Lecture 4: Women in the Middle Ages

Question 1

Women in the Middle Ages

Answer 1

• misogyny carried all the way from ancient Greece to modernity
• Middle Ages world of feudalism (organised on strict hierarchy)
• feudal society was a society organised for war&raquo_space; women seemed to lack any function
• they could not be lords or knights&raquo_space; must seek their own protector
• unmarried women and widows had the same rights and duties as men (make wills, sue and be sued, own properties by themselves)
• when women married the land passed to their husbands&raquo_space; only applied during the duration of the marriage, if he died land was retained by his widow
• some women during the MA and feudalism possessed bery large estates and the related power to it (ex. Matilda of Tuscany)
• married women could play an important role in managing their husbands’ estates when they were absent for war and similar duties
• they could also administer justice
• establishment of primogeniture&raquo_space; if they were no male sons, women could inherit possessions
• no division between home and workplace
• no conception of childhood like ours
• development of towns&raquo_space; allowed for a first rudimental development of capitalism&raquo_space; meaningful for women
• first form of emancipation for women

Question 2

influential religious sources

Answer 2

important to form an idea about women&raquo_space; trasmitted ancient misogyny into the modern world through the Middle Ages

• Bible
• Saint Paul’s letters
• Saint Augustine
• Saint Thomas Aquinas

Question 3

influence Bible

Answer 3

• had meaningful passages about the origin of women
• 2 different accounts of the creation in Genesis

     - First account: God created men and women simultaneously in his own image
     - Second chapter: God gave women to the man > created in man's image (Eve was inferior to Adam even before the fall from the garden of Eden

Question 4

influence Saint Paul’s letter

Answer 4

• woman is created for the man
• allegorical relationship&raquo_space; women should be loved and taken care of by men, men should protect them
• man was the head of the woman
• possibility for unity and equality in the community through Jesus Christ
• sympathetic towards women

Question 5

Influence Saint Augustine

Answer 5

• road to salvation is the control of appetites from will, the control of the body through the soul
• body and soul are mixed together (one thing)
• does not want to simply equate women to appetite
• refuses to believe that woman can be intrinsically evil as they were created by God and are part of God’s plan
• tries to reconcile the idea that a woman is both inferior and equal to man
• spirit has no sex > in spiritual devotion to God, men and women are equal
• sympathetic towards women

Question 6

Saint Thomas Aquinas

Answer 6

• worst towards women
• aristotelian + christian ideas
• accepted the functionalist and hierarchical world depicted by Aristotle
• incorporated the divine order into this ancient hierarchic, natural order
• natural inferiority of women to men
• top of the hierarchy: God
• everyone has their own specific role in God’s plan
• women’s role: be a maid for men and reproduction
• once a female is born, the reproduction process went wrong > consequences on the emergence of modern political thought that automatically excluded women

Question 7

powerful women during the Middle Ages

Answer 7

• Matilda of Tuscany
• the Abbesses
• Christine de Pisan