Women in the Middle Ages
WHAT ROLES WERE AVAILABLE TO WOMEN IN EARLY MEDIEVAL EUROPE?"The history of women in the Middle Ages is difficult to write. Few women where literate; their opportunities to record their own thoughts and feelings and attitudes were restricted; the bulk of medieval records were written by men for men." This statement by Christopher N.L. Brooke seems to be a quite good introduction to an essay about the roles available to women in the early Middle Ages. It reminds us how difficult is to write a female history and we can easily imagine the even greater lack of information we have to face in lower classes' women history. What we do know is that there were some women playing important roles in early medieval society. If they were an exception or not and what allowed them to assume such positions is what we are going to find out. This essay will mainly focus its attention on Frankish and Anglo-Saxon societies in the early Middle Ages. Women of that period should be first distinguished because of their birth. Therefore, the lives of women born in the royal families and in the upper classes will be analysed separated from the lives of those belonging to the lower classes. Marriage is a factor of division among medieval women, furtherm
On the other hand, Leyser let us know how different was the situation of women of the Anglo-Saxon aristocracy in the same period. Fredegung was of humble origin, too. Therefore, we will speak about queens, wives, widows, concubines and nuns. Although to our modern and equalitarian mentality the rights gained by those women could seem insignificant; they represented a great step forward in women emancipation. The great social mobility that characterised the early middle ages and that led to the fusion of the German, roman and Christian elements, existed because of women. Brunhild was in Paris with her children when her husband died. Obviously, higher the social class was, more important was this function. Moreover, they could not administrate directly their patrimony and laws about heredity were not favourable to them. She was a well-educated young lady, good looking and intelligent. " In such a violent period, unmarried girls were often exposed to danger. Basically, women belong to their parents while they were nubile and to their husbands while they were married. Janet Nelson also points out that a woman as an abbess of a double monastery could exercise that political authority which in the secular world was a priority of men . CONCLUSIONAfter the presentation of the different role a woman could play in the early medieval society, we are able to trace a list of leitmotifs which characterised women lives in that period. In the first centuries of the middle ages it also happened that a slave could marry a man of the upper classes, as marriage and concubinage were not clearly defined. Gregory of Tours is the main source for Brunhild's life.
Common topics in this essay:
Middle Ages,
Fonay Wemple,
Clothar III,
Fredegund Balthild,
According Germanic,
Moreover Anglo-Saxon,
Janet Nelson,
CLASSES Paradoxically,
Germanic Roman,
Ages Women,
middle ages,
upper classes,
lower classes,
suzanne fonay,
suzanne fonay wemple,
fonay wemple,
religious life,
medieval society,
social mobility,
female monasticism,
double monasteries,
women middle ages,
belonging lower classes,
women lower classes,
roles available women,
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