800CE.
We note that the women who published the most are French. The exceptions are Helen
Maria Williams (1759–1827), who nevertheless spent a good part of her life in France, and
Yekaterina Dashkova (1743–1810), whose Memoirs were a great success in France (a first
incomplete version was published in Paris in 1804) and in Great Britain (published after
her death in 1840). Their publications date mostly from the Age of Enlightenment. In fact,
while the previous century was characterized by austerity, and the main publications had
a scientific or religious character, the eighteenth century was a century of opulence and
refinement, both for economic reasons and due to the evolution of mentalities and morals.
This opening allowed more women to publish their works and see them circulate in the
cultural environment of the time.14
Among the scholars considered, Madame de Scudéry is the one who published the most.
Her production is very extensive, especially considering that several of her writings were
published under the name of her brother, Georges de Scudéry, also a writer and novelist. She
was a corresponding member of the Academy of the Ricovrati and, in 1671, received an award
for eloquence from the Académie Française for her “Discours de la Gloire”, a prize of great
value given that the first woman admitted to the academy was Marguerite Yourcenar in 1980.
Most of the scholarly publications considered are works of literature, novels, plays, or essays.
The exceptions are Madeleine Françoise Basseporte, who participated in the publication of
books on botany as an illustrator, Gaetana Agnesi, who wrote treatises on mathematics, and
Laura Bassi, with her numerous scientific dissertations presented at the Academy of Sciences
in Bologna.
The human capital index built can be used to assess the relative “quality” of women versus
men in our database. Among the 58,607 men in our database, 24,014 have a positive human
capital index (reflecting their presence either in Wikipedia or Worldcat). The kernel density
estimate of this index is shown in figure 5. Overall, among the 108 women (excluding the
patrons), 87 have a positive human capital index. The kernel density estimate is shown in

14 Having one’s work published long remained the privilege of an intellectual aristocracy, and the publication of a
novel or a work that was not scientific or religious was met with negative judgment. For this reason, a pseudonym
was often used or the high morality and usefulness of the work were argued in the preface.
524 European Review of Economic History

Agnesi M
Bassi L
de Ruggiero T
6

Morandi A

Basseporte M
human capital index

Tambroni C

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/ereh/article/27/4/506/7017742 by guest on 08 July 2025

4

de Guzmán y de la Cerda

Mercuriade Castellomata A
Gozzadini
de Guarna R B
Calenda C
de Medrano L
2

of the Saracens A Bonsignori M de Lebrija F

0

1200 1400 1600 1800

Years

du Châtelet G

d'Aulnoy M
8

de Scudéry
Dacier A M
Agnesi M Dasjkova E
Bassi L
Franco V Cornaro Piscopia E Williams H
Des Houlières A Mouchard de Chaban de Beauharnais M
Chéron Lehay E du Boccage A
6
human capital index

de Vivonne C
Bernard C
Maratti Zappi F Ekeblad E
Terracina L Ardinghelli M
Lepaute N
de Coligny La Suze H
Zuzzeri F Le Masson Le Golft M
Patin C
Saibanti−Vannetti B
4

Sarrocchi M
Bergalli L
Patin G Medaglia M D Grismondi P
Faini
Morelli
Boufflers de Beauvau−Craon M
Manzoni F
de la Vigne A
Roccati C
Aldobrandini O Borghini M Dolfin C
2

Margaret M
Bazani−Cavazzoni V
Salvi V Patin Hommetz M
Bunic N de Sartres D
Wagenseil H
Bona G
Benigni Manfredi I Sacrati
Secchi B G
Ronchi
Arcoliniani M
0

1550 1600 1650 1700 1750 1800

Years

Figure 4. Human capital index of female scholars and literati. Universities: top panel.
Academies: bottom panel
 Women in European academia before 1800 525

0.20

0.20

0.20
Men Men Men
0.15 Women Women Women

0.15

0.15
Density

Density

Density
0.10

0.10

0.10
0.05

0.05

0.05
0.00

0.00

0.00
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 0 2 4 6 8 10 12

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/ereh/article/27/4/506/7017742 by guest on 08 July 2025

human capital index human capital index human capital index

Figure 5. Distribution of human capital:men versus women.All (left),sciences and medicine

