Women in Church

Women's life in church was like outside women lives, divided in two parts, nuns who had a wealthy backgroung before becoming nuns were treated differently and given the lighter work to do. On the side of the church, women who were poor before becoming nuns were made to perform hard manual work, such as tending fields, cleaning and maintaining the grounds and so on. Even though some of them had a difficult time because they entered the convent due to parents imposing it on them. To become a nun was a way of symbolizing a marriage to God instead of a regular man. This was a way of pay for their original sin. Widows also entered to convent; some of them broke their vote of poverty, abstinence, this was a concequence of entering to the convent without vocation.

Working Women in Medieval Times

Women in the medieval times performed different jobs. They worked on many jobs that could be done from their homes such as brewing and many more.Women are credited in beer's development. It was a woman who discovered beer. Beer brewers were mostly women up  until the medieval era. In the medieval era brewing was one of the housewife's frequent jobs, just like cleaning, cooking, and taking care of chidren. They suplied the families and others. This represented extra income for the house. Brides also brewed beer to sell in order to help with marriage cost. Another proffesion that women performed in the time was surgeon-barber in which women had the responsabilities to do eye surgery, because of the delicacy required for the work, removed teeth and collected blood. Women were esclusively who helped parturient mothers to give birth.

Women and The Gild in Medieval Times

The gild in the medieval times were an essential part of life. There were many benefits of becoming a member of a gild. Gild members were supported by the gild in case of sickness, death and working conditions. They helped with the goods of the members, helped with funeral expenses, orphans and the most important they strongly fought for working conditions such as better pay, less hours and so on. Women were also admited in the gild and this was a great improvement to women's independence in that time.

Femme Sole

Femme Sole was a great improvement for women in the medieval times. Women who were single, widows and also some of them who were married had certain property rights. Femme Sole was granted legal independence where unmarried women could own, transfer property, collect and keep rentand sell property. There were usually involved in business of some kind. They worked as merchants, brewers, in the household and so on. This law represented an important improvement for women in the Middle Ages due to the fact that they could support themselves and their families.

Peasant women of the Middle Ages had to wake up real early to cook breakfast and head off to the fields where they would work the rest of the day. In the movie 'The Name Of The Rose' women's roles were to be a peasants and a prostitutes. According to the church and the monks in the abbey they said that women were devils. For example, in the movie Adso fell in love with this woman but instead of moving in with her, he left her and continued on with his beliefs. Also, in the movie brother William said "more bitter then death is women" which means women would ruin lives. If women were not paesants they would be living out of their husbands' money.

Women Being Instruted

Women in the Middle Ages were instructed by their husbands who taught them how to act in all aspects of their lives. According to the Comportment Books women were taught how to be faithful, quiet and subservent. They had to be obedient and represent their husbands in society. This means that their husbands controled their lives, had power to decide for them and to have them do anything they desired. Although the word slavery is never used to characterize women in the middle ages, it is essentially the equivalent of what was happening with them at the time.

Women's Desagreement

Women in the medieval time had to obey all that their husbands demanded from them, even if it was something that they were in disagreement on. To illustrate, Griselda permitted that her husband take her children away even if she believed that he was going to harm them. This is an extreme example of a women's obedience in the medieval era, regardless of how unfair they found them. They had no say and had to abide by their husbands' words no matter what. One could, say that medieval times was a time when there was a man's society with women just being used.

Women in the Middle Ages didn't have any basic rights. They were subjugated by their husbands as wives or by their parents as daughters. Women had to follow absolute rules. they worked very hard at home and also some of them had to work shoulder by shoulder with their husbands who delegated many responsabilities to their wives. To illustrate, Margaret Paston who had the responsabilities to manage her husband's business affairs also had to act as a mediator between him and the many people who he was dealing with in the country. Even though she didn't receive any pay for the job, this gave her and all women of the times a little freedom to do something else than household.

Women's Image

Women's image in the medieval times were as a housewives full of limitations to prevent them from taking decisions without their husband's permission. They always had to act the way that society and especially their husbands expected them to. In the "Good wife's guide" the husband expected his wife to follow all of his instructions as a housewife, she had to as obedient as the Comportment Books where it was suggested that women where to obey husbands and follow their every order. In both written works women were trained or educated by their husbands. They had to act and behave in accordance with their wishes and perspectives.

Book for Women in the Middle Ages

In the Middle Ages, books written for women by men were based on bible passages and men's beliefs of how women had to be and act. "The head of the woman is the man"(Corinthians 11). "Women are commanded to be under obedience and also saith the law. And if they will learn any thing, let them ask their husbands at home"(Ephesian 5). Those statements are clearly examples of how women had to conduct themselves according to the bible's passages.The books for women where just to teach them how to be obedient, quiet, faithful, good wives and so on. Obviously, those books portrayed women as inferior to men. The interpretations of the bible were in part responsible for the belief that women were inferior than men in medieval times.

Sexual Politics

In medieval times women were shown as innocent and without maliciousness in sexual activities campus. However, some wives used sexual politics to get what they wanted by having sexual encounters to pay off her debts or get money. To illustrate, the merchant's wife used her sexual encounters to get money from Dan John. She used manipulation to get money. For example, she would say her husband was horrible to her. This money was used to buy clothes and then she would have sex with her husband to repay. This is a clear example that some women used their sexual attractiveness to obtain comfort and money.