Women in the Middle Ages: Power Beyond the Stereotypes

Women’s Book Club ‘Spinola Hours’, Bruges and Ghent, ca. 1510-1520 (LA, The J. Paul Getty Museum, Ms. Ludwig IX 18, fol. 269v)

Due to frequent invasion threats and internecine warfare, feudal Europe was a highly militarized society (Smith, 2024). Military service, money, and political power were intertwined with land ownership, leading to male domination in every sphere. Just as you will never see a female compete for the UFC or boxing heavyweight titles owned by men, knights and warriors were the professional athletes of the medieval world and fought with heavy armour, shields, swords, and helmets. Physical strength was vital to political power, and lords’ and kings’ duty was to lead men to war, a political leader must also be a warrior.

Given that it was (generally) a male-dominated society, one often hears regarding the Middle Ages that women must have been mistreated and regarded as incapable, holding no money or power. They were servants of men who ruled over them with an iron fist. However, the truth is that not only did women have more power (in our modern understanding of power) than many imagine, but the medieval view of them differed vastly from today’s; one could argue that women held the most control during the Middle Ages.

If they could know about it, many medieval women would acknowledge that their modern counterparts believe they have made significant progress since the Middle Ages. The problem is that they would have said those strides have often gone in the wrong direction. They have gone from their honourable standing as mistresses of a household to either labouring under a boss or fighting it out with politicians in the gutter. Further, medieval women would reject the modern pursuit of “equality” in all areas of life between the sexes as enthusiastically as men of the era would have.

Ancient, Islamic and Roman Worlds

What is seen by modern scholars as negative medieval views of women derived from ancient Greek philosophers whose works were incorporated into medieval thought (Janega, 1-13). Modern feminist historian Dr Eleanor Janega wrote that, whether modern or medieval, “we can ultimately start laying blame back on the ancient Athenians. They have a lot to answer for” (Janega, 38). And while it is true that our views of women have never been ideal, neither have they of men (1 Samuel 16:7).

During ancient Greek and Roman times, women were not protected by law. Still, they were the property of their husbands or fathers (fathers could murder unwanted daughters and female babies were often exposed to the elements and left to die) [Pernoud, 16-21]. French historian and archivist Régine Pernoud wrote, “When all is said and done, women did not exist in Roman law, any more than slaves” (Pernoud, 17). During the ancient world (outside of perhaps the Bible) women were rarely even spoken of.

So the ancient Pagan world treated women as slaves, inferior physical beings controlled by men, excluded from political power as well as in the home; likewise, the medieval Islamic world also was degrading toward women and kept them from gaining any power in the home, field of battle, or politics. No female Muslim rulers or women in a place of power were to be found. After praising the Islamic world in comparison to feudal Europe, historian Will Durant had to admit that Christian Europe “slowly raised the status of women, while Islam darkened the face of a woman with purdah and the veil” (Durant and Durant, 341).

When Muslims interacted with Christians in the Holy Land, they were astonished at the freedom of the Latin women, able to do things Muslim women would be stoned to death for (Usama ibn Munqidh). The Crusaders’ disastrous decision to prioritise rescuing the besieged women and maidens of Tiberias, at the urging of the countess, was a result of their high regard for women, leading to the famous defeat at Hattin. Although this decision was a terrible military strategy, Saladin knew he could lure the Christian army into it, putting them at a significant disadvantage. Overall, for the vast majority of them, women’s treatment was horrid during ancient and Roman times as well as under medieval Islamic rule.

It was Christianity that lifted women (and slaves- slavery was nearly extinct during the Middle Ages until it returned during the Renaissance after the return of Roman law during the 14th century) above the ancient Greek and Roman pagan classical world as Biblical morality entered the law books, elevating the weakest of society, the elderly, the young, slaves, and women. Women first entered the history books in numbers only after Christianity became the norm. Christianity had its most significant impact during the Middle Ages; Pernoud wrote that “Holy Scripture forms the structure of everything that was said, written, and thought during feudal and medieval times” (Pernoud, 52).

Princesses or Prostitutes?

