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Medieval English Women
It is difficult to find information on the experiences of the medieval English woman. As Bennett observes, there is limited literature on ordinary women regarding the history of medieval women (Bennett). To gain insight into the lives of women in pre-industrial women, historians have often relied on studies on the literate and the elite. Therefore, the letters of bourgeois wives, the diaries of saints and nuns, and the memoirs of feudal women of courtly romances have had dominant input into the narrative on medieval women that historians have agreed on. While Bennet acknowledges that medievalists have not entirely ignored the experiences of working women, she admits that urban women are mostly the subjects of medieval studies on women (Bennett). Furthermore, Goldberg notes that it is essential to come up with a collection of source that can both make a wider variety of information available (Goldberg). In addition, he argues that the selection of resources on medieval England should be designed to provoke further study on English mediaeval women.
Some of the challenges that scholars on English medieval women face include the fact that many historical documents focused on wealthy women and the aristocracy while seeming to ignore the life of the ordinary countrywoman. More attention is given to the elite while the poorer, younger and married women are harder to locate in literature. In addition, there is limited information available on the English medieval woman’s experience with birth or pregnancy, their reaction to a deeply rooted misogynistic society that treated with women with bias even in churches and council chambers, and their attitudes to sexuality and sex.
However, by profoundly analyzing many primary sources from the middle ages, Goldberg manages to derive significant information pertaining to the distinct role of women in this era (Goldberg). For instance, from the depositions relating to the birth of a girl by the name Alice de Rouclif, a girl of minor gentry rank, reveal that her family, as part of an aristocratic custom in late mediaeval England, employed wet nurses for each of their children. Therefore, it becomes clear that in this era, that most mothers took it as their personal responsibility to breastfeed their own children for long periods as opposed to hiring wet nurses. According to the depositions relating to Alice’s and her brother John’s births, all births were entirely under the control of women, and only women stood witness (Goldberg). Therefore, it is clear that childcare and care for pregnant women, including those who were delivering children, was an activity that was entirely the duty of women.
Furthermore, there is pictorial evidence that suggests that women carried babies on their backs and that they would swaddle infants and keep them warm and secure in cradles. In addition, from coroners’ notes, Goldberg was able to establish that older girls were in the medieval times expected to assist their parents in running the household by executing specific tasks and being sent on some errands (Goldberg). According to documented proceedings in manor court, they would sometimes be rounded up for picking berries, nuts or wood. Furthermore, aside from helping perform household activities from a young age, and even pick fruits, nuts and firewood, by the time they reached adolescence, few girls would still be living in their natal homes. According to Goldberg’s analysis of poll taxes of the later fourteenth century, the vast majority of girls would not remain within their natal homes by the time they turned thirteen, a fact that was more evident in the urban setup (Goldberg). The reason behind this phenomenon was that women would, at a relatively younger age, be considered to be physiologically, psychologically and sexually ready to become mothers and wives.
They were also at this early age expected to make sound decisions on marriage. Those who did not get married would join nunneries (Harris). It is vital to note that regarding the institution of service, females were the dominant gender, especially in urban setups, but that there was an equal number of young, unmarried males and females working in the countryside. Additionally, most female servants would be contracted to their masters for a year before changing their employer. The one-year contract was legally enforced by statute after 1351. However, female servants would also be hired depending on the demands of the regional agricultural economy- Pentecost and Martinmas (Rigby). Moreover, while depositions prove that most of the women who worked as servants were aged twelve or more, few women still worked as servants past their mid-twenties (Bennett). Additionally, particular types of employers had a higher tendency to employ female servants than others. Therefore, female servants were used both in fields and worships.
Despite the vast majority of women working as servants from their puberty to their mid-twenties, the relationship between servants and their employers was surprisingly cordial. For instance, among the population that wrote wills, servants would make appearances on some wills as though they were the master’s own children. The culture at the time, therefore, dictated that employers substituted the women’s parents by acting as guardians. Thus, their role in the lives of their servants extended beyond the provision of essential needs such as food, shelter, and clothing. The employers were also expected to provide moral instruction, guidance, and duties of care. The relationship between servants and employers, as a result, was hardly commercial (Goldberg). The servants were only paid a modest amount of money. However, various depositions prove that the well-being of female servants was a primary concern for employers, as documented in records that show that they handed their servants household utensils, monies, and clothing.
