What was the role of women in the Middle Ages?

Question

What was the role of women in the Middle Ages?

Answer 1

The comment above says that a woman's role as a housewife mostly consisted of cooking and cleaning.  this is quite untrue.  A housewife's role was very much more demanding than that.

Housewives would be responsible not just for cooking food, but for preparing it and preserving it.  They would usually be in charge of raising the poultry, and of the dairy, where they would make cheese and butter.  they would also brew ale, which was drunk instead of water (brewing was almost entirely a female occupation in medieval times).  They would also be expected to make other household items, like candles and soap. They would spin wool and flax into thread to make cloth.  Spinning was a vital job done by women in medieval times, and for most of the rest of history as well, which is why the word 'spinster' even today still indicates a single woman.  The housewife was also expected to be the family doctor, she would be expected to make her own home medicines and have a good medical knowledge, housewives would even know how to set broken bones.  

The wife of a peasant might work in the fields as well as doing all the above occupations, but running the household and keeping it supplied with food, clothing etc would be her main preoccupation.  And women would often sell their surpus products, so a woman might brew ale for home consumption and sell the rest (the village alewife was a familiar figure in medieval life) she might sell her surplus eggs and dairy produce, or the wool she had spun.  

if she was the wife of a townsman, then she would very likely to be involved in her husband's business, whatever it was, since most businesses were run from home.  Most medieval guilds admitted women as members, and widows of craftsmen and tradesmen would often carry on the family business after their husbands died.  Some married women were in business on their own account, independent of their husbands, they were known as femme saules, and could make contracts independently, and were liable to pay their own debts etc.  the economically independent woman was expected to pay guild dues and had the same responsibilites as a male guild member.

Single women of the lower classes might work as servants until they married, or they might be apprenticed to various trades.  Women were prominent in the textile trade, and in the grocery business, and records from medieval towns show that they were working even in trades that might be considered predominanty masculine, like harness and breast-plate making trades.  Women were involved in medicine too, they worked as midwives, and there were some professional women doctors also.

People didn't work continuously in medieval times, Saints Days were holidays, and there were a lot of them.  christmas lasted for thirteen days, from Christmas Day to january 6th (Epiphany).  january 7th was known as St distaff's day, because it was the day when women traditonally started spinning again after the holiday.

Wives of the upper classes perform much the same sort of tasks as lower-class women, but they would be responsible for running a larger household, and would supervise many servants as well as participating in the work.  When their husbands were away, as they frequently were, the upper-class wife would be expected to run the family estate, which requried her having a good working knowledge of estate business.  Some women could find themselves having to defend their estate against attack, there are many accounts from medieval times of ladies organising the defense of their homes against a hostile army.

Some upper-class women became nuns, and could attain a very high standard of education.  some nuns were well-known intellectuals in medieval times, like Hildegarde of Bingen and Catherine of Sienna for example.  Nuns often worked as copyists, copying out books by hand, since printing was not invented until 1450.

Answer 2

Women, who worked as peasants, would make big contributions to society. A peasant woman worked very hard, and had very long days. They had the same jobs all day, day after day, mostly farm work. Many peasants didn't marry, some peasants became servants. Sometimes jobs were very dangerous for peasant women. There was a story told about a girl: "About nones on 2 Oct, 1270, Amice, daughter of Robert Belamy of Staploe and Sibyl Bonchevaler were carrying a tub full of grout between then in the brew house of Lady Juliana de Beauchamp...intending to empty it in a boiling leaden vat, when Amice slipped and fell into the vat and the tub upon her...the household came and found her scalded almost to death. A chaplain came and Amice had the rites of the church and died by misadventure about prime the day."

As said before, many peasants became servants. Not only peasants, but daughters from poor families aswell, were often worked as servants to earn money for their families. As a servant, they would do the 'crafts' in the house, and/or look after the children of their master. The main jobs of a servant were to clean, cook and do all other housework.

A lot of women were housewives. A woman who was married worked in the house of her husband, (she was called a housewife), and she would also run errands in the village for the family, such as buying the food and any other needs for the household-(married men would work in fields, roads, ad forest). At home a woman would do the housework, which would mostly be cooking, and cleaning. She would look after the animals, and help in the fields somethimes, if her husband needed the help. She would also have to look after the children (if ther were any), which sometimes would be time absorbing. Children in Italy were often sent to other people's houses to teach them "better manners", and would be served and provided with food. Although, some people said that they thought the parents did that because they enjoyed spending time to themselves. Sometimes the woman would have to get a job such as spinning to help support the family.

Some women worked at companies, the crafting companies were important in the medieval European towns, from the 11th and 12th centuries and on. Some of the medival companies would let women join, although, most of the companies wouldn't.

There were also urban workingwomen, who were women working in the cities, and lived different lives than the peasans. In the 12th century, women played a role in the work force and in some business. Women had man different jobs. Although women found that these occupations were somewhat related to their jobs as housewives or to the "lightercrafts". An interesting fact is that married women usually worked at their husband's trade, but in rare cases, they might work at a trade of their own. Women were very invovled with making and selling food and beverages. Women also did trading, some women were even prostitutes.

When women did work, they were paid minimum wages. Women were paid less than men. Women would usually be paid about half of whatever the men were paid, although, it was said that women received a higher wage in an occupation such as dying, spinning thread, etc., than men.

A majority of the women were peasants, as I said earlier, although there were women who came from noble families who played some different roles. Most of the women who came from noble families were nuns, who would sometimes write about what was going on during their time for later historians. A little later on, they also began joining religious groups. Although, not all of them worked (for someone to get paid), for her husband would sometimes support the family.

In the middle ages, the head of the household was usually the one who would look after the rest of the family when they were sick, although, there were also women who would look after other womens' health needs. There were two jobs for their needs: one was being the midwife and the other was the wet nurses. A midwife was in charge of the birth process. A midwife was also known to have some knowledge on sorcery. They would use "magical" practices to ease the delivery of the baby. They would use things such as "precious stones with magical properties", or "wonderworking girdles".

A wet nurse was a women who would nurse a baby after its birth. To be able to apply for this job, it would have to been a woman of young age, who had had a baby before, so that they had milk. A wet nurse would be hired for various reasons. One would be for wealthy family, and another would be for a mother who could not produce milk. It was interesting how the wet nurses were hired. They had to be interviewed for character, health, and also for appearance, the thought being that the nurse would somewhat resemble the child's mother. The nurse's b*****s had to be checked, if they were too large, they might flatten the infant's nose.

In conclusion, there is a poem on the topic of working women. This poem shows that women were, and still are, "worthy". It is saying that women are just as special as men, and people should not judge women all the time. Also, it states that women should not be known for doing all the work, and that they are not weaklings.