Anne Wheathill's A Handfull of Holesome (though Homelie) Hearbs (1584)

Although nothing is known of Anne Wheathill, her prayer book was published by a major printer of devotional books, and its contents suggest she was a Calvinist-leaning member of the Church of England. As a woman she was expected to be silent and subordinate, and, lacking aristocratic status, she had only her preface and the arrangement of her prayers by which to establish authority. In her preface she argues that her zeal and chastity compensate for her lack of learning and that her words are as acceptable to God as those of the learned, her tone moving from feminine deference and humility to Christian leadership. The preface closes with a prayer for all humanity, and the prayers that follow address universal concerns, not those of women specifically. Finally, she appropriates a numerological pattern, the hexaemeral week of weeks, usually associated only with the most subtle and learned male writers, as the underlying structure of her book

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