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.