What power did women have in the Middle Ages?

Answer 1

AnswerWomen and children had no rights in the middle ages. Women were considered chattel and couldn't own property or inherit. Answer

Women had the heavy disadvantage that they could only inherit if they had no living brothers in most places, as land and title went to the eldest son in most places. Women of wealthy families did get dowries to make them attractive matches for wealthy men, but they were very much smaller than what they would have had if they inherited. But by contrast, younger brothers often got neither titles, nor land, nor anything like a dowry.

Eleanor of Aquitaine is an example of a woman who inherited a duchy, which made her very powerful and an attractive match for kings. She was the highest member of the nobility over an area a third the size of France, and she negotiated her own marriage contract when she married King Henry II of England.

Another was Empress Matilda. Apart from her failed claim on the throne of England, she did establish herself as the heir to the duchy of Normandy. A long list of such women could be drawn up. (See links below)

In some countries, such as France and the Holy Roman Empire, women were not allowed to be monarchs. They were, however, allowed to rule in most medieval kingdoms, and there are lists of female medieval monarchs. These lists are not as long as the lists of male monarchs, but that is largely because of the fact that women took second place to any living brothers.

When Charlemagne was crowned Emperor of the West, the Byzantine throne was occupied by Empress Irene.

Hedwig (whose name will be recognized by Harry Potter enthusiasts) was a woman who was crowned king in Poland, because she wanted to make it perfectly clear that she was monarch.

Margaret I of Denmark was not technically allowed to rule there, but she had the support of the nobility, and when the "rightful heir" sent an army against her, she destroyed it impressively. She managed to create a nice little empire by uniting Sweden and Norway and Iceland with Denmark. The list goes on and is impressive. (See links below)

Women could be knights. Unsurprisingly, there were women who went into combat, and Joan of Arc and Eleanor of Aquitaine were not the only ones. There was a Spanish order of knights, called the Order of the Hatchet, that was made up entirely of women who had fought in one battle, where they had particularly distinguished themselves; learning that a siege on their city could not be lifted by a relief army, they dressed as men, took hatchets and whatever other weapons they could get, and successfully attacked the enemy camp. And there was an order of knights, the Order of the Blessed Virgin Mary, that had a papal charter explicitly and unambiguously allowing women as knights. (See link below)

Many women were educated, including some who were commoners. The writings on Peter Abelard's relationship with Heloise make it clear she was at a lower rank in society. Since he was of the lowest rank of nobility, this would have made her a commoner, though clearly her family was rich enough to educate her. At the age of seventeen or so, before she even met Abelard, she was already widely known in Europe as a scholar, with expertise in multiple ancient language and multiple branches of philosophy. (See link below)

The idea of rights in the middle ages is poorly understood by a lot of people, and this is especially true where it comes to the serfs. Serfs were legally distinguished from slaves, where slaves existed. Serfs were bound to the soil they lived on, which made them unfree. But the binding went both ways, they had a right to that soil, which could not be alienated by its owner. So if a feudal lord sold a piece of property, the new owner could not evict the serfs. Serfs could not be bought or sold. The land could be bought or sold, but the serfs had a right to live there and farm there. And this right was not limited to men, so an old woman, who was too old to be productive, had her rights, too, and legally, they had to be respected.

Answer

You have asked a complicated question that can only be answered in brief. You would need to read several good books on the subject to gain any meaningful insight into women's experiences during the Middle Ages. There is no single answer since customs varied by country and customs changed over time. In all cases women lived under an overarching patriarchal structure and yet, some managed to transcend their inferior status through their own efforts, accomplishments and sometimes fate.

A woman's rights depended on her role and her status. Her rights were defined by the men in her life, the church and the local government. Her life was dominated by the males in her family, fathers, husbands, brothers and any other men in the family. Marriages were arranged and a woman effectively became her husband's property with the law giving him full rights whether she was a noblewoman or a commoner. Husband and wife were one and that one was the husband. A wife had no separate legal status.

Few generalizations can be made of a woman's experience in the Middle Ages since most practices were local and the Middle Ages span a long period of time with many social, political and cultural changes. One over-riding aspect was pervasive misogyny. Another over-riding fact was that women possessed very few legal rights. Participation in politics and public life was restricted to men. A woman could not bring litigation in the courts. They received only those rights granted by the men who ruled in their jurisdiction. Local practices should not be construed as legal rights. There was no uniform centralized government nor legal code nor system of courts of equity. There were vastly different practices existent in different social classes.

In general woman were thought to be both morally and physically weak and lacking in any good judgment. In addition to those negative aspects, women were considered intellectually inferior and a major source of temptation and evil, a myth promulgated by the early church fathers. Men were excused for inflicting physical punishment and the law would not intervene unless he killed or seriously maimed her, and of course, there was a double standard regarding adultery. Woman had no political rights. They were treated as property in early Anglo saxon law codes.

A perplexing idiosyncrasy is the existence of many strong female rulers and influential noblewomen who defied society's set role for them and proved their intellectual superiority. Of course, their accomplishments were rarely reported by chroniclers of the time and have only been revealed through modern scholarship with the few resources that are available. Women's achievements were simply not noticed nor reported.