In some instances, servants who formerly worked in individual homes and, later on, left are remembered. Furthermore, employers would take it upon themselves to bury servants who died while in their care (Bennett. Moreover, the employers would take it upon themselves to discipline their servants, a situation which, just like sexual assault, would result in conflict. On the other hand, the female servants’ mistresses played an essential role in the moral upbringing of the female servants (Ward). Goldberg mentions the didactic text that was presented to female servants in their new homes- “How the Goodwife Taught her Daughter”-as evidence of just how important it was in the middle ages, to prepare women for marriage and service (Goldberg). The text was a substitution to motherly advice that would have, if the girls stayed in their own homes, prepared the girls for marriage. The expectations in medieval England, as the text suggests, was that the ideal destiny for any young English lady was to walk from her employer’s house and straight into the arms of a burgess (a citizen who owns a workshop).
The instructions, therefore, focused on getting the young ladies ready to supervise and offer all sorts of help in the workshops society imagined they would later join (Bennett). The virtues of conformity and moderation, the deportment, and the manners taught to women in the middle ages were all intended to create dedicated servants for workshop owners. Women were, therefore, not only expected to serve with their husbands in various workshop activities but also to help them to run the workshops. Furthermore, women were legally required to be submissive to their husbands, mainly because in law, husbands were responsible for their wives’ actions (Bennett). Husbands were also expected to discipline their wives. As a result, court records from the middles ages indicate that husbands would sometimes be presented in customary court for assault.
The family in medieval English society consisted of nuclear households. For the well-to-do families, tax polls indicate that they would also have servants living with them. However, for peasant, merchants, farmers and artisans, the family also constituted the labour force (Goldberg). Therefore, the role of women in the institution of marriage was not limited to cooking and cleaning. They were also expected to serve as economic partners and household managers, primarily because the home also served as the workshop where all productive activities took place. In the absence of their husbands, the women would be expected to take over the businesses or workshops and act as managers. They would also be expected to answer for their husbands when their husbands were not available at home as acting heads of the family.
In addition, concerning reproduction, the absence of proper contraceptive methods, apart from prolonged breastfeeding and coitus interruptus, meant that women would spend the time between marriage and menopause either pregnant or nursing. Within this period, the woman would have twelve or more children, whom she would suckle for extended periods (Goldberg). Furthermore, from a clerical view, the main aim for marriage was to have children and thus women were allowed to terminate their marriages if they could claim that their emotionally and sexually sterile unions with their husbands, where the husbands were impotent, could not guarantee them children they desired.
Additionally, wives were expected to obey their husbands. Goldberg refers to a case where a wife murdered his husband, and the terminology used to describe his death was “petty treason” (Goldberg). Furthermore, wives who assisted their husbands in committing felonies were exempt from punishment as they were considered to be acting within the legal expectations that a woman should obey her husband. Wives were also expected to first gain the consent of their husbands before opening businesses or engaging in any other venture. As seen in the act by Thomas Nesfield, Goldberg observes, in beating his wife, any economic activity that was not approved by her then-husband was termed rebellious.
Furthermore, the medieval society had no concept of marital rape, and as a result, women were expected to fulfil the sexual desires of their husbands by all means (Goldberg). By canon law, the man and woman, upon signing the marriage contract, were expected not to deny each other conjugal rights. The husband could thus, engage the sexual services of his wife without seeking her permission. However, even though such an image may paint medieval husbands as abusive, Goldberg notes that the thought that medieval marriages were unloving and abusive is an illusion (Goldberg). This is because it was considered dutiful to strike a rebellious, disobedient woman for the sake of correction. However, where weapons were involved, the action would be regarded as excessive. The husband would thus be confronted by neighbours and even presented to church courts.
In the case of widowhood, widows were expected to take care of their households and were allowed by law to have children with next of kin, even in instances where formal guardianship of the children would be granted to others (Bennett). They acted as household heads and were supposed to take care of other household members through various economic activities, even though, as Goldberg notes, they could hardly find any substantial opportunities in the absence of their husbands (Goldberg). Life would be very harsh for widows, especially if they did not remarry. Even in medieval society, women were highly dependent on their spouses’ income because men mostly acted as sole breadwinners for their families. However, because they inherited their husbands’ properties and were expected to keep workshops running, artisans’ wives would prefer to get married to the apprentice already employed at their facilities (Goldberg). This is because the widows of artisans would not want to lose control of their workshops, considering how economically significant they were. Nonetheless, both the community around them and the guilds they belonged to would pressure them to remarry. However, the most substantial pressure to remarry would arise where the economy in their environment was not favourable to the employment of women, and where they had younger children to support.
