A Deep Loss. The death of a spouse and old age are usually linked in the modern world, but they were not necessarily in Renaissance and Reformation Europe, for people became widowed at all ages and might easily be widowed several times during their lives. The demise of a mate brought a more dramatic change in status for women than it did for men, for women's link to the world of work was often through their husbands, so that his death affected their opportunities for making a living while the death of a wife did not. One can see this distinction in the fact that the word for "widower" in most European languages derives from the word for "widow," whereas the more common pattern is for the female designation to derive from the male—princess from prince...