The custom that survives in some areas to this day of asking the father permission to marry his daughter derived from pagan times when families utilised marriage and daughters for financial gain or wealth. Christianity outlawed the need for parental consent and focused on individuals being married for love and out of their free will (Pernoud, 97-98, 145). As one feudal author wrote, Love is ‘the origin of every good thing, ‘ and ‘Everything great that is being done this century would be inconceivable if it did not have its origins in love” (Pernoud).

Under Christianity, marriage became not a family contract about land or power but about personal relationships and love, with God (and centuries later the Church) at the centre rather than money and gain. It gained greater importance over time, eventually becoming a sacrament. Weddings and celebrations were done with witnesses and in the daytime with a priest also there to witness, ensuring marriage was consensual and bringing about equality within the marriage that did not exist in ancient civilizations. Historian Régine Pernoud wrote, “In the feudal age, people had understood that opposites are indispensable to each other, that a vault is held only by the mutual pressure exercised by two forces on each other, and that its equilibrium is a function of the equal strength of those forces” (Pernoud, 249).

Certainly, women were not seen as less intrinsically valuable before God, a lesser part of humanity. During the feudal and early Middle Ages, the saying of women compared to men was nec domina, nec ancilla, sed socia (neither mistress, nor servant, but companion) [Pernoud, 161].

Many cultures today still assign marriages based on family power and money; it is only the former Christian nations who adopted Christian morality and ideas about marriage that find this practice appalling.

Yet, marriage for land, power and prestige continued during the Middle Ages to a significant but lessened extent in the noble families. Due to family pressure, many married to help the fortunes of the family rather than for personal desire, yet in the end, they chose the marriage. The Church outlawed forced marriages, and both sides had to agree to the union. For example, Richard the Lionhearted offered Saladin’s brother Al-Adil to marry his sister, and Saladin seemed to accept this idea, but Richard’s sister did not want to marry a Muslim. It would have significantly helped the situation, but the woman’s choice was upheld.

But this does not mean that love was not created during marriage. Young men and women (especially of the nobility—the ones most apt to marry for diplomatic reasons) were taught good morals, Christian values, and how to be good fathers, mothers, husbands, and wives—qualities that many modern individuals seem to have lost, thus many of these noble couples “instead of marrying because they loved, loved because they were married” (Pernoud, 159). Psychologists and marriage therapists, not to mention Christian priests and pastors, will tell you the Hollywood portrayal of “love at first sight” soulmates and so on is not accurate; instead, dedication, commitment, willingness to work on it, friendship, and duty are what create love.

Decline

The return of secular Roman law during the 14th century (Pernoud, 225-236; Smith) overturned Christendom’s concept of love and brought back parental consent. This led to a loss of women’s inheritance rights and marriage equality, as it became once more, in part, about property and led to men’s superiority under the law. During the feudal age, and as early as the 7th century, women were property owners, business owners, inheritors of fiefs, and so on. They also shared the property of their husbands, but they now needed permission from their fathers and husbands and could no longer sell or buy property independently. Further, women did not take their husband’s name until the 17th century (Pernoud, 159).

Much of the modern “progress” of women has simply been a restoration of what they had during the Middle Ages and it can be argued that the best period for women was those chivalric times. One historian, René Metz, writing in 1962, said “Medieval canon law was more feminist in practice than is contemporary canon law.” Let’s first look at some of the more prominent medieval women who influenced their society through the generally accepted male roles.

My Lady

Isabella I of Castile

Many people know of a couple of examples of ruling queens, such as Elizabeth Tudor, described as the “greatest monarch in England’s history” (Rank and Rank, 79), who reigned for 45 years and elevated England to world power. Or Queen Isabella of Castile, who co-ruled (though often on her own as her husband Ferdinand was off at war), helped unite Spain and complete the Reconquista, funded explorers like Christopher Columbus, modernised politics and economy, and made Spain a world power.

And we must not forget the popular Joan of Arc, a military “genius” who, as an illiterate peasant maiden, wholly untrained and unlearned, received divine commands aged 16 to lead the French in a war against the English. After suffering massive setbacks and being on the brink of destruction, she completely transformed the war, leading the French armies to impossible victories through her aggressive and courageous leadership. On the battlefield, her presence in armour and her fighting ability could sway the morale of both armies. In her off time, she purified the French armies by walking around the military camp with a sword to scare off prostitutes and pushed men to attend mass and make confessions (Rank and Rank, 67). But many other influential (in the modern sense) women existed as well.

