Elena Botinas Montero

Born in Barcelona in the year 1950. She is a Medievalist and Master in Women's Studies.

She has published various articles in books and journals and is co-author of Les beguines. La Raó il·luminada per Amor (Publicacions de l’Abadia de Montserrat, 2002) and L’activitat femenina a Molins de Rei: les dones a la guerra civil (Ajuntament de Molins de Rei - Publicacions de l’Abadia de Montserrat, 2003).

Julia Cabaleiro Manzanedo

Born in La Coruña in 1952, she has a degree in Philosophy and Arts (History), Master in Women's Studies and PhD in Pedagogy (“Didàctica de la història de les dones”, University of Barcelona, 1999).

Her research is divided into two parts: one is related to the movements of feminine spirituality; the other is centred on education and the didactics of history.

As well as various articles published in books and journals, she is the author of Paraules de dones en la premsa comarcal (primer terç del segle XX) (Ajuntament de Sant Feliu de Llobregat, 2002) and co-author of Les beguines. La Raó il·luminada per Amor (Publicacions de l’Abadia de Montserrat, 2002) and L’activitat femenina a Molins de Rei: les dones a la guerra civil (Ajuntament de Molins de Rei - Publicacions de l’Abadia de Montserrat, 2003).

Montserrat Cabré i Pairet

Born in L'Hospitalet de Llobregat in 1962, she has a Ph Doctorate in Medieval History for the University of Barcelona. Her research has always been focused in the history of women, especially in the history of the medicine, of the science and of the culture, as well as the feminine medieval monasticism. From 1986 on she has collaborated in the management and reserarch of Duoda where she has been also pupil and teacher. At present she is Professor of History of Science in the University of Cantabria, where she has founded the Aula Interdisciplinar Isabel Torres for the study of women and Gender.

Margarida González Betlinski

Born in Barcelona in the year 1959. After her degree in medieval history, she had two sons and devoted herself to teaching in secondary education. Within that area she has been in charge of managing schools for the last few years. She has always been linked to the research into women’s history, thanks to the projects that she did with her colleagues of l’Equip Broida and later on with her colleagues of the Duoda group. These latter have helped her to maintain that link in solidarity from the year 1989 and for this reason have her recognition and gratitude. She dedicates this piece of work to her mother and her mother’s mother.

Núria Jornet Benito

Núria Jornet i Benito [Jornet i Benito, Núria], born in 1968, in Vilanova i la Geltrú. Trained as a medievalist, at the present time she teaches in the Faculty of Biblioteconomy and Documentation of the University of Barcelona, giving courses in Archiving and Palaeography. Member of the Research Group DUODA, since 1994, and of the Committee of Publications and Documentation of the Centre for Women’s Studies DUODA, since 2001. Her line of work has focused mainly on feminine spirituality of the medieval period, and her PhD thesis is on the origin and foundation of the first convent of Clares of the city of Barcelona, the convent of Santa Clara and San Antonio. With the successors of this community, the monastery of San Benito de Montserrat, she is organising the historical archive and preparing the edition of the inventory of its collection.

Isabel Pérez Molina

Isabel Pérez Molina was born in Barcelona. She has a degree in Contemporary History from the University of Barcelona. Graduate studies in Women’s History. Doctorate in Modern History from the University of Barcelona. She was the executive secretary of the Research Centre in Women’s Studies Duoda of the University of Barcelona between 1991 and 1994. From 1996 to 2000 she was lecturer of Hispanic Studies at the “University of Technology, Sydney, UTS”, in Sydney, Australia. Her PhD thesis was published in 1997 by the Editing Board of the University of Granada, series Feminae, with the title Las mujeres ante la ley en la Cataluña moderna. A different and up-dated version was published in 2001 in English, Honour and Disgrace: Women and Law in Early Modern Catalonia (Florida, Dissertation.com, 2001). Besides the publication of diverse articles and didactic books, she co-ordinated the publication of the book Las mujeres en el Antiguo Régimen: Imagen y realidad (Barcelona, Icaria, 1994) and participated in its preparation. She has a daughter who was born in Sydney, Australia, in 1998.

