Education and Agency in The Miseries of Mavillia

Abstract

In Nicholas Breton’s 1599 Miseries of Mavillia , women’s education is examined as a social good that can be transferred across classes. In the text, education helps to define the title character as a gentlewoman, but that education is gained from a laundress rather than from any fellow member of the upper class. For the less-educated characters, Breton allows the value they place on learning to also serve as a marker of worth. For the better-educated characters, worth is more explicitly coded by a combination of endorsed social status, clear reward, and moral stability. Although the titular Mavillia endures many miseries despite her attainments and status, education acts as (variously) safeguard, surety, and salvation throughout her story. Moreover, Mavillia is able to use her education to create a “gentlewoman” out of the stubborn daughter of shepherds. In showing Mavillia’s successful transference of that education and its benefits to a woman not born to either, Breton challenges the established social order of restrictive class immobility and emphasizes the potential impact of education on the lives of middle-class and gentry women. Ultimately, Breton’s text argues for education as a potential source of comfort and moral fortitude for women of all backgrounds.