Some women owned property in the early Middle Ages varying with time and place perhaps reflecting the absence of men during times of war. Women had enjoyed more legal rights in much earlier periods in history. However, feudalism brought a regressive shift in the status of women. Based on military service it further disenfranchised women. Feudal estates passed to a single male heir and women could inherit only in the absence of a male heir. A woman spent her entire life under the guardianship of her father, her father's lord if he died, and her husband. The lord would have complete control over any inheritance and would choose her husband or she would lose the inheritance completely. A lord could sell his ward's marriage and her husband would take over control of her estate. Divorce was not an option. A woman was at the mercy of a cruel and abusive husband if she landed in his domain.

Wealthy fathers who did not want their property to pass to the control of their daughter's husbands upon their death devised ways to protect a daughter's inheritance by setting up the precursor to trusts and husband's were sometimes convinced to make a post-nuptial settlement in their wives in the form of a generous amount of money in trust that was beyond his reach.

Common women in the countryside enjoyed more rights and freedoms than women in the upper classes. A man who married a daughter of a well off peasant who inherited in the absence of male heirs could not sell her property without her consent. Common women and female laborers could find themselves in dire need when they could no longer work. Villagers and families were expected to assist elderly women. If they were destitute they would sometimes approach a monastery to request food or lodging. They had no right to assistance and women often became impoverished from the utter lack of outside assistance when they could no longer work and had no family support.

Two factors should be noted. Widowhood brought power in many cases for queens and peasants. A peasant widow could carry on her husband's fields, shop, tools and apprentices. A woman could benefit from a marriage contract executed by a willing, fair minded husband and then use that settlement when he died either to live on or arrange for herself a more beneficial marriage. However, with no sanctioned legal rights a woman had to seize every opportunity to gain a positive influence on the men who controlled her life. Her ability to influence the men in her life was her only power.

Answer 2

AnswerNothing. They had no rights and were considered second class citizens. AnswerWomen had rights, and they could own property. Eleanor of Aquitaine owned about a third of France. In England, the famous Lady Godiva owned quite a lot of land, and she retained it after her husband died, and continued to own it after the Norman conquest.

We have as an example of a much less famous woman, the history of the Manor of God Begot (the name is a modern English corruption of an Old English name, variously Godbeat, Goudbeyete, or Godbiete). When Emma of Normandy married King Ethelred, he gave her the cities of Winchester and Exeter as presents. Later he gave her the Manor of God Begot as a present, and she left it to the Church to be an abbey. She had sufficient clout that she was able to leave it as a sanctuary, and no one who sought asylum there, man or woman, regardless of what felony they might have committed, could be removed by anyone, even agents of the king.

According to Wikipidia article on Women's Rights, during the Middle Ages, a man took ownership of his wife's property when they married, but this did not happen until the 12th century. Also, somewhat later, the husband could not sell any property without the wife's consent. Though the coverage of women's rights in the article is rather sparse, the example makes clear both that women could own property at times in the Middle Ages, and that the rights of women were rather more complicated than many modern people realize.

Please see the link below to the related question, "What were the rights of women in the middle ages?" Also, please see the links to articles on Eleanor of Aquitaine, Lady Godiva, the Manor of God Begot, and the medieval section of the article on women's rights.

Answer 3

Most medieval women had some rights, but not the same rights they do today. In the Middle Ages, everyone had rights except slaves, and many or most societies did not have slaves; serfs had rights to home, land, and protection. On the other hand, everyone was lacking certain rights, and that included the kings.

There were no feminist writers of the middle ages, so things did not get recorded from a feminist point of view. But we do have some interesting things to look at.

There was the concept of blood money. In the Early Middle Ages, in many countries, if you killed someone, you had to pay that person's heirs blood money, according to the person's rank. The Saxon blood money for a woman was half the amount for a man of the same rank, but the Alamanni had the blood money for a woman as twice that for a man.

We think of women in the context of witches, being accused and burned at the stake. The picture is not accurate, or at least not as far as the Middle Ages are concerned. The laws of Charlemagne and the Lombards both criminalize executing witches unless it can be proven a witch actually killed someone with a curse.

Another thing to bear in mind is that everyone, man and woman, had a right to sanctuary in many parts of Europe. The court records of Winchester, for example, specifically state that no one, including agents of the king, could remove anyone, including felons, from the buildings of a monastery in that city. Women who were abused had the opportunity to get sanctuary from husbands, family, or the law by going to a convent and staying there. There are records of queens who did this to get away from their husbands, who were kings; and some of those queens remained in convents for many years as their husbands tried to find ways to get out of the marriages.

In some places women had rights to own land and even to be monarchs. I can think of four important female monarchs off the top of my head: Empress Irene of the Byzantine Empire, Margaret I of Denmark, who also ruled Norway and Sweden, Ethelfleda of Mercia, who kicked the Vikings out of parts of England, and Hedwig of Poland, who was crowned as a king because she wanted to emphasize the fact that she was monarch.

But, by and large, and by the standards of today, neither women nor men had much in the way of rights in the Middle Ages, and women certainly had less than men.

Answer 4

If they were poor then they would be treatedpoorlymaybe even worse then men, richer women would be treated much better, she would have lots of riches from men, would never be accused of crime, would get away with what she wanted and would often get chosen by rich and refined men to be their wives.

Answer 5

nah fam