Women's Role In Medieval Europe

The role and power of the Church in Europe has been evolving since Constantine made it the official religion of the Roman Empire. Many councils, schisms, and edicts have come and gone. For most of Medieval Europe, the Catholic Church was the final authority over their lives. Its rules were final and were to be carried out under punishment of possible excommunication from the church. It was the men of this period that mostly controlled the politics and power structure of Europe. The pope, the bishops, the rulers, all were mostly men. Women in this time were married off, kept in the house, and were expected to produce many children. There really was no path of upward mobility for women in this society. There were certain paths they could take
Whether it was the church that dictated the culture, or the culture that dictated what the Church could and could not do. Hughes provides a window into how Christianity was viewed by medieval women at the time. Christ was surrounded by women, and it was the women who found out that Christ had been resurrected. Hughes goes on to explain that as Christianity spread through medieval Europe, “. . . women became teachers, prophetesses, missionaries, and martyrs.” (Hughes 130) Indeed while medieval society was not equal to all genders, in the eyes of the Lord, all were equal in salvation. (Hughes 131) However, Hughes provides various Bible passages that demonstrate the hierarchy of society when it came to the sexes. “Wives be subject to your husbands as is fitting in the lord. Husbands, love your wives, and do not be harsh with them.” (Hughes 131) The argument of chicken and egg does come into play with these passages. Were these tools used by the writers of the Bible to placate the local populace? By including passages that would be familiar to them in order for the populace to be more susceptible to conversion. Could it be defining a rule of God that is distinct from man's laws? I'm not sure if I can make a ruling on this. Considering the Germanic peoples marriage customs, it does not seem to be a stretch to assume that
Women had it even harder than the European men, by not having much choice over the direction of their lives. One outlet for wealthy medieval women was to become a nun. A wealthy woman could escape an arranged marriage if she joined a nunnery. (Hughes 135) Hughes goes into detail how some women tried to break from society in the Frankish Kingdom. Some wealthy woman would give up their land to their church and become the abbess of the nunnery. Wealthy woman from around the land could flock to the abbess, but serfs were not allowed. The nuns would often become teachers and some schools were famous enough to attract people from far away lands. (Hughes 135) During the reign of Charlemagne there was a reform movement within the church that curtailed the nun's powers. They were stripped of their farm land and other properties that could gather income. (Hughes 135) They were no longer able to lead mass either. Graves offers an account of how nuns were treated in England during the 12th century. “The reluctance of the Cistercians (order of monks) to associate themselves with the nunneries that sprang up in the twelfth century has been interpreted by R. W. Southern as the result of an antifeminism that had developed within popular religious conceptions that led monks to see women as disrupters of discipline and temptations to the flesh.” (Graves 493) However, the