May 26, 1996|By Richard Bernstein | Richard Bernstein,Times News Service
"The Buergermeister's Daughter," by Steven Ozment. St. Martin's Press. 227 pages. $23.95 The author's sad and legally complicated history of a 16th-century woman thrust out of her house and denied her inheritance by a father furious at her sexual indiscretions shows that the impulse toward interminable litigation and the machinery for carrying it out existed long ago.
The author has scrupulously examined the records of the case of Anna Bueschler, who fought outrageous fortune in the courts of late Renaissance Germany for several decades.
The story goes well beyond the litigious Anna to encompass much else about the 16th century, including the nature of sexual morality, the social identities of men and women, the jockeying for power between the upwardly striving bourgeoisie and the downwardly sliding aristocracy, and the effect of the Reformation on private life.
Ozment's argument, that the real issue was not sexual difference but the system of inherited privilege, gives the book a modern feel and makes it all the more fascinating.
Pub Date: 5/26/96
