'[This] vivid and sensitive portrayal of Castilian townswomen ... provides an important source for any comparative study of the social changes that urbanism engendered'. -- Diane Owen Hughes, Journal of Interdisciplinary History 'Heath Dillard demonstrates how living on the frontiers of Christian Europe influenced women's position within urban settlements of the Reconquest ... [Her] study is not of an interesting sidelight of political expansion, but of a critical aspect of that expansion ... This is an important book because it does an in-depth analysis of sources and a topic that needed to be brought to the forefront of Hispanic studies.' -- Joyce E. Salisbury, Speculum - A Journal of Mediaeval Studies 'Carefully researched and cogently presented, [this] groundbreaking effort ... is bound to challenge familiar notions and help scholars reformulate them on firmer bases ... The book is packed with interesting information ... Heath Dillard has performed a real service by sifting through piles of historical documents to bring to life for us the many different kinds of women who lived in the towns of Castile during the Middle Ages.' -- Kathleen Kish, Hispania