The period between the beginning of the fourteenth century and the end of the thirteenth century, Goldberg notes, was a very trying period for women (Goldberg). Coroners’ rolls and records from almshouses for the poor, for instance, portray poverty as something mostly feminine. The feminization of poverty stretches, regarding time, all the way to the fifteenth century, where it is documented that most recipients of charity were poor women (Bennett). The roles played by women in this period, therefore, were also strongly determined by poverty. Women would, thus, be bribed to commit perjury, flatter strangers for handouts, fetch water, mill by hand, and even sell clothes as hucksters to survive the harsh economic times. In addition, they would try to use their offspring to gain sympathy from strangers who could give the alms.
To paint a picture of the important role women played in the agricultural economy of the medieval ages, Goldberg notes that the dairy products market in Nottingham was also popularly referred to as the “Woman Market” (Goldberg). This is because women had a special responsibility for dairy and poultry. Therefore, countryside women would flock to the markets to sell cheese, butter, milk, poultry, and eggs. Other economic activities commonly documented include the baking of bread and the brewing of ale (Bennett). Court records also show that women would herd livestock because they are often presented for illegal grazing. The role of women in searching for food for their young, despite an unfavourable economic condition that mostly favoured men, is also portrayed vividly in the fact that women would be presented in court for illegal gleaning and for picking berries, nuts and wood that did not belong to them. Scholars also note that doing laundry was an everyday income-generating activity for women in medieval English society, especially in the urban setting (Bennett). Poverty and a lack of economic activities in this era, thus, played a crucial role in carving out the roles women would play in medieval English society.
Furthermore, using information from coroners’ rolls, it is evident that the division of labour in medieval English society was along spatial lines. In this context, men worked in the forests and fields, while women worked in the homes, or near the homes (Ward). Therefore, the work-related activities that would mostly lead to the death of women included cooking, brewing, and drawing of water. Particularly during the grain and hay harvest, women would be involved in winnowing grain, hoeing and harvesting pulses. They would also manage work on gardens where they grew flax. Therefore, seasonally, women would also participate actively in field activates, and weekly, in-market activities where they sold farm produce.
Furthermore, court records indicate that townswomen, on the other hand, would be the merchants who bought and resold farm produce. In some instances, they would forestall produce, and regrate a range of different foodstuff. The townswomen were heavily involved in trade and were also engaged in the financial economy as seen in the results of analyses of debtors and creditors (Bardsley). They, therefore, presented a challenge to the authorities who desired to regulate prices because of their trade practices regarding food products. On the other hand, they were also the backbone of the agricultural economy, as seen in the fact that they were the primary merchants in the agrarian economy (Bennett). However, there existed substantial misogynistic limitations regarding to what extent women could engage in trade (Bennett). For instance, access to retrade in mediaeval towns was in the control of borough authorities. From the later fourteenth century, trade was also controlled by craft guilds. As a result, only franchise members, referred to as burgesses in boroughs, were by law allowed to take part in civic elections, hire apprentices and even set up shop (Beattie). Therefore, women were significantly disadvantaged, considering that only a few of them would be admitted to such a privileged societal class.
In addition, women would commonly engage in prostitution ion the towns. However, in the medieval English society, prostitution was concentrated with particular periods and was starkly different from what is portrayed of the prostitution in southern Europe within the same era. A mostly urban affair, women would either supplement their income through prostitution or entirely earn their income through prostitution. However, prostitution also existed in the rural areas, but at a significantly lower level. Toward the fifteenth century, prostituting was tolerated mainly as a necessary social evil. The main concern for authorities appeared to be procuresses, as opposed to prostitutes (Goldberg). As Goldberg observes, the harsh economic landscape, especially toward women, meant that whenever there was an oversupply of labourers, leaving many women without jobs, the risk of starvation or complete destitution would compel women to engage in a wide variety of illegal activities.
