top of page

In what ways are medieval attitudes to women reflected in medieval European society?

By Anwen Iris Venn [Edited by Todd Ballantine-Morris and Fenella Jenkins]



In literature, as the authors were mostly males, medieval women were portrayed in examples taken from the Bible, often as the two archetypes of the pure goodness of the Virgin Mary or the sinful evil of Eve. Yet, in practice women were often involved in the workforce, despite its contradictions with the Bible, and there were women in power, although they were often described through masculinity. Medieval attitudes to women in medieval European society were often debased in literature because religiously they could not be equal to their male equivalents, but these attitudes didn’t always reflect reality because it was unsustainable to communities.

Religion plays a crucial role in medieval European society and their attitudes towards women, as the example of treatment towards women and the women themselves are valued as key models, although shown more in literacy than in reality. For women in Christian literature, the Virgin Mary was the only positive female image in a medium abounded in images of female impurity, perversity and temptation, despite female patrons and purveyors of the Christian message.[1] The church authorities saw woman as “the weaker sex, sinful Eve”, yet according to Christian doctrine, man and woman alike are equal in redemption.[2] Often churchmen concerned with their own chastity blamed women for triggering men’s lust, thus holy women must shut themselves away from men to remove the possibility of sin.[3] This idea, that women are subordinated to men and the bringer of original sin, was emphasised by Saint Paul in the Pauline Epistles, declaring that “wives, submit yourselves to your husbands, as it is fit in the Lord”, highlighting family life to women as their absolution.[4] These ideas became central to canon laws formalised in the twelfth-century, known as jus antiquum, which influenced and consolidated the function of women in society, including their primary focus on family, gender segregation, and exclusion from work in government, law, or trading.[5] This concept, stemming from interpretations of the Bible, was used for men to ensure their own dominance in society and to ensure female submission as a righteous and moral good. Literature, often in the male perspective, followed Christian teachings to determine their attitude towards women, believing that a woman should be submissive, motherly and weak to follow God’s path.


Women played crucial roles outside of the theological attitudes in literature, even in religious practices and roles, despite the written ideas of how a woman should behave in medieval European society. Only the nun or anchorite, who had rejected female reproduction for a divine purpose, was revered for her celibacy and purity, even though they were not permitted to carry out holy offices, and some garnered great prominence.[6] For example, Julian of Norwich, an English anchorite alive during the twelfth and thirteenth century who wrote the Revelations of Divine Love, had a reputation that lived on long after her death as a virtuous and intellectual woman, as her work was preserved and new anchoresses would take her name and inhabit her cell.[7] Thus, women played a crucial role literally and figuratively in preserving and elevating Christian values, and were heavily respected for their work. According to Thatcher, “mere figures of holy [...] women” would “serve as reminders of the perfect life”, arguing that holy women became important icons and played important roles for the general public, guiding women into a scriptural lifestyle.[8] Though it strongly shows the significance of female religious icons as examples, this argument doesn’t showcase the difference between women in literature and women in reality. Therefore, although medieval attitudes in literature focused primarily on the idea of original sin to demonise women, women played an essential role in the practise of Christianity, with famous figureheads like Julian of Norwich garnering a following that observed her form of worship sometimes over the Church’s.

Despite the fact that males often wrote about the inferiority of women, there were numerous females in positions of power that garnered equal respect to their male counterparts. Often women were categorised into various specific roles when written, such as the “virgin”, the “mother”, the “witch”, or the “whore”, but this neglected the fact that women had been in positions of authority, some garnering greater success than their male equivalents. According to Mitchell, “female imperial power [...] depended on the emperor but [...] in favourable circumstances, she might wield great power”, thus her argument underlines that female power, however large, still depended on male power.[9] Yet, this undermines female power in itself, purely asserting that any female power must be from male power, rather than considering their capability. For example, one of the most powerful and wealthiest women in the High Middle Ages was Eleanor of Aquitaine, who married Louis VII of France and lead an army during the Second Crusade, until their marriage was annulled and she later married Henry II of England and together crafted the Angevin Empire.[10] Not only did she possess Aquitaine and Poitou –around one-quarter of present-day France – she was a powerful queen and politically adept, to the extent that even when Henry imprisoned her for supporting their eldest son’s revolt against him, she emerged as queen dowager and a regent during Richard the Lion-heart’s reign.[11] Her rebellion against Henry was so threatening that Peter of Blois at the request of the Archbishop of Rouen, attempted to stop her with a letter, complimenting her as “a most prudent woman”, but warning her that she will be “the cause of general ruin”, imploring her to behave as a good wife whilst also complimenting her to avoid discourtesy.[12] Christians believed that Christian women could become masculine, and the language used towards Eleanor is respectful and deferential.[13] Eleanor of Aquitaine proved the ability of women in power through her heritage and opportunistic nature, showcasing how women used the power of those around them to further their position. Despite literary attitudes portraying women as the weaker sex, Eleanor of Aquitaine was an example of how powerful a medieval woman could become, although this was helped by her nobility. Even though religious literature categorised women by their purity or impurity, in practise, attitudes were more complex because powerful women in medieval European society could be a threatening force that undermined these concepts.