(center), humanities (right)
human capital index gender gap without households
8

Patin
Dacier
Bergalli
6

Gundulic
husband human capital index

Wagenseil

Winkelmann

Benigni
4

SaibantiVannetti
2

Bassi

Malmsten

Calderini Bonsignori Trotula

0

0 2 4 6 8
wife human capital index

Figure 6. Human capital within couples: men versus women

green. It lies clearly to the right of the density for men. The median human capital for women
is 3.98, while it is 2.95 for men.15
The gender gap in human capital highlighted for the whole sample (left panel of figure 5)
also holds when one restricts the analysis to scientific fields (sciences and medicine, center
panel of figure 5, about 1/4 of the whole sample). It is also present when considering
humanities only (right panel of figure 5).

15 The difference in median is significant at the 1% confidence level, as a Wilcoxon rank sum test rejects that the
two distributions do not differ by a location shift (W = 801072, p-value=0.00).
526 European Review of Economic History

Finally, let us consider the couples in which both spouses were in academia. There are
thirteen such couples. Figure 6 shows a scatter plot of their human capital index. Here,
women are on average of lower quality than their husband, with an average index of 2.86
compared with 3.47 for men. The correlation in the index between spouses is small, 0.05.
There are some wives who are better than their husbands, represented by the points below
an imaginary 45-degree line: Trotula, Bassi, Dacier, Bonsignori, and Saibanti.

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/ereh/article/27/4/506/7017742 by guest on 08 July 2025

9. Conclusion

Few women had the opportunity to teach at universities and participate in the intellectual
activities of academies across Europe from the founding of the first universities until 1800. By
analyzing the data collected in the database, we have found that some academic institutions
in southern Europe allowed women to practice teaching; although the number remained
extremely small and restrictions were imposed, whereas in northern countries, women
accessed universities and academies very late. We have explained this finding by considering
religion as the main vector of socio-cultural change in Europe. In particular, we have observed
that the Protestant religion had a closed attitude (in that, it did not tolerate exceptions) toward
the possible participation of women in higher education. In the Catholic world, we have found
exceptions determined by the holistic personalities of the time, the historical events, and the
social position of women.
In order to understand what their contributions were in the development of scientific
knowledge in Europe, we have measured the quality of these erudite women through their
publications. Specifically, we have considered the works that can still be found in the
catalogues of libraries today. We have observed that on average they published more than
men. On the one hand, this can be explained by the stronger positive selection of women
into academia. On the other hand, the preservation of their publications shows that there has
always been an interest in women scholars and their work.

Supplementary material
Supplementary material is available at European Review of Economic History online.

Data availability
The data underlying this article are available in its online supplementary material.

Acknowledgments
We acknowledge the financial support of the European Research Council under the European
Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement no.
883033 “Did elite human capital trigger the rise of the West? Insights from a new database of
European scholars.” The authors have no other competing interests to disclose. We thank two
anonymous referees, Davide Cantoni, Cecilia Garcia Peñalosa, Nuno Palma, Sandy Tubeuf,
and Michael Uebel for comments on the paper or on the project.
 Women in European academia before 1800 527

References
Abrantès, L. J. and Straszewicz, J. (1834). Les Femmes Célèbres de Tous les Pays: Leurs vies et Leurs
Portraits. Paris: Imprimerie de Lachverdière.
Accademia Galileiana (2017). Elenco dei Soci Fondatori. http://www.accademiagalileiana.it/elenco-dei-
soci/fondatori-e-corso-storico/serie-dei-principi-cioe-presidenti.
Agnesi, M. G., Faini, D. M. and de’Rossi, A. S. (2005). The Contest for Knowledge: Debates over Women’s
Learning in Eighteenth-Century Italy. University of Chicago Press.
Baudin, T., De la Croix, D. and Gobbi, P. E. (2015). Fertility and Childlessness in the United States.
American Economic Review 105, 1852–82. http://10.1257/aer.20120926.

