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Book Review:
Medieval Women

Reviewed by Melissa Snell

 

She could carry and fly falcon, tercel and hawk
She knew well how to play chess and tables
how to read romances, tell tales and
sing songs. All the things a well-bred
lady ought to know and lacked none

Robert de Blois

Misconceptions about the Middle Ages are common, and some of those most frequently encountered involve the lives of women during medieval times. As with many medieval topics, much of this is due to generalization and hyperbole ("women had no rights; women were not educated; women had no standing in the business community"), but there's also a tendency, even among students of the era, to accept some of the less obvious errors without a closer look.

Eileen Power's Medieval Women helps set the record straight on many of these topics.

Power was an extraordinary woman who broke scholarly ground in the first half of the 20th century. Her own story is told in the foreword by Maxine Berg, who asserts: "She brought medieval history into the general culture and made social history a part of the historical disciplines." A study of women in the middle ages had long been an ambition of hers, one she unfortunately did not live to complete. Medieval Women is five essays by Eileen Power collected, edited, and annotated by her widower and academic associate, M. M. Postan.

These brief essays are all well-grounded in the evidence, yet they are also easy to absorb. In each one Power seeks to answer questions about aspects of medieval life we so frequently take for granted: How were women in general viewed by contemporaries? What were the duties, lifestyles, and opportunities available for women of status? Were there women artisans? What women were educated, and how?

To answer these and other questions, Power did not stand on the secondary works of other scholars. Rather, she examined all manner of court records, business accounts, guild laws, tax and census rolls, then brought this evidence to bear on the matter at hand. In this manner, she effectively outlined what we do and don't -- and what we can and can't -- know about medieval women, and at the same time brought to light some oft-overlooked facts about women and life in general in the Middle Ages.

What emerges is a fresh, enlightening, lucid portrait of life for medieval women of various backgrounds and at various times, one that is not the least dimmed by having been produced more than 60 years ago.

Medieval Women achieves a rare combination of scholarly reliability and popular accessibility. I highly recommend it as an introduction to medieval social history as well as to the daily life of women in the Middle Ages.

Rest assured, dear friend, that many noteworthy and great sciences and arts have been discovered through the understanding and subtlety of women...

Christine de Pisan

 

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