Like Joan of Arc centuries later, Lady Aethelflaed (born in 870), the daughter of Alfred the Great and Queen Ealhswith, fought in battle and commanded troops. She was a leader of two kingdoms of England, and her tactical genius and courage helped stave off Danish Viking invasions and preserve England. Some believe she inspired Éowyn of Rohan in J.R.R Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings (Rank and Rank, 15).

As a king’s daughter, she was well-educated in many areas, including military strategy and self-defence. At the age of 16, she helped fight off an ambush of Viking raiders sent specifically to kill her and was one of only three survivors (Rank and Rank, 17). As a general, she was said to be the equal of any man. She orchestrated a brilliant trap to massacre Vikings in 905. Known as a fearless leader, she led and fought armies and won each battle, including vital ones in 915, 916, and 917, taking Derby from famous Viking warrior generals. Her military capabilities became so famous that later opponents and rulers simply capitulated rather than attempt to fend her off.

Ruler of Mercia and accomplishing vital diplomatic successes, Aethelflaed co-ruled for decades, succeeding as sole ruler after the death of her husband and becoming known as “the Lady of the Mercians.” She built numerous forts to improve the defence of England, improved, built, and repaired war-torn churches and monasteries, rebuilt roads, and went to great lengths and success at unifying England. She trained her daughter Aelfwynn as a warrior who inherited the throne. This was the first instance of female-to-female succession of a ruler in Europe (Rank and Rank, 20). And just like kings, early medieval queens were anointed with oil, symbolising the institution of a ruler.

Born in 1046, the influential Countess Matilda of Tuscany ruled “one of the greatest princedoms in Europe.” She “commanded respect in all corners of Western Europe,” and due to her moral purity and influence on the Church hierarchy, she was known as the “daughter of Saint Peter” (Asbridge 2005, 28). She communicated with Turkish lords, Byzantine emperors, Western kings, popes, and bishops.

She gathered scholars around her who were crucial to the Church’s intellectual development (Riley-Smith, 29-30). The Pope trusted Matilda’s judgment (Barber, 44), as did distant ecclesiastical and secular authorities who consulted her and used it as the deciding factor in disputes. She was held above both bishops and lords (Pernoud, 203-204) and attended multiple Church synods in Rome, holding incredible influence over both Bishops and Popes, leading some German bishops to complain the Church was now controlled by her (Pernoud, 208).

Later, she used her armies to protect the Pope (Pernoud, 209). She had a powerful army under her command, able to fight a 10-year war with Godfrey, perhaps the most famous crusader of all time (Riley-Smith, 50-51). And as a commander in warfare, she was a brilliant tactician (Pernoud 209). She bore her father’s sword in battle; her soldiers’ war cry was “For Saint Peter and Matilda!” (Castor, 60) and she was the owner of the “impregnable fortress of Canossa” (Castor, 60)

The Visigoths of early Spanish rule had queens consort who were sometimes powerful political figures (Fernández-Morera, 74). It was so common to have women in power alongside men that Spanish Historian Dario Fernández-Morera wrote, “Political power among Catholic female rulers in the Spanish kingdoms was such that, as Theresa Earenfight has noticed, generally females with supreme political authority did not seem to their Christian contemporaries an extraordinary thing” (Fernández-Morera, 212). Historian Henry Kamen wrote, “There was no prejudice against female rulers, nor female succession to noble titles. In a reversal of the situation in Islamic Spain, in the Christian kingdoms, women at the higher levels of society could enjoy greater power in the public arena, given the right conditions…some Spanish Catholic queens became sole rulers of their land” (Fernández-Morera, 206).

The female Spanish rulers included the early 12th-century queen Urraca of Léon and Castile, who fought many battles while leading armies and was known to be promiscuous with many partners, yet remained a beloved queen (Fernández-Morera, 206). Another was the heavy-drinking Catalina of Lancaster, who ruled as Queen of Castile, and then there was María of Castile, queen of Aragón (Fernández-Morera, 206, 212). And later, Isabella I, queen of Castile and León.