Another great contrast between medieval attitudes towards women in medieval European society in literature versus reality, is the combination of domestic spheres described in writing against the female workforce during the medieval period. Most literature written during this period emphasized the role of family life for women. For instance, Saint Bernardino, who was a Franciscan missionary during the fifteenth century and famous for his effective anecdotal preaching, promoted familial harmony, insisting that husbands were obliged to “instruct her, correct her, live with her and support her”, whilst wives were obliged to “fear him, serve him, obey him, and admonish him”.[14] Although he promotes the equal responsibilities between husbands and wives, he still emphasises the necessity for a woman to be obedient to her husband and to raise their children. Yet, Saint Catherine of Siena, a mystic associated with the Dominican Order from the fourteenth century, actively warned against excessive attachment to one’s natural family and to regard your spouses and children as “borrowed goods”, thus showcasing a more spiritual understanding of a woman’s duty to her family, partly because she believed she had a mystical marriage to Jesus.[15] Both of these interpretations of the family, regardless of their differences, emphasise the role of women as mothers and wives, subservient to both but needing to uphold moral standards. Moreover, the bride’s family paid a groom with a dowry in return for providing support and fathering children, with much intermarrying in the upper class, so this also played an important role in attitudes towards women since they were commercialised and emphasised as weaker to the men that obtained them.[16] Medieval European attitudes to women in literature emphasised the importance of marriage and motherhood, whether spiritually or socially, but this did not necessarily reflect societal attitudes.

Many women were involved in merchant work in medieval European societies, often also fulfilling their duties in domestic life, and attitudes towards it were more open in this practice than suggested in formal and religious literary attitudes. The appearance of women in the labour market in the Middle Ages was necessary for married women, unless among the wealthy elite, to earn a livelihood to support their family, either working in their husbands’ trade, brewing and spinning, or working as a femme sole.[17] Widows particularly thrived in merchant work, as they could sell real estate as femme soles, or run alehouses or inns, and often still possessed their own dowry.[18] In certain environments, not all women could hope to marry, due to the fact that female populations were often higher than male populations in certain communities, such as Frankfurt where in 1383 it had one-thousand adult males compared to 1100 women.[19] In Lincoln, regardless of a woman’s marital status, “she shall be charged as a sole woman as touching such things as belongeth to her craft”, emphasising that women were treated individually from male family members if their trade was different, which showcases the independency of women that is ignored in literature.[20] According to Atkinson, women were ultimately the “mistress of a household” and “neither her household nor her work was set apart in a ‘private’ sphere”, but this ignored women who possessed independent merchant skills and the presence of women in guilds.[21] For instance, Alice Neville, Lady Fitzhugh, became a member of the Corpus Christi guild at York in 1473 after her husband’s death along with her children, solidifying the theme of family and work life being intertwined in medieval European society.[22] Not only were women paid less for their labour than men, causing orders like the Lincoln Fullers order in 1297 to prevent certain crafts from women unless they were the wife or handmaid of the master to protect male craftsman, but women were members of craft guilds like the dyers of Bristol, although there was a significant lack of female-dominated guilds across medieval Europe.[23,24] Thus, even though attitudes towards women in medieval literature emphasised their role in domestic spheres, separated from male duties and submissive, in reality these women played a crucial role in medieval European societies as wives, widows and independents in trade and merchant work, to the extent that not only were some members of merchant guilds, but some were more sought after than their male counterparts.

In conclusion, medieval attitudes to women in medieval European society often differed in what was practised and what was written. Although the literature defined women based on the scriptures, categorised in the example of evil Eve or pure Mary, in reality women played crucial roles in the economy in terms of trade as merchants or as independent widows with their own dowries, with some women throughout the period rising into powerful positions that could rival their male counterparts. Ultimately, despite some of the contrasts between attitudes to women in literature and in practice, women were viewed as essential, but lesser, members of their community because of their motherhood, wifehood, cheaper labour, and depiction in the Bible.




Notes

[1] Linda E. Mitchell, Women in Medieval Western European Culture (Abingdon-on-Thames: Routledge, 2012), p. 275.

[2] Edith Ennen and E. F. N. Jephcott, The Medieval Woman (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1989), p. 38.

[3] Ruth Mazo Karras, “Thomas Aquinas’s Chastity Belt: Clerical Masculinity in Medieval Europe”, in Lisa M. Bitel and Felice Lifshitz (eds.), Gender and Christianity in Medieval Europe: New Perspectives (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013), p. 63.