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/ereh/article/27/4/506/7017742 by guest on 08 July 2025

BBAW (2022). Berlin–Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities—Past Members. https://www.
bbaw.de/en/the-academy/history-of-the-academy/past-members.
Becker, G.S. (2010). The Economics of Discrimination. University of Chicago Press.
Becker, S.O. and Woessmann, L. (2008). Luther and the girls: religious denomination and the female
education gap in nineteenth-century Prussia. The Scandinavian Journal of Economics 110, pp. 777–805.
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9442.2008.00561.x.
Becker, S. O. and Woessmann, L. (2009). Was Weber wrong? A human capital theory of Protes-
tant economic history. The Quarterly Journal of Economics 124, pp. 531–596. http://10.1162/
qjec.2009.124.2.531.
Benton, J. F. (1985). Trotula, women’s problems, and the professionalization of medicine in the Middle
Ages. Bulletin of the History of Medicine 59, pp. 30–53.
Berlin–Brandenburgischen Akademie der Wissenschaften (2022). Mitglieder der Berliner Akademien—
Chronologisch. https://www.bbaw.de/die-akademie/akademie-historische-aspekte/mitglieder-
historisch/mitglieder-der-berliner-akademien-chronologisch.
Blaisdell, C.J. (1972). Renée de France between Reform and Counter-Reform, jg. Archiv für Reforma-
tionsgeschichte/Archive for Reformation History 63, pp. 196–226. http://10.14315/arg-1972-jg11.
Black, R. (2007). Education and Society in Florentine Tuscany: Teachers, Pupils and Schools, c. 1250–
1500. Brill. 10.1163/ej.9789004158535.i-840.
Blasutto, F., De la Croix, D. and Vitale, M. (2021). Scholars and literati at the Academy of the
Ricovrati (1599–1800). Repertorium Eruditorum Totius Europae 3, pp. 51–63. http://10.14428/rete.v3
i0/ricoverati.
Boutier, J. (2005). Les membres des académies florentines a l’époque moderne. La sociabilité
intellectuelle à l’épreuve du statut et des compétences. In J. Boutier, B. Marin, and A. Romano
(eds), Naples, Rome, Florence: Une Histoire Comparée des Milieux Intellectuels Italiens (XVII–XVIIIe
Siècles). Publications de l’École Française de Rome, pp. 405–43.
Brée, S. and De la Croix, D. (2019). Key forces behind the decline of fertility—lessons from
childlessness in Rouen before the Industrial Revolution. Cliometrica 13, pp. 25–54. http://10.1007/
s11698-017-0166-9.
British Library (2021). Database of Italian Academies. https://www.bl.uk/catalogues/ItalianAcademies/.
Bühler, M., Vollmer, L. and Wimmer, J. (2021). Education and the Women’s Rights Movement.
Capparoni, P. (1924). “Magistri Salernitani Nondum Cogniti”: Contributo Alla Storia ed Alla Diplomatica
della Scuola Medica di Salerno. Terni: Alterocca.
Castiglione, B. (1822). Il Libro del Cortegiano del Conte Baldassar Castiglione, vol. 106. Giovanni Silvestri.
Cavazza, M. (1997a). Dottrici e lettrici dell’Università di Bologna nel Settecento. Annali di Storia
delle Università Italiane 1, pp. 109–25. https://www.academia.edu/31110799/Marta_Cavazza_Elenco_
delle_pubblicazioni.
Cavazza, M. (1997b). Minerva e Pigmalione. Carriere femminili nell’Italia del Settecento, The Italianist
17, 5–17. Taylor & Francis. http://10.1179/ita.1997.17.1.5.
Classen, A. and Settle, T. A. (1991). Women in Martin Luther’s Life and Theology. German Studies
Review 14, pp. 231–260. http://10.2307/1430561.
Cocchetti, C. (1880). Del Movimento Intellectuale Nella Provincia di Brescia dei Tempi Antichi ai Nostri.
Brescia: Libreria Antica e Moderna.
528 European Review of Economic History

Crowston, C. (2008). Women, gender, and guilds in early modern Europe: an overview of
recent research. International Review of Social History 53, pp. 19–44. https://doi.org/10.1017/
s0020859008003593.
Davis, N.Z. (1975). City women and religious change. In Society and Culture in Early Modern France.
Stanford University Press, pp. 65–96.
Dahlgren, E.W. (1915). Kungl Svenska Vetenskapsakademien: Personförteckningar, 1739–1915. Almqvist &
Wiksells boktr.
De Arteaga, A. (2007). Beatriz Galindo, La Latina: Maestra de Reinas, vol. 27. EDAF.
De la Croix, D., Doepke, M. and Mokyr, J. (2018). Clans, guilds, and markets: apprenticeship
institutions and growth in the preindustrial economy. Quarterly Journal of Economics 133, pp. 1–70.