Born in 1102, a fascinating woman during the Middle Ages was Matilda of England. Sent to marry the Holy Roman Emperor at the age of just eight, she was crowned (unofficially, not by the pope but by a bishop) in Rome as the “queen of the Romans.” At 16, she ruled the Italian territories of the Empire while her husband Heinrich V opposed rebellion in Germany.

Despite offers from many powerful German nobles, after her husband’s death, she returned to England, hoping to be crowned a ruling queen, but faced opposition from a split population and the usurping King Stephen. She strategically led her army around England, gathering support; eventually, she won over many aristocrats and prominent English ecclesiastics (and took King Stephen prisoner). Her aim was to be crowned as sole ruler, monarch, and queen of England (Castor, 99).

Not only did she strategically (not tactically, as she had a brilliant general under her, and she was a woman, typically not the sort to lead armies in war) lead armies across England, securing support and capturing castles, but she also became known as an escape artist! On three separate occasions, she snuck out of being besieged, including one nighttime escape in deep snow, travelling across a frozen river with a white cloak for seven miles, and narrowly dodging the guards of the besieging army.

However, it seems her attitude and pride got hold of her near her coronation. She did not heed her supporters’ counsel, was not respectful to her vassals, and demanded gifts and money from the citizens of London, whose loyalty had already been doubtful since her arrival. Further, she went back on her promises to her main supporter, Bishop Henry (who had swayed many to her side), and now he left and rallied people against her.

In the meantime, the imprisoned King Stephen’s wife Mathilde was commanding her husband’s armies, and Queen Mathilde captured London and helped initiate a revolt against Matilda, now never to be Queen (Castor, 106-107). She could not recover. Support for Stephen grew and once more overpowered her support in England.

Eventually giving up on becoming ruler of England, she helped establish her son, Henry II, maintained authority in Normandy, and provided help to her son, the king, who sought and took her advice in his rule. She also consulted with the king of France on behalf of her son. Her wealth provided her with the opportunity to give many gifts to monasteries and the Church.

Perhaps the most famous medieval royal and noble lady was Eleanor of Aquitaine (1122-1204), who reigned over England and France, operated as a regent and was one of Europe’s most influential figures and landowners. She was well-educated, intelligent, and beautiful. As a teenager, she inherited the largest duchy in France, Aquitaine (Rank and Rank, 30).

Later, she became queen of France and was involved with the administrative work of the realm. Enamoured by a sermon from Saint Bernard, she joined the Second Crusade with 300 ladies and many knights and vassals under her. She rode in style with pomp and grand display. While on Crusade, her marriage began to fall apart, and she was eventually divorced. At age 30, she remarried to Henry of Anjou, age 19. Later, Henry was the king of England, and she became its queen. After his death, she became the monarch of England until her son Richard the Lionhearted appointed her as regent while he was on Crusade. She repulsed multiple attacks on her authority from her youngest son, John, while Richard was away.

Saint Catherine of Siena became a Doctor of the Church who cooperated with the Pope and powerful rulers. Viewed as a living Saint, high Church officials, the Pope, and kings consulted her over various disputes and sought her advice. She was a leading force in convincing the Pope to return to Rome after the papacy had for decades been based in Avignon, France. Most of her days and years were spent in isolation, fasting and praying, but she also wrote an influential book titled “The Dialogue.” She helped plague sufferers, even touching them, assisting them, burying them, etc. (Rank and Rank, 43), helped at hospitals and prisons and fed the hungry. Her tomb became a pilgrimage site.

Queen Margaret of Denmark was a regent ruler of both Denmark and Norway, and then an outright queen in 1387. She restored lands that the Germans had conquered, later subdued Sweden, and became ruler of the three Scandinavian nations combined (Rank and Rank, 51). Later, Margaret appointed her great-nephew Eric of Pomerania King of Norway and continued to rule the other two realms, but later gave way and appointed Eric King of Denmark and Sweden as well. But she still acted as regent queen till her death. Under her rule, a more united Scandinavia became a power across Europe (Rank and Rank, 53).

