SESSION
SUMMARY
Medieval Lives:
Teaching about Women
in the Middle Ages
Professor Judith
M. Bennett
Department of History
University of North
Carolina at Chapel Hill
Professor Bennett
began with a discussion of an essay by Eileen Power read in advance by
the session’s participants. First published in 1926, it offers a
way of understanding the experiences of women in the Middle Ages by questioning
their status in theory and practice. Power argued that women’s status
was high in the Middle Ages because of the large overlap between public
and private spheres, giving women a social importance later diminished
by historical developments such as the separation of the home and workplace.
Dr. Bennett used the “Ballad of the Tyrannical Husband,” a fifteenth-century
verse that simulates an argument between a husband and wife about work,
to suggest ways of presenting these ideas about women’s status to students.
The ballad is reminiscent of contemporary arguments about the relative
workloads of men and women, and it invites discussion of the similarities
and differences between the Middle Ages and our own world.
The idea of
a medieval “golden age” for women—developed by historians such as Power—challenges
popular notions that the Middle Ages were primitive and backward and helps
students consider contemporary discrimination against women. Yet
Dr. Bennett observed that students often take a different position:
that the status of women today is much better than it was in earlier historical
eras. In her teaching and research, Dr. Bennett has attempted to
bridge these competing interpretations of women’s status across time.
She explained how long-term continuities in the status of women suggest
a “patriarchal equilibrium” that has maintained the subordination of women
during periods of change. Despite fluctuations in women’s wages,
political rights, and social roles, changes in women’s experiences have
not produced transformations of their status. Dr. Bennett noted the
difficulties of teaching this idea to students, who may ultimately learn
more from the “golden age” approach. She also offered a related strategy
for discussing change over time. By asking students to examine periods
of profound historical change (such as the High Middle Ages, c. 1000-1350)
to determine how the changes affected women and men differently, they can
develop arguments about continuity versus change which lie at the heart
of historical inquiry.
Following the
lunch break, Dr. Bennett presented several areas of interest in medieval
women that might prove effective and engaging for high school students:
-
COURTLY LOVE:
Eerily similar to high school dating rituals, courtly love was a literary
phenomenon of eleventh- and twelfth-century France prescribing behavior
that inverted power relations between men and women. In a war of
love, the man, behaving like a vassal before a lord, humbled himself before
the woman. The ideals of courtly love expressed an important contradiction
of medieval culture. By placing women on a pedestal, courtly love
simultaneously empowered women and fueled men’s resentment of them (women
were supposed to reject men’s advances). Dr. Bennett suggested asking
students about the effects on women’s status of placing women on a pedestal.
This allows them to explore the meaning of love in a culture that frequently
arranged marriages. A list of “rules” from Andreas Capellanus’s The
Art of Courtly Love (1184) provides a brief primary source for discussing
courtly love. Students might compare these medieval rules to contemporary
dating rituals.
-
CHRISTINE DE PIZAN (1365-c.1430):
The life and words of a woman who supported herself by writing offer a
discussion of feminism in a period long before Mary Wollstonecraft’s Vindication
of the Rights of Women, the Seneca Falls Convention (1848), suffrage, and
second-wave feminism. Attacking men who asserted women’s inferiority,
Christine de Pizan referred to the Bible and classical texts to argue for
women’s education and other rights. At the same time, she wrote from
a unique, privileged position and frequently urged women to accept their
fates. Using excerpts from her writings, students can debate whether
or not Christine de Pizan was “the first feminist” and discuss the grounds
on which she challenged prevalent views of women.
-
THE VIRGIN MARY:
The veneration of Mary and the scorn of Eve constitute the religious equivalent
of the contradiction of courtly love. Dr. Bennett traced the historical
ebb and flow of Mary’s theological meaning, and noted that Mary can be
a difficult subject to teach to non-Catholic students who may dismiss her
importance. Mary’s role as an intercessor between individuals and
God underscores a medieval image of God as angry and harsh that is at odds
with contemporary notions of a friendly God. Students can compare
images of Mary (black/white, caring/stoic) to make arguments about her
role as a mother, as an intercessor, and as a figure to which medieval
women both could and could not relate.
-
FOOD AND MEDIEVAL MYSTICISM:
Recent scholarship on food as an expression of female spirituality offers
a way to discuss the historical similarities between forms of medieval
asceticism and present-day anorexia. Female mystics who ate sparingly
or starved themselves emulated the physical sacrifice and redemptive suffering
of Jesus. In doing so, women claimed a unique means of expressing
spirituality in the context of a worldview that associated women with physicality
and men with the realm of ideas. Dr. Bennett raised the concern that
students unfamiliar with ascetic practices may find it difficult to identify
with them, but because asceticism was central to medieval Christianity,
it is an important concept to understand. The topic also allows students
to think about the different meanings that food carried in the Middle Ages
that it does not carry today.
Dr. Bennett discussed
briefly the role of women in medieval education, referring to the writings
of Abelard and Heloise as effective primary sources for students.
She also returned to the “Ballad of the Tyrannical Husband” to illustrate
the roles of women in town and village work. The visuals in the session
packet showing the sexual division of labor also suggested the flexibility
of work roles for women and men.
In response to a
question about the witch craze in Europe, Dr. Bennett noted that this was
an early modern phenomenon, not a medieval one. In the years following
the great plague in the middle of the fourteenth century (1347-50), the
discourse about the presence of the devil in the world (namely, through
the possession of humans) shifted to emphasize the idea of people making
contracts with the devil. This conscious agreement to do evil defined
an individual as a witch. Nearly eighty percent of those accused were women,
often older and unmarried women. The witch craze reached its peak
roughly between 1500 and 1650, concurrent with two related historical trends.
First, the Protestant Reformation engendered fierce religious conflicts
in Germany, England, and France, precisely the areas where the witch craze
was most pronounced. Second, the early modern experience of a “topsy-turvy”
world--a response to the dramatic change produced by famines, wars, and
overseas exploration--contributed to widespread feelings of fright and
insecurity in early modern societies. Both of these developments
seem to have fuelled fears of witches. Dr. Bennett offered several
explanations for the predominance of women among individuals accused of
being witches. Misogyny, as exemplified by the longstanding idea
that women were more evil than men, contributed to the preconditions that
allowed witch craze to take hold. A demographic anomaly of large
numbers of unmarried women in Europe (between 10 and 15 percent of all
women) raised concerns about women living outside the conventions of marriage
and convent life. Finally, the often extraordinary socio-economic
vulnerability of women sometimes led their neighbors to imagine that these
pathetic women must have some power (that is, a demonic power).
Compiled by David
Sartorius, November 1998
|
PHE
Homepage
|
The
UNC Project for Historical Education
Department
of History
CB#3195
Hamilton Hall
The
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Chapel
Hill, North Carolina 2759-3195
(919)
962-2385 phe@unc.edu
|
E-mail
PHE
|