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/ereh/article/27/4/506/7017742 by guest on 08 July 2025

De la Croix, D. and Morault, P. (2020). Winners and Losers from the Protestant Reformation: An Analysis
of the Network of European Universities. UCLouvain 2020029.
De la Croix, D. and Vitale, M. (2021). Scholars and Literati at the University of Bologna (1088–1800).
Repertorium Eruditorum Totius Europae 1, pp. 1–10. http://10.14428/rete.v1i0/Bologna.
De la Croix, D., Docquier, F., Fabre, A. and Stelter, R. (2020). The Academic Market and the Rise
of Universities in Medieval and Early Modern Europe (1000–1800). CEPR Discussion Paper 14509.
https://cepr.org/publications/dp14509.
De la Croix, D. and Doraghi, M. (2021). Scholars and literati at the Saint Petersburg Academy of
Sciences (1724–1800). Repertorium Eruditorum Totius Europae 5, pp. 17–26. http://10.14428/rete.v5
i0/petersburg.
De la Croix, D., Eisfeld, T. and Ganterer, M. (2021). Scholars and Literati at the Royal Prussian
Academy of Sciences (1700–1800). Repertorium Eruditorum Totius Europae 3, pp. 1–9. http://10.14428/
rete.v3i0/prussian.
De la Croix, D. and Mariani, F. (2015). From polygyny to serial monogamy: a unified theory of
marriage institutions. Review of Economic Studies 82, 565–607. https://doi.org/10.1093/restud/rdv001.
De la Croix, D., Schneider, E. B. and Weisdorf, J. (2019). Childlessness, celibacy and net fertility
in pre-industrial England: the middle-class evolutionary advantage. Journal of Economic Growth 24,
223–256. http://10.1007/s10887-019-09170-6.
De Los Ríos, J.A. and de La Rada, J.d.D. (1862). Historia de la Villa y Corte de Madrid. Madrid: Ferra
de Mena.
De Renzi, S. (1852). Collectio Salernitana: Ossia Documenti Inediti, e Trattati di Medicina Appartenenti alla
Scuola Medica Salernitana. Napoli: Sabezio.
Dufrénoy, A.-G. (1820). Biographie des Jeunes Demoiselles, ou vies des Femmes Célèbres Depuis les Hébreux
Jusqu’à nos Jours: Ouvrage Destiné a l’Instruction de la Jeunesse, et Orné de Portraits en Taille–Douce.
Paris: Alexis Eymery.
Dulieu, L. (1975). La Médecine à Montpellier, Le Moyen Âge, vol. 1. Avignon: Presses Universelles.
Duranti, T. (2020). Dorotea Bocchi. Di donne, università medievali e internet. Storicamente 15–16,
pp. 1–29. http://10.12977/stor801.
Ercolani, G.B. (1881). Accademia delle Scienze dello Istituto di Bologna dalla sua Origine a Tutto il
MDCCCLXXX. Bologna: N. Zanichelli.
Facciolati, J. (1757). Fasti Gymnasii Patavini Jacobi Facciolati Studio Atque Opera Collecti: Fasti Gymnasii
Patavini Jacobi Facciolati Opera Collecti ab Anno 1517 quo Restitutae Scholae sunt ad 1756, vol. 1. Patavii:
typis Seminarii:: apud Joannem Manfrè.
Fachini, G.C. (1824). Prospetto Biografico delle donne Italiane Rinomate in Letteratura dal Secolo Decimo-
quarto fino a’Giorni Nostri. Con una Risposta a Lady Morgan Risguardante Alcune Accuse da lei Date
alle donne Italiane nella sua Opera L’Italie. Venezia: Dalla Tipografia di Alvisopoli.
Fantuzzi, G. and Bazzani, M. (1778). Elogio della Dottoressa Laura Maria Caterina Bassi Verati. Dalla
stamperia di S. Tommaso d’Aquino.
Fernández Quintanilla, P. (1979). Una Española ilustrada: Doña María Isidra Quintina de Guzmán
y de la Cerda. Tiempo de Historia Año V, pp. 96–105.
Findlen, P., Roworth, W.W. and Sama, C.M. (2009). Italy’s Eighteenth Century: Gender and Culture in
the Age of the Grand Tour. Stanford University Press.
 Women in European academia before 1800 529

