Women In Medieval Times

Women in the mid-1600s to mid-1700s underwent pivotal changes. While these changes would alter their roles in the colonies, certain aspects of their responsibilities remained the same.

By any metric, the middle ages in Europe was not an egalitarian society. Gender roles were heavily ingrained in the culture, with men meant to have aggressive masculine traits, and women to have fragile feminine traits.The practice of minting coins was perfected by Roman Emperors such as Augustus, Vespasian, and Diocletian, and as many Roman customs did, it became adopted by medieval kings, particularly Anglo-Saxons ones. The minting of coins not only served as a way to facilitate the exchange of goods and services, but they also were political tools utilised by leaders. Cynethryth, Queen of Mercia and Wife of Offa the Great, was the only Anglo-Saxon Queen we know of who issued her own coinage1. This not only has implications for the political eptitude of Cynethryth, but also has significance to understanding of medieval gender roles and how women in power operated and exercised authority.

All over the world, societal roles of women are different. This has not changed despite centuries of time passing. Roman and medieval women, though parts of different cultures and separated by distance, were very similar.

Women in Medieval Europe lived the life one may expect them to live from the 5th and 15th centuries. We know today that women are treated equal compared to men (in most cases), and we also know that Women were not always given the freedoms that they have today. This was no different in Medieval Europe during these times. Women were expected to hold jobs in which they took care of children and tended the household, occasionally helping their husbands with crops during the busy part of the planting year (bl.uk). Also as we would expect, men had complete power and say in the relationship (wikipedia.org). Women lived a lot more different back in Medieval times than they do today, but it was their lifestyle, and they did what society asked of them, whether they wanted to or not.

During the medieval times, women were not seen as they are today. Although in the world today there are still those who are full of misogyny, it was much more common and intense during this time period. Women during the middle ages had specific roles assigned to them in society. These roles depended on the type of women they were, whether it be a peasant, noble woman, or an evil temptress. These roles that women have served have shown up in numerous stories from the middle ages including: Beowulf, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and The Wife’s Lament.

The history of the Middle Ages typically places women in one of two roles; they are either placed upon a pedestal of holiness or reviled as whores and allies of Satan. Historians, Marty Williams and Anne Echols, attempt to combat that idea with their text Between Pit and Pedestal: Women in the Middle Ages. Williams and Echols succeed in showing that the traditional female role did fall somewhere in between, but there was a lot of variety in what was in between. Women were wives, merchants, land owners, and doctors, but where does the "traditional" female fall in this picture? As scholars and historians, we are fortunate to have documents written by a woman in the Middle Ages: the letters of Heloise to her husband, renowned teacher and philosopher, Peter Abelard (referred to as Abelard).

Life was not easy for women and children in the middle ages. We have abusive spouse and such in today’s time period, but in the Middle Ages abuse was even encouraged “as a way to keep women under control” (Lawler). The children had it worse. The children of the Middle Ages, were abused by men, women and even servants to make them behave. In the Middle Ages, the law did not intervene. If you were a woman of upper class then you were lucky! They typical did not go through the abuse that the lower-class women did. As long as a man didn’t kill his wife during the abuse, he wasn’t doing anything wrong according to the Canon law. (Lawler)

As many would believe, women were thought and viewed to be inferior to men throughout history. Based on this, they were not seen as ones to take on the same important roles as men would in their societies like political jobs, warfare, influencer and innovators, and scientists. During the Medieval period, women rose and began defying the normal stereotypes, even more than usual, and were recognized by their actions. One woman was Margaret of Anjou, the queen consort of England. Margaret was the daughter of René of Anjou and the wife of Henry VI. Her home country France was at war against England and she was offered to King Henry VI as a peace treaty. Being a queen consort, she did not rule and was an asset to the king. When King Henry suffered from an illness, Margaret believed she was the one who should temporarily rule in his place. Unfortunately, title was given to the Duke of York. This occurrence caused a rivalry to emerge between the House of Lancaster and the House of York; This was called the War of the Roses as Lancaster wore red roses in battle and York wore white. The second woman is Lady Murasaki, a daughter of Fujiwara family and a Japanese novelist in the Heian period. She was very intelligent was a young girl and her father still allowed her to get an education despite it being unsuitable for girls. After the death of her husband, she went to court and wrote in a diary about the life she has in court and her thoughts. It is believed that Murasaki sensed that