We have mentioned a few examples already, but it was not uncommon for women to organise, control, or be involved in warfare. Margret Paston of Norwich armed herself and defended her castle with men under her command (Rank and Rank, 1-2). Margaret of Anjou led the Lancastrian military in the War of the Roses as King Henry was mentally ill (Janega, 192). Women drove their husbands to war over disputes and sometimes even wore armour, rode, and fought on horseback like a knight (Pernoud, 119-120). Other women participated in defending their fiefs and controlled military matters while their husbands were gone (Pernoud, 47).

Born in the latter half of the 11th century, Adela of Normandy acted as regent for her husband Stephen of Blois while he was away on both of his crusades, then for her minor son Theobald after Stephen died fighting the infidel. During those periods, she assisted in church and economic improvements and sent knights off to war. Many women across feudal Europe became feudal lords (Ladies), often through running influential nunneries or even monasteries (Weidenkopf, 273; Pernoud, 113).

In Spain, women could inherit lordship of towns and appoint military and governmental positions. Property-owning women engaged in local political affairs (Fernández-Morera, 206). Women held and worked various jobs, owned land, and were managers of their land, vineyards, salt production, mills, and various agricultural pursuits (Fernández-Morera, 208-210). Even, it seems, sections of towns were for women-only gatherings (Fernández-Morera, 208-210).

Investigating an area in France during the 12th-13th centuries, historian Theodore Evergates found that of the 279 owners of fiefs, 58 were women, holding authority within their sphere over men and women alike. He wrote, “Among baronial families, women enjoyed the same rights to property as men and property passed to men and women according to family circumstances” (Pernoud, 180). These ladies both received and gave fealty. Even women serfs owned and sold land, and many women owned multiple plots of land (Pernoud, 165-168). Likewise, “The Law of the Family of the Bishop of Worms,” 1023, had equal laws on marriage and property. Women-owned and could inherit the land, and any sale of property required the wife’s permission.

However, Evergates also found that women lacked the same sort of power and authority within towns. Towns became more prominent during the 14th century and reduced women’s authority and equality over the ensuing centuries as they grew in influence. However, women voting in towns was common (Pernoud, 181).

Many other women in positions of power could be mentioned, such as Aelfthryth, countess of Flanders, Marie of Blois, Héloïse of Argenteuil, Countess Margret of Constantinople, Duchess Jeanne of Brabant, Margret of Bavaria in Hainaut, Adele of Blois, queen-saint Olga of Russia, Queen Anna of France, Isabella of France, Queen of England, and empress Agnes; surely this is enough to show that many women held authority during the Middle Ages.

Queens of Heaven

Women attained significant positions in the Crusader states of the East after the first Crusade established them. Crowned in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in 1143, Melisende became Queen of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, the most vital spiritual kingdom for all Christians besides perhaps Rome. She was a “co-ruler” with her husband, Fulk of Anjou, but in reality, she was the ruler (Barber, 247). She reigned for 30 years, and when her son Baldwin III came of age, she ruled half the kingdom. Eventually, Baldwin rebelled and became the sole ruler, but she remained influential (Barber, 286, 302). Melisende also helped fund monasteries and churches, fought off uprisings, and helped unite the realm.

Near the height of the power of the kingdom of Jerusalem, in the 1180s, Sibylla, the countess of Jaffa and Ascalon, was crowned Queen in the church of the Holy Sepulchre, and her husband Guy of Lusignan became King. His authority and support were dependent upon her (Riley-Smith, 133). As Queen, she built nunneries, restored damaged shrines, and beautified churches, leading scholar Jonathan Riley-Smith to refer to her as “A great patron of the arts” (Riley-Smith, 122).

Others could be mentioned, such as Queen Alice, who temporarily ruled the Principality of Antioch (Barber, 218-219). Countess Beatrice ruled Edessa until she sold the lands to Byzantium when they could no longer be held against the Muslim advance in 1150. While never becoming queen, Agnes of Courtenay played a vital role in government policy and arguments about who would come to power due to her son’s failing health.