Francioni Vespoli, G. (1825). Delle Donne: Saggio. Napoli: Delle Tipografie di Partenope.
Frevert, U., Osterkamp, E. and Stock, G. (2020). Women in European Academies: From Patronae
Scientiarum to Path-Breakers, vol. 3. Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG.
Frijhoff, W. (1996). Patterns. In H.d. Ridder-Symoens (ed)A History of the University in Europe. Vol. II:
Universities in Early Modern Europe (1500–1800), vol. 2. Cambridge University Press.
Frize, M. (2013). Laura Bassi and Science in 18th Century Europe. Nova York: Springer.
Frova, C. (2019). Maestre e scolare: tracce di percorsi scolastici di donne nell’Italia del tardo Medioevo
e nel primo Rinascimento. Mélanges de l’École Française de Rome—Moyen Âge 131, 285–295. https://
journals.openedition.org/mefrm/6178.
Gertz, O. (1940). Kungl Fysiografiska Sällskapet i Lund 1772–1940. Lund: Håkan Ohlsons Boktryckeri.

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/ereh/article/27/4/506/7017742 by guest on 08 July 2025

Graziani, I. (2019). Saper leggere e saper scrivere: iconografie per la donna e la parola scritta
dal Medioevo all’Età moderna. Mélanges de l’École Française de Rome—Moyen Âge 131, 385–401.
http://10.4000/mefrm.6478.
Green, M.H. (1999). In search of an “authentic” women’s medicine: the strange fates of trota of
Salerno and Hildegard of Bingen. Dynamis: Acta Hispanica ad Medicinae Scientiarumque. Historiam
Illustrandam 19, pp. 025–54. https://asu.pure.elsevier.com/en/publications/in-search-of-an-authenic-
womens-medicine-the-strange-fates-of-tro.
Green, M.H. (2013). The Trotula: A Medieval Compendium of Women’s Medicine. University of Pennsyl-
vania Press.
Greif, A. (2006). Family structure, institutions, and growth: the origins and implications of western cor-
porations. American Economic Review 96, pp. 308–12. https://doi.org/10.1257/000282806777212602.
Greif, A. and Tabellini, G. (2010). Cultural and institutional bifurcation: China and Europe
compared. American Economic Review 100, pp. 135–40. http://10.2139/ssrn.1532906.
Grendler, P. F. (1990). Schooling in western Europe. Renaissance Quarterly 43, pp. 775–787.
http://10.2307/2862790.
Grendler, P. F. (2002). The Universities of the Italian Renaissance. JHU Press.
Grendler, P. F. (2004). The universities of the Renaissance and reformation. Renaissance Quarterly 57,
pp. 1–42. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1262373.
Habinek, L. (2021). Margaret cavendish was not fond of telescopes. Shakespeare Studies 49, pp. 107–10.
Hawkesworth, C. (2001). A History of Central European Women’s Writing. Springer.
Hays, M. (1807). Female Biography: Or, Memoirs of Illustrious and Celebrated Women of All Ages and
Countries. Alphabetically Arranged. London: Richard Philips.
Henrich, Joseph (2020). The WEIRDest People in the World: How the West Became Psychologically Peculiar
and Particularly Prosperous. UK: Penguin.
Hill, R.A. (1997). Martin Luther, Marriage, and Women: An Analysis of Luther’s Religious Legitimation of
Marriage and the Celibate Life for Women in his Sermons and Treatise. University of Calgary.
Istituto dell’Enciclopedia Italiana (1929). Treccani. Enciclopedia Italiana di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti. Roma:
Istituto dell’Enciclopedia Italiana.
Jaussaud, P. and Brygoo, É.-R. (2019). Du Jardin au Muséum en 516 Biographies. Publications Scien-
tifiques du Muséum.
Jurgens, L. K. (2020). Women in Luther’s life and theology: scholarship in recent years. Religions 11,
pp. 68. http://10.3390/rel11020068.
Karlsson, T., Kok, J. and Perrin, F. (2021). The Historical Gender Gap Index: A Longitudinal and Spatial
Assessment of Sweden, 1870–1990. University of Lund.
King, M.L. (2008). Women of the Renaissance. University of Chicago Press.
Kungl Vetenskapsakademien (2022). Members. https://www.kva.se/en/startsida.
Landes, D. S. (1999). The Wealth and Poverty of Nations: Why Some Are So Rich and Some So Poor. WW
Norton & Company.
Lang, K. and Lehmann, J.-Y. K. (2012). Racial discrimination in the labor market: theory and empirics.
Journal of Economic Literature 50, pp. 959–1006. http://10.1257/jel.50.4.959.
Le Lay, C. (2004). Dix–Huitième Siècle. Astronomie des Dames 36 , pp. 303–312. https://doi.org/10.3406/
dhs.2004.2614.
530 European Review of Economic History