While the picking of berries, nuts and wood was a commonly documented crime, concerning picking from farms that belonged to others, prostitution was also among the list of activities that poverty forced women into. The 1315-17 Agrarian Crisis, therefore, created a spike in prostitution in the medieval towns as many women, considering that women were primarily the more impoverished and more vulnerable gender, depended on employment in the farms (Ward). Furthermore, places like England received an increased inflow of rural migrants. Ordinances were therefore made to regulate prostituting, such as banning prostitution between the walls in the towns, considering that mediaeval England did not have a large number of brothels. Nonetheless, the authorities would raid private brothels and remove the doors and windows to make them unusable. However, prostitution, an evil created by a patriarchal society that allowed women few economic activities, continued to grow and to be more tolerated with time. Women would increasingly distinguish themselves as prostitutes through their dressing and solicit for customers in public areas (Goldberg). In addition, they would visit clients in their houses. Prostitution, either through freelance or through procurers, thus became a common economic activity for medieval English women.
Furthermore, medieval English women played an essential role in the everyday religious activities of the church in medieval English society. In this era, the church played a crucial role in every aspect of the people’s lives (Horrox, Rosemary and Ormrod). The church subordinated art, education, science, morality, and politics. The running of churches primarily depended on women groups to serve as nuns, and collect funds for various church activities. Christian ideology also controlled the medieval English society because it was believed that the community had to dedicate themselves to the service of priests who would purge theirs in Purgatory (Bennett). The Christian principle that women should submit to their husbands was also strongly upheld by the church. Therefore, the church was an important institution that could create a social hierarchy where women were inferior men. For instance, misogynistic practices were reinforced in the fact that women could not administer any sacraments or enter into holy orders.
However, despite reinforcing the gender inequality that already existed in political and economic settings, the church also curved out roles for women concerning religious activities. Women honourably served as parishioners, hospital sisters anchoress, vowesses, guild sisters and nuns (Goldberg). In the context of nuns, the church would mostly select them from the well-to-do families. This meant that only the peasants who were at a higher level of social hierarchy, economically and socially, the noble rank of merchants, and the lower ranks of the aristocracy could contribute daughters to the church to serve as nuns. Convent life, in many ways controlled the roles these women would play in society (Goldberg). Most of the ladies who joined nunneries did not have any training in any craft and thus, once they left these nunneries, could hardly find an occupation. On the other hand, most well-run nunneries could meet the needs of their nuns, and thus customs such as not mingling with men, or not drinking, could easily be sustained. Nunneries, therefore, limited what women could do outside of the church and instead, dedicated them to the service of priests and churches.
Therefore, women played crucial roles in medieval English society, including running hospitals and performing essential functions in the church as nuns. However, the medieval English society was largely misogynistic or patriarchal and refused to offer women enough opportunities to earn a living or pursue other recreational activities. Women had the burden of performing unpaid tasks such as childrearing, cleaning and cooking, and were also expected to supplement the family income. Considering that poverty was primarily a feminine problem, women were also forced into illegal activities like prostitution. The sidelining of women through gender inequality, therefore, played a crucial role in determining what roles they played in medieval England.
Works Cited
Bardsley, Sandy. “Women’s work reconsidered: gender and wage differentiation in late medieval England.” Past & present 165 (1999): 3-29.
Beattie, Cordelia. Medieval Single Women: The Politics of Social Classification in Late Medieval England. Oxford University Press, 2007.
Bennett, Judith M. Women in the medieval English countryside: gender and household in Brigstock before the plague. Oxford University Press, 1987.
Bennett, Judith M. Women in the medieval English countryside: gender and household in Brigstock before the plague. Oxford University Press, 1987.
Bennett, Judith M. Ale, beer, and brewsters in England: women’s work in a changing world, 1300-1600. Oxford University Press, 1996.
Bennett, Judith M. “Confronting continuity.” Journal of Women’s History 9.3 (1997): 73-94.
Bennett, Judith M., and Amy M. Froide. Singlewomen in the European past, 1250-1800. University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999.
Goldberg, Jeremy. The right to choose: women, marriage and consent in late-medieval England. History Today, 2008.
Harris, Barbara Jean. English aristocratic women, 1450-1550: marriage and family, property and careers. Oxford University Press on Demand, 2002.
Horrox, Rosemary, and W. Mark Ormrod, eds. A Social History of England, 1200–1500. Cambridge University Press, 2006.
Rigby, Stephen Henry, ed. A companion to Britain in the later Middle Ages. Oxford: Blackwell, 2003.
Ward, Jennifer. Women in England in the middle ages. A&C Black, 2006.