Beloved Princess

Concerning the position of women, the Qur’an could show nothing of the chivalry that was to develop in Christendom through the respect felt by Christians for the mother of Christ and for the many women martyrs and saints who suffered during the early persecutions” (Ierne L. Plunket, Europe in the Middle Ages)

During the Age of Chivalry, respect and admiration for women reached unprecedented heights. Women were not seen as objects but as precious, valuable humans, gentler and morally superior, the better half of the race (Pernoud, 97-98, 124; Castor, 101). They were compared to angels (Durant and Durant, 1041). Women ought to be cherished, adored, beloved, and protected, and men should be willing to die for the women they love.

Medievals viewed all forms of beauty as a reflection of the divine, eternal beauty, especially the beauty of women (Pernoud, 90-91). One early medieval woman, who was a slave in Burgundy, was eventually made queen, simply due to her beauty (Janega, 40). Men consistently became infatuated and overwhelmed by the mere sight of the Lady they loved, and they were open about expressing it. The shedding of tears for love by men was not then considered unmanly!

Writing foreshadowing courtly chivalric love and admiration for women survives from as early as the 6th century (Pernoud, 35-36). And the 7th-century Aldhelm of Malmesbury referred to specific devoted nuns as “flowers of the Church” and “jewels of paradise” (Pernoud, 39). An opinion expressed in the 12th century by André le Chapelain is said to be the standard male view of women at that time:

All the good things of this life are given by God to do your [women’s] will and that of other ladies. It is evident, and for me clear, that men are nothing, that they are incapable of drinking at the source of goodness if they are not impelled to do so by women. However, women are the origin and cause of every good, and God has given them such a great prerogative…so each man must try to serve ladies so that he may be illuminated by their grace. …For all the good done by living beings is done through the love of women, to be praised by them, and to be able to extol the gifts that they give, without which nothing is done in life that deserves praise” (Pernoud, 97).

The popular chivalric novels of the medieval period swept through Europe and showcased the ideals of how men should treat women, which both men and women highly admired. Sir Lancelot, for example, epitomised the perfect knight and lover willing to sacrifice and endure suffering for his damsel. It was believed that “he who is a perfect lover is always obedient, and quickly and gladly does his mistress’ pleasure” (Durant and Durant, 1046). Knights should “take pity on those in need, be kind, generous, and humble…hold women in respect and love; this increases a man’s honour” (Durant and Durant, 1048).

Men were expected to serve women and place them on a pedestal. They were even willing to sacrifice their lives to protect the honour and reputation of women, even those who were not their wives. In a Christian society, the willingness to die for someone was considered the ultimate act of love, as it mirrored the sacrifice of Christ, who died for humanity to demonstrate his incredible love for us.

According to Jean Bodin, the penalty for crimes was always lessened (outside of witchcraft) for females (Kors and Peters, 294). It was especially appalling in the medieval record if the women and children were not spared after a siege, indicating they were to be protected and possibly more valuable than the death of a male.

During the feudal era, the cult of the Virgin Mary reached its height, and in the typical medieval mind, no one outside of Jesus, not a Pope or King, was more popular, beloved, prayed to, or admired than the Mother of God. To the medieval mind, after the Son of God, Mary was the most beloved and influential human in history.

Literacy

Numbers for “literate” peasants during the Middle Ages indicate few could read and write, yet the literacy rate was judged by those who could read Latin, not the native tongue; therefore, actual rates were much higher. Almost everyone, male and female, received what we would call an elementary education from the local Church, with churches and monasteries having schools attached to them or under their care. Aristocrats were tutored. Royal women were educated by their mothers and tutors, often from personal libraries. It was not uncommon for women during the Early and High Middle Ages to write letters, as they were often readers, writers, and educated (Pernoud, 54-60).

Nuns were commonly educated, some owning their libraries, prayer books, and more (Kempe). Nuns were obligated to read, write, and study for hours each day. They gained a wide range of knowledge and were educated in various subjects, including theology, philosophy, Greek, Latin, history, and more. The first renowned writer from Germany was a female abbess in the 10th century, Hroswitha of Gandersheim, who wrote myths and comedies with a Christian theme for her fellow nuns to enjoy (think The Lord of the Rings) and also poems, and history (Pernoud, 40-41).