Leopoldina Nationale Akademie der Wissenschaften (2022). Members since 1652. https://www.
leopoldina.org/en/members/members-since-1652/.
Linehan, P. (2011). St John’s College, Cambridge: A History. Boydell Press.
Maggiolo, A. (1983). I Soci dell’Accademia Patavina dalla sua Fondazione (1599). Padova: Accademia
Patavia di Scienze Lettere ed Arti.
Marion, C. (2019). Annuaire Prosopographique: La France Savante. https://www.cths.fr/an/
prosopographie.php.
Martini, A. and Sorba, C. (2021). L’Università delle Donne: Accademiche e Studentesse dal Seicento a Oggi.
Padova University Press.
Maschietto, F. L. (2007). Elena Lucrezia Cornaro Piscopia (1646–1684): The First Woman in the World to

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/ereh/article/27/4/506/7017742 by guest on 08 July 2025

Earn a University Degree. St Joseph’s University Press.
Maylender, M. (1930). Storia delle Accademie d’Italia, vol. 5. L. Cappelli.
Mazzetti, S. (1847). Repertorio di Tutti i Professori Antichi e Moderni della Famosa Università, e del Celebre
Istituto delle Scienze di Bologna. Bologna: Tipografia di San Tommaso d’Aquino.
Mazzotti, M. (2007). The world of Maria Gaetana Agnesi, Mathematician of God, vol. 2. JHU Press.
Mentzer, R.A. (2001). La place et le rôle des femmes dans les Églises réformées. Archives de Sciences
Sociales des Religions 113, pp. 119–32. http://10.4000/assr.20192.
McClellan, J. E. (1985). Science Reorganized: Scientific Societies in the Eighteenth Century. New York:
Columbia University Press. https://doi.org/10.2307/2739060.
Michaud, J.-F. (1811). Biographie Universelle Ancienne et Moderne, 45 vols. Paris: Bureau de la Biographie
Universelle.
Miglio, L. (2019). Per la conoscenza della cultura grafica delle donne (XV-XVI in.): qualche riflessione
e pochi esempi. Women Language Literature in Italy: Donne Lingua Letteratura in Italia 1, pp. 13–30.
Milton, J. (2007). Complete Shorter Poems. Pearson Education.
Montjouvent, P.d. (2005). Les Beauharnais: Les Grands Ancêtres, 1390–1846. Éditions Christian.
Morgan, L.S. (1821). L’Italie. Auguste Wahlen et Compagnie.
Moulin, L. (2013). La vie des Étudiants au Moyen Âge. Albin Michel.
Nekoei, A. and Sinn, F. (2021). HERSTORY: The Rise of Self-Made Women, CEPR Discussion Paper
No. DP15736.
Noordenbos, G. (2002). Women in academies of sciences: From exclusion to exception. Women’s Studies
International Forum 25, pp. 127–137. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0277-5395(02)00215-7.
Oettel, T. (1935). Una Catedrática en el Siglo de Isabel la Católica: Luisa (Lucía) de Medrano. Boletín
de la Real Academia de la Historia 107, pp. 289–368.
Ogilvie, M.B. (1986). Women in Science: Antiquity through the Nineteenth Century: A Biographical
Dictionary with Annotated Bibliography. MIT Press.
Olsen, K. (1994). Chronology of Women’s History. Greenwood Publishing Group.
Palma, N. P. G., Reis, J. and Rodrigues, L. (2022). Historical Gender Discrimination does not Explain
Comparative Western European Development: Evidence from Portugal, 1300–1900. Explorations in Eco-
nomic History, pp. 101481.
Paoli, M.P. (2012). A veglia e in accademia. Le letterate senesi (secoli XVI-XVIII). In Savelli A. and
Vigni L. (Cur.) Una Città al Femminile. Protagonismo e Impegno di Donne Senesi dal Medioevo a Oggi.
Siena: Nuova Immagine Editrice, pp. 87–112.
Paradisi, A. (1704). Ateneo dell’Uomo Nobile Opera Legale, Storica, Morale, Politica e Kavalleresca. Venezia:
Antonio Bortoli.
Perrin, F. (2022). Can the historical gender gap index deepen our understanding of economic
development? Journal of Demographic Economics 88, pp. 379–417. http://10.1017/dem.2020.34.
Rance-Bourrey, A. A. J. (1890). L’Académie d’Arles au XVIIe Siècle d’Aprés les Documents Originaux, vol.
3. Paris: E. Lechevalier.
Rashdall, H. (2010). The Universities of Europe in the Middle Ages, vol. 1. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Real Academia de la Historia (2022). María Isidra de Guzmán y de la Cerda. https://dbe.rah.es/
biografias/22681/maria-isidra-de-guzman-y-de-la-cerda.
 Women in European academia before 1800 531