[4] William John Conybeare and John Saul Howson, The Life and Epistles of St. Paul (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1987), p. 700.

[5] Dario C. Ferreira-Ibarra (comp.), The Canon Law Collection of The Library of Congress: A General Bibliography With Selective Annotations (Clark: The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd., 2003), p. xi.

[6] Shulamith Shahar, The Fourth Estate: A History of Women in the Middle Ages (Abingdon-on- Thames: Routledge, 2003), pp. 27-28.

[7] Janina Ramirez, Julian of Norwich: A Very Brief History (London: SPCK, 2016), pp. 82-84.

[8] Oliver J. Thatcher, A Short History of Medieval Europe (New York City: Perennial Press, 2015), p. 334.

[9] Mitchell, Women in Medieval Western European Culture, p. 160.

[10] Nancy Plain, Eleanor of Aquitaine and the High Middle Ages (Singapore: Marshall Cavendish, 2006), pp. 4-6.

[11] Plain, Eleanor of Aquitaine, p. 8; pp. 21-25.

[12] Joan Ferrante, “A letter From Rotrud of Rouen, Archbishop”, Epistolae: Medieval Women’s Letter<https://epistolae.ctl.columbia.edu/letter/143.html> [Accessed 1 May 2020].

[13] Ruth Mazo Karras, Sexuality in Medieval Europe: Doing Unto Others (Milton Park: Taylor & Francis, 2017), p. 41.

[14] David Herlihy, Women, Family and Society in Medieval Europe: Historical Essays, 1978 – 1991 (New York City: Berghahn Books, 1995), p. 191.

[15] Herlihy, Women, Family and Society, pp. 185-186.

[16] Ennen & Jephcott, The Medieval Woman, p. 165.

[17] Eileen Power, Medieval Women (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), p. 45.

[18] Marilyn French and Margaret Atwood, From Eve to Dawn: A History of Women in the World, Volume II: The Masculine Mystique from Feudalism to the French Revolution (New York City: Open Road Integrated Media, 2008), p. 58.

[19] Power, Medieval Women, p. 47.

[20] Power, Medieval Women, p. 51.

[21] Clarissa W. Atkinson, The Oldest Vocation: Christian Motherhood in the Medieval West (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2019), p. 21.

[22] Jennifer C. Ward, “English Noblewomen and the Local Community in the Later Middle Ages” in Diane Watt (ed.), Medieval Women in Their Communities (Toronto: University of Toronto Press (1997), pp. 197-198.

[23] Power, Medieval Women, p. 52.



Bibliography


Primary Sources

Ferrante, Joan. “A letter from Rotrud of Rouen, Archbishop”. Epistolae: Medieval Women’s Letter. <https://epistolae.ctl.columbia.edu/letter/143.html> [Accessed 1 May 2020].


Secondary Sources

Atkinson, Clarissa W. The Oldest Vocation: Christian Motherhood in the Medieval West. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2019.

Conybeare, William John and John Saul Howson. The Life and Epistles of St. Paul. Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1987.

Ennen, Edith and E. F. N. Jephcott. The Medieval Woman. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1989 Ferreira-Ibarra, Dario C. (comp.) The Canon Law Collection of The Library Of Congress: A General Bibliography With Selective Annotations. Clark: The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd., 2003.

French, Marilyn and Margaret Atwood. From Eve to Dawn: A History of Women in the World, Volume II: The Masculine Mystique from Feudalism to the French Revolution. New York City: Open Road Integrated Media, 2008.

Herlihy, David. Women, Family and Society in Medieval Europe: Historical Essays, 1978 – 1991. New York City: Berghahn Books, 1995.

Karras, Ruth Mazo. Sexuality in Medieval Europe: Doing Unto Others. Milton Park: Taylor & Francis, 2017.

Karras, Ruth Mazo. “Thomas Aquinas’s Chastity Belt: Clerical Masculinity in Medieval Europe”. in Lisa M. Bitel and Felice Lifshitz (eds.) Gender and Christianity in Medieval Europe: New Perspectives. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013.

Mitchell, Linda E. Women in Medieval Western European Culture. Abingdon-on-Thames: Routledge, 2012.

Plain, Nancy. Eleanor of Aquitaine and the High Middle Ages. Singapore: Marshall Cavendish, 2006.

Power, Eileen. Medieval Women. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012 Ramirez, Janina. Julian of Norwich: A Very Brief History. London: SPCK, 2016.

Shahar, Shulamith. The Fourth Estate: A History of Women in the Middle Ages. Abingdon- on-Thames: Routledge, 2003.

Thatcher, Oliver J. A Short History of Medieval Europe. New York City: Perennial Press, 2015.

Ward, Jennifer C. “English Noblewomen and the Local Community in the Later Middle Ages”. In Diane Watt (ed.) Medieval Women in Their Communities. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1997.

Comments


bottom of page