Boys were sometimes sent to nunneries for a superior education, learning under women. Monasteries educated both boys and girls (who would live in an attached convent). And many women initiated, endorsed, encouraged, donated to, or worked in the education system. Of the paid educators in schools (not universities) in Paris in the 13th century, twenty-two were women (Pernoud, 62).

In Western Europe, women “mounted the throne of literature, and held it for centuries” (Durant and Durant, 1044). A laywoman, mother and wife named Dhuoda wrote what was called “the oldest treatise on education” during the middle of the 9th century (Pernoud, 45). Female philosopher Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179) became the founder of “the Germanic school of natural philosophy” (Janega, 26) and later a saint. Moving away from the classic undervaluing of women, she argued men and women were complementary and “interconnected and harmonious,” a united whole benefiting from each other. Men might be stronger and have more physical courage, but women held other attributes such as grace and mercy, and she pointed out that both sexes were equal in the sight of God (Janega, 26). She wrote textbooks on medical care, covering everything from diet and herbs to curing toothaches, leprosy, and epilepsy, and became “a medical authority” (Janega, 170-171).

Born in the 14th century, Englishwoman Margery Kempe is credited with authoring the first English-language autobiography. She travelled on pilgrimages, visiting Jerusalem and Rome (Kempe). The daughter of a merchant, she held various occupations at different times in her life, including a miller and a beer brewer! Anna Comnena was a Byzantine princess and historian who lived in the 11th and early 12th centuries. She had a deep knowledge of the classics and met crusader leaders in Constantinople.

One historian argued that “In the Middle Ages, women read more than men” (Pernoud, 56). It was not until the 14th century that attitudes toward educating women began to change, and later, during the Renaissance, they tended to be discarded from many areas in which they previously held authority, including education and literacy (Pernoud, 63).

At no time in history were books more loved than in the Middle Ages! (Durant and Durant, 1017, 484). They put painstaking effort into translating, writing, and protecting manuscripts often targeted by Viking raiders. There were no printing presses, and so each manuscript was costly and time-consuming to create. The medieval world dedicated scholars’ time, food, and gifts to keep them at this vital work full-time, often monks living in seclusion to dedicate their lives fully (avoiding marriage) to this worthy goal. The Church, nobles, and peasants endorsed and supported this tremendous effort. Lords, nobility, Church officials, scholars, universities, monks, and lay brethren adorned, protected, and treated books with nearly the same admiration as they did beloved holy relics.

Having said that, literacy was not vital in societies where word of mouth was the only news source and visual teaching was common. For example, peasants were educated in the Bible through “open-air” preaching, stained glass windows, and statues that would have a story behind them, and they would learn the ins and outs of Biblical events through them. Plays, acts, artwork, storytelling, myths, and other means educated the public. Further, almost everyone lived in small rural villages, and reading was a “social, group activity” (Kempe). This means that one book or letter would be read aloud and passed on to the whole community, literate or not. Most things were taught by the customs of the people, by “learning on the job.” Literacy was not as vital in those societies because they did not have complex tax codes, travel safety laws, detailed regulations, numerous lawyers and politicians altering laws, etc. They did not have the local newspaper to read because the printing press was not around newspapers hadn’t been invented, and they communicated with each other! Again, word of mouth.

Lifelong education was reserved for the most dedicated, the brightest, and the most eager who desired to pursue it. Schooling in the modern sense did not exist because voting did not (Smith, 2024).

Toil

In a modern secular society that does not see mankind as made in the image of the divine, it seeks to justify its value in other ways. Money and power are the most vital aspects of a non-Christian society. Thus, value is most often found in how a member financially contributes to their society. And so the critic says that if we look into history, if a group (women, for example) were not contributors, it is assumed it must be because they were viewed as less valuable, unable to accomplish anything of worth, since worth now equates to producing and making money. A common falsehood among moderns is that women were rarely, if ever, part of the general workforce.