Reynolds, D. (2005). Christ’s: A Cambridge College Over Five Centuries. Pan Macmillan.
Riché, P. and Verger, J. (2013). Maîtres et élèves au Moyen Âge. A. Fayard-Pluriel.
Ridder-Symoens, H. d. (1991). A History of the University in Europe: Volume 1, Universities in the Middle
Ages, vol. 1. Cambridge University Press.
Rizzi, F. (1953). I Professori dell’Università di Parma Attraverso i Secoli: Note Indicative Bio-Bibliografiche.
Tip. Fratelli Godi.
Robin, D.M., Larsen, A.R. and Levin, C. (2007). Encyclopedia of Women in the Renaissance: Italy, France,
and England. ABC-CLIO.
Roche, D. (2019). Livre et Société dans la France du XVIIIe Siècle. Milieux Académiques Provinciaux et
Société des Lumières, 93–184. De Gruyter Mouton.

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/ereh/article/27/4/506/7017742 by guest on 08 July 2025

Rolla, C. and Vitale, M. (2021). Scholars and literati at the Academy of the Gelati (1588–1799).
Repertorium Eruditorum Totius Europae 5, pp. 1–7. http://10.14428/rete.v5i0/gelati.
Rolla, C. and Zanardello, C. (2022). Scholars and literati at the Academy of Sciences of Bologna
(1714–1800). Repertorium Eruditorum Totius Europae 7, pp. 57–65. http://10.14428/rete.v7i0/abologna.
Roper, L. (1989). The Holy Household: Women and Morals in Reformation Augsburg. Clarendon Press.
Royal Botanic Gardens (2012). Kew History & Heritage. Archived from the original on 8 October,
2012. https://web.archive.org/web/20121002000750/http://www.kew.org/heritage/people/index.html
(14 September, 2022, date last accessed).
Schiebinger, L. (1987). Maria Winkelmann at the Berlin Academy: A Turning Point for Women in
Science. Isis 78, pp. 174–200. https://doi.org/10.1086/354389.
Schiebinger, L. (1991). The Mind Has No Sex?: Women in the Origins of Modern Science. Harvard
University Press.
Schulz, J.F. (2022). Kin networks and institutional development. The Economic Journal 132,
pp. 2578–2613. https://doi.org/10.1093/ej/ueac027.
Schulz, J. F., Bahrami-Rad, D., Beauchamp, J. P. and Henrich, J. (2019). The Church, intensive
kinship, and global psychological variation. Science 366, pp. 1–12. http://10.1126/science.aau5141.
Shemivot, V. P. (1873). General List of Members of the Academy of Sciences since its Foundation. St.
Petersburg.
Sinko-Depierris, D. (2009). Un aspect particulier du pétrarquisme croate au XVIe
siècle: les quatre chansonniers composés en Italien. Seizieme Siecle 5, pp. 241–268.
https://doi.org/10.3406/xvi.2009.949. https://www.jstor.org/stable/25598647.
Stjerna, K. I. (2017). Luther and Gender: Shifts in Paradigms and Orientations. Dialog 56, pp. 162–8.
https://doi.org/10.1111/dial.12319.
Stoet, G. and Geary, D. C. (2018). The gender-equality paradox in science, technology, engineering,
and mathematics education. Psychological Science 29, pp. 581–593. http://10.1177/0956797617741719.
Stoet, G. and Geary, D. C. (2020). The gender-equality paradox is part of a bigger phe-
