Talk:Women in the Middle Ages

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Erminwin, FemPsyc, Tchrist1790. Peer reviewers: FemPsyc, Tchrist1790.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 13:08, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Women outside Europe
Neutral point of view tag added. this only talks about the women in england or europe. there were people living outside of europe...) User:Warrior4321.


 * Of course it does, because Middle Ages is very much a Christian-centered perspective of history. The Aztecs, the Algonquins, the Brahmans, the Arabs or the Chinese probably have different names to mean the same thing, and some of those non-Christian cultures haven't entirely left the medieval mentality. I am of course opened to including non-European perspectives on medieval women, provided that sufficient cultural contexts are given. ADM (talk) 22:51, 22 September 2009 (UTC)


 * The article Middle Ages says "The Middle Ages (adjectival form: medieval or mediaeval) is a period of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century" (emphasis mine). History of other continents uses different groupings of time periods: see Dynasties in Chinese history, for example. -- Radagast 3 (talk) 10:29, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

Women's history
I disagree on the need for another content fork for women in the Middle Ages. I've put that material back into Women in Church history. Thanks for your initiative. Tonicthebrown (talk) 23:57, 25 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Women in the Middle Ages includes Church history, but in other ways it is part of the broader topic of women's history. There were also women of other religions and women of a secular character that lived during the time of the Middle Ages, so we have to take that into account too. This cultural diversity on its own would justify the creation of a separate article, which could be included in the category:Women in history. ADM (talk) 08:12, 26 September 2009 (UTC)


 * There is a lot to say here; in my view the article has too much emphasis on the issue of (non) ordination of women; which was hardly the only issue facing women in the Middle Ages. -- Radagast 3 (talk) 11:28, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

This article is a total mess. Whoever wrote the section Eastern Europe should read up a bit on Poland and Bohemia (today Czech and Slovak republics). Bohemia, particularly after the Hussite uprising of the 1420's, had the most favorable laws and conditions for women anywhere in the world at that time. Women even fought in the Hussite armies. The East-West marriage pattern being referenced alludes to practices in rural Eastern -Slavic (I.e. Russian for the most part, or Romanian) areas, but was actually more prevalent in Southern Europe vs. Northern. In Southern Europe marriage at around 16 -18 was common for women, with the men averaging in their early 30's, and then live with the extended family of the husband. North of the Alps it was more common for both sexes to marry in their mid-20's, usually after a period of limited sexual activity which was tolerated for both sexes, and then live together as a smaller family unit. In almost every guild women were members and wives worked with their husbands, often doing the books. Widows of artisans were typically given free membership in the guilds.

Most towns in Central Europe and Northern Italy educated both girls and boys and girls were literate. For example Florence educated some 4,000 girls per year at the expense of the city. About 1/4 of Genoese and Venetian Commenda contracts from this era which have been subject to analysis include women partners in mercantile ventures.

The biggest problem with the article is that it seems to be almost entirely from an English perspective and (probably partly as a result) to almost completely neglect the role of women in towns. In Flanders, the Rhineland, most of Germany, northern Italy, Catalonia, Poland, Prussia, and Bohemia women had a high status during the high to late medieval period compared to later eras. They could own property, were members of many guilds (consider the 1396 guild law of Cologne for example - which stipulated equal pay for male and female artisans). Somebody should also mention the Beguines. There is a lot more to medieval Europe than nobles, serfs and monks and nuns.

If I had time to fix this article I would, but I don't. Somebody should put some effort into it. There is an enormous amount of data available out there.

Generally speaking, in urban areas in medieval Europe, women outnumbered men and had rights and living conditions that would be envied by most Victorian women. Things got much worse after the onset of Syphilis in Europe in the early 16th Century and the simultaneous Reformation and Counter-Reformation and resulting religious extremism on both sides of the Catholic / Protestant divide. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.1.191.34 (talk) 21:00, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

Where is the content?
There doesn't seem to be much discussion of influential women -- queens and female religious like the barely mentioned Hildegard of Bingen. Nor is there much discussion of the lives of ordinary women. There is no shortage of good books, though, such as Women in the Days of Cathedrals by Régine Pernoud and Anne Côté-Hwahaxgasvcgtafsctjacfaj -- Radagast 3 (talk) 09:57, 19 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I have begun to address this, but have barely scratched the surface. -- Radagast 3 (talk) 14:22, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

Proposed rearrangement of content
I just came in from WikiProject Women's History as this is a top-importance article for that project. Just a suggestion... how about rearranging the article by subject matter rather than by period? For instance, sections for marriage and family life, work and trade, religion, the arts, science, warfare, politics, etc. Each section could give an overview of women's role in that area, and note significant women in the field. I feel like this would give a better representation of the lives of women and the issues effecting them in the middle ages, than the current chronological breakdown by early/high/late medieval period. --Skud (talk) 11:47, 13 February 2011 (UTC)


 * This could be a good idea to better cover various aspects. But do we really have adequate coverage on the family lives of individuals in this rather extensive era? Their activities in public life are much easier to trace. Dimadick (talk) 11:53, 13 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Not so much individuals, but there is plenty on women's family lives in general if you hit the books. For instance, start by talking about the legal status of women, dowries, marriage, childbearing and rearing, domestic work, etc.  The middle ages are not so much my period (I have more on my shelves wrt women in the early modern period) but just hitting amazon this and this look like the sort of sources that would provide a basic overview and be citeable. Plus there are endless images of women doing domestic stuff in illuminated manuscripts, things like the Paston Letters (which IIRC contain considerable domestic detail), and doubtless references in Chaucer and whatnot. --Skud (talk) 22:20, 13 February 2011 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure this proposal would work; we are talking about a period of 1,000 years here, and life for women changed very substantially during that period. I think it might be better to address each of those issues within the Early/High/Late structure. -- 202.124.73.75 (talk) 00:11, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