María-Milagros Rivera Garretas

Born in Bilbao, under the sign of Sagittarius, in 1947, she has a daughter who was born in Barcelona in 1975. She is Professor of Medieval History and one of the founders of the journal and the Research Centre of Women’s Studies Duoda at the University of Barcelona, of which she was the director between 1991 and 2001. She also contributed to the founding in 1991 the Bookstore Pròleg, the women’s bookshop in Barcelona, and, in 2002, the Entredós Foundation in Madrid.

She has written: El priorato, la encomienda y la villa de Uclés en la Edad Media (1174-1310). Formación de un señorío de la Orden de Santiago (Madrid, CSIC, 1985) ; Textos y espacios de mujeres. Europa, siglos IV-XV (Barcelona, Icaria, 1990 y 1995; german trans. by Barbara Hinger, Orte und Worte von Frauen, Viena, Milena, 1994, and Munich, Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, 1997); Nombrar el mundo en femenino. Pensamiento de las mujeres y teoría feminista (Barcelona, Icaria, 2003, 3º ed.; italian trans., de Emma Scaramuzza, Nominare il mondo al femminile, Roma, Editori Riuniti, 1998); El cuerpo indispensable. Significados del cuerpo de mujer (Madrid, horas y HORAS, 1996 and 2001); El fraude de la igualdad (Barcelona, Planeta, 1997 and Buenos Aires, Librería de Mujeres, 2002); and Mujeres en relación. Feminismo 1970-2000 (Barcelona, Icaria, 2001).

M.-Elisa Varela Rodríguez

Medievalist and paleograph Scholar. It deals with the study of the book and with the culture written in the Middle Age, and with the study of the Catalan commerce in the Mediterranean.

She was born in September, 1958 in Saviñao-Monforte de Lemos (Lugo). She studied in the Narcissus Monturiol High School of Barcelona, and she is Bachelor in Medieval History by the Faculty of Geography and History of the University of Barcelona, getting a Ph Doctorate degree on this University in July, 1995. In the penultimate course, she integrated into the Duoda project directed by M.-Milagros Rivera Garretas of the CIHD. She has been a researcher of this project in the Center of Women's Investigation, Duoda, of the University of Barcelona, and at present she is a vicedirector of the that Center. She is also professor of the Facultat de Lletras of University of Girona, in whom she is a part of the Research Group "Estudis Culturals" and she is a researcher as well of the coordinated project Women's Lifes Stories. Crowns of Aragon and Castille (15th Century).

Her most important works are: El control de los Bienes: Los libros de cuentas de los mercaderes Tarascó (1329-1348), Barcelona, 1996, “Palabras clave de Historia de las Mujeres en Cataluña (siglos IX-XVIII)”, in Duoda, 12, 1997 El libro de Horas de Carlos V, Madrid, 2000, Mujeres que leen, mujeres que escriben: Letradas en la Baja Edad Media, Barcelona, 2001, El Oficio de la Toma de Granada, Granada, 2003, Aprender a leer, aprender a escribir: Lectoescritura femenina (siglos XIII-XV), Madrid, 2004.

Teresa Vinyoles Vidal

Teresa Vinyoles Vidal was born in Barcelona in 1942, she is married with two sons and two daughters, she is a lecturer in Medieval History at the University of Barcelona, member of the Centre Duoda of the said university since its foundation. Among her lines of research is the study of women, which she has devoted herself to since 1969, and of daily life in the medieval period; she co-ordinates a research project on the teaching of history. Amongst her works are: Les barcelonines a les darreries de l’edat mitjana (Barcelona, Fundació Vives Casajuana, 1976). La vida quotidiana a Barcelona vers 1400 (Barcelona, Fundació Vives Casajuana, 1985). Mirada a la Barcelona medieval des de les finestres gòtiques (Barcelona, Dalmau, 2002). Presència de les dones a la Catalunya medieval (Vic, Eumo, forthcoming). And numerous articles on women’s history, amongst which we could highlight: "Petita biografia d’una expòsita barcelonina del segle XV" (Barcelona, CSIC, 1989 pp. 255-272). "L’amor i la mort al segle XIV, cartes de dones" ( Miscel·lania de textos medievals 8, Barcelona, CSIC, 1996, pp.111-198). "Las mujeres del año mil" ( Aragón en la Edad Media XVII, 2003, pp.5-26).