Women in the Middle Ages?

Question

How did faith and religion impacted on the lives of women living in the Medieval Society?

Answer 1

They were burned and accused of being witches and if they protested then they were obviously a witch.

Burned at the stake, drowned and thousands of woman died during this period. They were considered property and were told not to read or get educated.

Answer 2

They had to be obedient and accept any religious rule. This period is also Known as Dark Age because religion had such an important role and all the new ideas were seen as heresy. More information can be found online.

Answer 3

Well that depends on what women your talking about. Commoners as they were called, or royalty? high society had a MUCH different set of values then those that lived in poverty.  

Answer 4

The social standing and role of women in this historical period were heavily determined by the influential, powerful male theologians and church leaders. Their understanding grew out of the patriarchal interpretations of the Old and New Testament writings, Greco-Roman culture, and the thinking of the Church Fathers. Augustine and Jerome extended the dualism of flesh and spirit, body and intellect to the sexes. Women were viewed as highly sexual beings, who were physically, morally, and intellectually inferior to men by nature.



   In this seemingly rationally defined natural order, it followed that the man, as the superior being, was head of the household. The woman fulfilled her primary role in marriage--an institution that gained a measure of respectability under the reforms of Pope Innocent III [left]--through the procreation and nurture of children. The education of children, an intellectual activity, was the man’s responsibility.

    The complex theology of Thomas Aquinas, with its skillful blend of Aristotelian and Augustinian thought, reinforced the traditional negative view of woman as an inferior and seductive being, whose carnal nature caused men to sin. This view was taken for granted--and so was its effect: severe limits on female participation in church and society.

   Certainly in this period, as in so many, women were actively present in the churches. Records indicate that entire households attended daily church services. Disaster, disease, and war increased devotion as frightened people sought solace in their faith, striving to appease God’s anger or appealing to God for their own health and safety. Yet we have the writings of only a few women, which usually tell us little of their reflection on or interpretation of the Bible.

   For many women, convent life offered the only opportunity to gain some control over their lives. Women who sought education found refuge in the growing number of convents that were affiliated with the established male monasteries, thereby avoiding numerous pregnancies in marriages arranged for economic or political purposes. Convents were also the only option available to women who wished to focus on the spiritual life, and to discuss and interpret the Scriptures. Abbesses in charge of major convents exercised more political power than any other women, except those who served as regent ruling in place of absent or incompetent husbands or sons. More often, however, convent life reinforced the subordinate place of women to men in the roles assigned to them in relation to the monasteries.

By the medieval standards it did not take very much to be a witch. "Having a female body was the factor most likely to render one vulnerable to being called a witch." (Barstow 16) Even today the typical witch is depicted as a woman. More than likely most people will form a picture of the Wicked Witch of the West from the Wizard of Oz when asked what a witch is. And in most cases today witches are still seen as somewhat evil forces with few exceptions. Today male "witches" do not exist; instead they are referred to as warlocks. So following the lead of our Medieval ancestors we have kept being a woman the main ingredient of a witch.

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