I mostly work on Byzantine-related articles. I get glimpses on such information from the laws of the Corpus Juris Civilis and various passages by Ammianus Marcellinus, Procopius, etc. Unfortunately, none of them started out specifically to write on these matters and modern historians provide rather different interpretations on the primary sources. Focus on the big picture is missing. Dimadick (talk) 10:22, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

Wiki Project Women in the Middle Ages
In reviewing the article Women in the Middle Ages, there is a lack of research and information provided about the peasant women and her day to day life. The article represents women from a time period, but only about the relationship with the Church. There is a lack of representative articles about what life held for the lower class women of that period. The page has numerous illustrations which makes the content more interesting. There are several in the beginning of the article depicting a Christian Convent, some women working at spinning and some portraits. Further on there are many more illustrations which depict activities that women may have participated in. The illustrations or portraits are not beautiful, and are rather plain in my opinion, but they do make the article more interesting than none. Also, they may have been the only illustrations available for this material. The illustrations could have contained more information regarding the activities being portrayed. There was 2 women dining, preparing cheese and harvesting fruit, but no connection to any information in the article. I may have tried to find a way to connect the illustrations with the material, although this may have not been available at the time. Outside of articles I have read for class, I found some interesting articles through the Maryland library. One contains additional information on peasant women financial and marital role during the times. Another paper from research I hope to add is information on women and pregnancy and medicine. Depending on our joint research will determine how much of our articles will change the current article or whether this will create an entirely new article of research.

Thomas Christofaro (Tchrist1790 (talk) 21:52, 16 October 2015 (UTC))

The Women in the Middle Ages page, although informative about Medieval women and their history, is fairly lacking in the information it provides about low class and peasantry women that made up a majority of the female population of the time. Outside of the Early Middle Ages (476-1000) subsection, the High Middle Ages (1000-1300) and Late Middle Ages (1300- 1500) only seem to inform the audience about famous, or rather “influential” elite and ecclesiastical women of the periods. Low class and peasantry women are not discussed in these sections at all. According to this article’s Talk page, this article has been a part of previous WikiProjects and has been rated as C-Class on the quality scale and as Top-importance on the importance scale. Contributors to the article have discussed about what information should be added, withdrawn, rearranged, or put into its own article, i.e. non-European Medieval women, detailed information about the Church, secular lives of women, non-Christian Medieval women, to name a few. There is also a detailed critique of this article by a nameless user that said, “This article is a total mess”. I concurred with this user’s points on the lack of information within the article. The name of the article itself, implies that a description of all Medieval women and their lives will be detailed; however, as noted before more famous and well-known women are detailed from a Christian and English perspective. Secular, Jewish, Muslim, low class and peasantry women of all regions of the period are pretty much ignored or have information that needs further investigation and interpretation. The article itself utilizes both primary and secondary sources. In the progression this project, I hope my research group can shine a brighter light on the ignored lives of peasantry Medieval women and their lives through the sources that we utilize.

FemPsyc (talk) 03:01, 17 October 2015 (UTC)FemPsyc

I agreed that the article is a "total mess." While the author(s) seemingly organize the article chronologically,

(1) Why did they include "Piers Plowman," a late Medieval poem -which purportedly describes peasant women's conditions- in the Early Middle Age section? (2) Many activities performed by women, such as brewing, spinning, etc. actually outlasted the Early Middle Ages into the High and Later Middle Age, so should we create another separate diachronic (through time) section on Medieval women's activities (3) The article addresses Medieval women's old age & reproductive health but what about marriage, motherhood, childcare, etc. (4) Why were religious tertiaries, i.e. those who did not take religious vows but participate in the Mendicant orders' activities and were sometimes allowed to wear 1st-order & 2nd-order members' habits not mentioned at all? Why was Catherine of Siena, a tertiary, misleadingly juxtaposed next to Teresa of Avila, a nun? (5) Medieval women belonged different religious groups (Christianity, Judaism, Islam, especially in the culturally and religious diverse Iberian kingdoms), so how did religious affiliations affect their life experience? Also, how did inter-religious encounters influence medieval women's life experience?

While I deem it highly simplistic to accept at face value the Social Division into "Three Estates," this ideology was actually conceived, propagated, and even believed by Middle Age ideologues. Therefore, I propose that we divide Medieval women into three "neat" categories:

Noblewomen, Churchwomen (nun, abbess, etc.), and "common" women (free peasants, serfs, townswomen, etc.)

The fact that the 441 Council of Orange prohibited the ordination of deaconesses could be included the the (sub-)section on Churchwomen, thus explaining why Medieval religious women included only nuns and abbesses later on.

Side notes: Should we merge the article "Merchet," i.e. a fine paid to the manorial lord when a female serf gets married into this article?

Erminwin (talk) 04:04, 17 October 2015 (UTC)

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Wiki Education assignment: The Middle Ages
— Assignment last updated by Dwlehm1 (talk) 00:31, 24 October 2022 (UTC)

Add references/sources to the intro
Hi, I'm new to Wikipedia editing. I'm currently reading a few books on the role of women in the Middle Ages and noticed that this article would benefit from more references. Right now, the introduction has only one reference and this sentence looks ungrounded because it doesn't have a link to any source: "Although it is prevalent that women participated in church and helping at home, they did much more to influence the Middle Ages."

What do you think about referencing here this book?

Erler, Mary C.; Kowaleski, Maryanne (1988). Women and power in the middle ages. University of Georgia Press. ISBN 978-0820323817

In the book, the authors mention a very similar thought: we need to redefine how we see power and the role of women in the Middle Ages. Anastasia (Nastia) (talk) 13:04, 25 December 2023 (UTC)