Women's Roles in the Middle AgesInformation about women in this truly fascinating period from 500 to 1500 is in great demand and has been a challenge for historians to uncover. Bardsley has mined a wide range of primary sources, from noblewomen's writing, court rolls, chivalric literature, laws and legal documents, to archeology and artwork. This fresh survey provides readers with an excellent understanding of how women high and low fared in terms of religion, work, family, law, culture, and politics and public life. Even though medieval women were divided by social class, religion, age, marital status, place and period, they were all subject to an overarching patriarchal structure and sometimes could transcend their inferior status. Numerous examples of these exceptional women and their words are included. |
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... church , have no right to preach , and ought to remain subordinate to their husbands.1 Scholars of the early Christian church generally believe that women enjoyed expanded oppor- tunities in the century or so following the death of ...
... church administration . The church in the eleventh century was undergoing some important changes . While the political and economic situation of the early Middle Ages had meant that members of the nobility could easily control their ...
... church courts came to punish people who gossiped in church , they usu- ally ended up singling out garrulous men rather than women ) . In places in which the Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth century took hold , many church walls ...
Contents
Medieval Women | 1 |
Women and Religion | 27 |
Women and Work | 59 |
Copyright | |
6 other sections not shown