nomenon: reply to Richardson and Colleagues (2020) Psychological Science 31, 342–344.
http://10.1177/0956797620904134.
Tappy, D. (2019). L’Insegnamento del diritto (secoli XII-XX), des femmes enseignant le droit à Bologne
au Moyen Âge? Retour sur les récits concernant la fille de Jean d’André et d’autres prétendues juristes
médiévales, Il Mulino, pp. 89–109.
Torrecilla, L.M.G., Arboniés, M.C. and Torres, P.L.B. (2013). Profesores y Estudiantes: Biografía
Colectiva de la Universidad de Alcalá (1508–1836). Universidad de Alcalá, Servicio de Publicaciones.
Torres, A.M.C. (2019). Beatriz Galindo y Lucía de Medrano: ni maestra de reinas ni catedrática
de derecho canónico. Investigaciones Históricas. Época Moderna y Contemporánea 39, pp. 179–208.
http://10.24197/ihemc.39.2019.179-208.
Turchi, A. (1819). Omelie, Orazioni Funebri, Lettere Pastorali, Editti ed Indulti. Foresti e Bettinelli.
Ungern-Sternberg, A.F.v. (1848). Berühmte Deutsche Frauen des Achtzehnten Jahrhunderts. Leipzig:
Brockhaus.
Van Zanden, J.L., De Moor, T. and Carmichael, S. (2019). Capital Women: The European Marriage Pat-
tern, Female Empowerment and Economic Development in Western Europe 1300–1800. Oxford University
Press.
532 European Review of Economic History

Vettori Sandor, C. (1988). L’Opera scientifica e umanitaria di Maria Gaetana Agnesi. In Alma Mater
Studiorum. La Presenza Femminile dal XIII al XX Secolo. Bologna: CLUEB, pp. 105–18.
Vidal y Díaz, A. (1869). Memoria Histórica de la Universidad de Salamanca. Salamanca: Imprenta de
Olivo y Hermano.
Vitale, M. (2022). Scholars and literati at the Royal Academy of Sciences of Lisbon (1779–1800).
Repertorium Eruditorum Totius Europae7, pp. 47–54. http://10.14428/rete.v7i0/ALisbon.
Volpi, G.A. (1729). Discorsi Accademici di Varj Autori Viventi Intorno Agli Studj delle Donne: La Maggior
Parte Recitati nell’Accademia de’Ricovrati di Padova. Nella Stamperia del Seminario Presso Giovanni
Manfrè.
Voltaire, F.-M.A. (1785). Oeuvres Completes de Voltaire. De L’Imprimerie De La Societe Litteraire.

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/ereh/article/27/4/506/7017742 by guest on 08 July 2025

Weber, M. (1930). The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. Scribner/Simon & Schuster.
Whitaker, K. (2002). Mad Madge: The Extraordinary Life of Margaret Cavendishe, Duchess of Newcastle,
the First Woman to Live by her Pen. Basic Books.
Wiesner, M. (1990). Luther and Women: the death of two Marys. In Loades, A. (ed.) Feminist Theology:
A Reader, London: SPCK, pp. 123–134.
Wilkins, E. (2014). Margaret cavendish and the Royal Society. Notes and Records: The Royal Society
Journal of the History of Science 68, pp. 245–260. http://10.1098/rsnr.2014.0015.
Wootton, D. (2015). The Invention of Science:A New History of the Scientific Revolution. London: Penguin.
Yates, F.A. and Chaucheyras, T. (1996). Les Académies en France au XVIe Siècle. Presses Universitaires
de France.