Have you ever thought about the differences between women today and back in the day? How about all the way back to medieval times? The differences outweigh the similarities big time. Some of the major differences are the jobs they had back then, their morals, their way of dress, and the rights they had in comparison to us. Woman during medieval times were very different from the women today.

Marie de France lived in a time when social graces were paramount to a good reputation, lordships and to securing good marriages. A woman was considered less valuable if she lost her virginity; a wife was subjected to her feudal lord, father, brother or son after her husband’s death. According to Angela Sandison’s article “The Role of Women in the Middle Ages”, this was because in the Middle Ages the Church and the aristocracy controlled public opinion and the legal system. These authorities of the times believed a woman’s place was in a submissive role to a man. In The Lay of the Nightingale, we will see how this social and religious hierarchy will impact the behaviors of the three people involved.

Women during the Anglo-Saxon time periods had very few choices when it came to how to live their lives. If one were actually given an option, it would be restricted to either having to take austere oaths, or marriage. Marriages back then were seen as business propositions between men or families, where a man “buys” a wife. Marriages also played an important role regarding the advancement of Christianity to England 's irreligious kingdoms, when commonly an aristocratic woman who comes from a Christian household is “pledged” to an agnostic king on one condition: he must convert, and by that binding both the religious and political parts of this kind of joining between the kingdoms. Married women of high classes were also expected to deliver heirs.

Women withstood a multitude of limitations in the medieval era. Due to the political, social, and religious restrictions women encountered, historians neglected to realize that they demonstrated agency. The female experience is something that has been overlooked until recently. Unfortunately, without the knowledge of how women found ways to exert their power, we are experiencing a deficit of knowledge in this period. Through the close examination of the primary sources: The Gospel of Mary, Dhouda’s Liber Manualis, and Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, the creative means of female force are displayed.

Women from the medieval times had clear roles. The women had strict rules to follow by. When it came to marriage, the wives had to submit to their husbands and follow their lead. Women were supposed to be cleaning, stay at home with the kids, cook, make clothes, etc. The women who steered away from these “typical” roles, made very interesting characters. The majority of gender expectations came from the church and biblical history. Since Eve was the cause for the fall of man, there were a lot of anti-feminist feelings. Women were held accountable for the majority of man’s suffering, and were consequently inferior and to be dominated by men. Purity, holiness, and chastity, were all presumptions of women from outstanding role models like the Virgin Mary.

In the late Middle Ages, women were forced under many disabilities. Society viewed women as “physically, intellectually, and morally inferior to men” (Bornstein 1). In the 1300’s when Dante wrote the Divine Comedy women did not play a key role in society outside the home. This was not solely excluding a certain sex because of who they were, but because of how society in history has viewed women. Many believed that women could not do a man’s job or fit to be in charge of a certain group. In the 1300’s, women were to be in charge of the household, take care of the children, make the food for the day, and be a loyal wife to their husbands. Through the 1300’s women had a desire to voice what they could achieve, so they started to speak out their

In the Middle Age literature, women are often presented or meant to come off as an unimportant character; which can also reflect on how the author wants the women character represent. Women are usually shunned, have no say or control in what they do; due to what men desire; like Ophelia and Gertrude did in William Shakespeare’s Hamlet. But these female characters that I will discuss are women with power, control, and a voice. Majority of the female character’s appearances are made to represent wickedness, evil, or a seducer who challenges a man belief; and does not symbolize perfect women.