Modern feminist medieval historian Dr Eleanor Janega wrote, “The idea that women didn’t work until recently is, ironically, a modern construction…women were working at every level of society alongside or in partnership with men,” (Janega, 193-194) and “the idea that women largely existed in a domestic bubble wholly removed from the realities of labour and work would have seemed laughable to medieval people. In all classes of society, women worked and were expected to do so” (Janega, 140). It was not until the Enlightenment that philosophers began to argue that work was unnatural for women who ought to be only mothers (though motherhood was honoured during medieval times and considered the primary function of women).

In medieval times, women held a wide range of roles, including shopkeepers, bakers, weavers, medical professionals, saints, theologians, teachers, mothers, philosophers, authors, barbers, surgeons, nurses, silk makers, beer brewers, landowners, business owners, voters, washerwomen, cleaners, bankers, powerful abbesses, housekeepers, artists, independent landowners, and farmers. Many women even attained wealth and high social status through farming. They were owners of mills and fiefs, collecting payments from those under them, including men. They were doctors, coppersmiths, locksmiths, armourers, jewellers, doctors, and hairdressers (Pernoud, 177, 174). There was even a great French female tennis player who beat most of the men that she played! (Pernoud, 179).

Women also worked alongside their husbands, doing various jobs together. Janega wrote, “Husbands and wives worked together in virtually every rung of working society” (Janega, 164) and women were, at times, the financial decision-makers of their and their husbands’ business and land (Kamen, 282; Janega, 141, 146). Women often handled and made choices regarding economic decisions and property sales without their husbands.

Hearth and Home

The centre of medieval society was the home, and as Robert Fossier stated, “Women, not men occupied the centre of society” (Pernoud, 76). In a pre-capitalist, pre-industrial and self-sufficient society like feudal Europe, both parents (as well as the local extended family) were at home supporting the family. Women held more responsibilities within the household, such as cooking, raising kids, working in the garden, etc., while men tended to work in the field more, tilling, sowing and reaping, hunting and raising and slaughtering livestock. But money, “progress,” and careers were not yet the priority; rather, close-knit families and clans living a modest but happy and God-centered life were. The government, financial interests, and bureaucrats had not yet regulated and forced people into the capitalistic system.

In contrast to the modern world, there were more clearly defined roles for men and women (many of these roles were reversed during the 19th century, and some have now reverted to the original medieval settings, for example, women often controlled family finances); however, their spheres were equal and assisted each other, and one was not degraded as it has been in modern life, where we have elevated money over raising families (Bishop).

When raising your children with proper morals, enjoyment, and so on are the priority, money, the economy, stock markets, and banks are not. So instead of pursuing money, women were mothers and raised and taught their children. And in such a society women were honoured, and motherhood was seen as noble and essential to any society. In communities that do not hold women or motherhood in high esteem, you will see a drive of those women and mothers away from traditional roles, where others will respect them. Today, they are expected to act as industrialised men, slave wage earners, consumers, and tax-paying servants. Women are no longer celebrated and admired but are seen as sexual objects or, perhaps worse, moneymakers. They are viewed on how they can benefit men. The masculine view of women has won out.

Further, mothers and women in general now lack the support group of their rural, tribal, extended family system of women in the country. Due to the shortage of room in the towns and the proximity of buildings and people, the Biblical and feudal family unit was degraded from the extended family of close-knit, like-minded tribes where aunts, uncles, grandparents, and so on all helped raise children. Now, they have become isolated in the town, and the new “town” family has become simply mothers, fathers, and children. We left the Biblical and feudal family and became a modern family unit without the other older adults to pass on knowledge, give advice, help out, educate, keep an eye on children, and more. Responsibility was placed solely on the mother and father, overwhelming them.

Modern life, under capitalism and democracy, has imposed a tyrannical amount of wage labour on these parents, taxing them physically, mentally, and spiritually much more. Further, capitalism places business, money, college, and so on above love and family, also taking prime energy, attention, and thought away from the family and placing it instead on making money. People become closer to those they work with than to their own families!

The modern economy uproots people, sending them off to colleges and later businesses across the land. It takes parents, children, uncles, and aunts and disperses them across the country, breaking apart this local community and further isolating modern “families.” It also sends individuals across the country for business trips apart from their families, providing opportunities for infidelity.

All of these changes made motherhood far more difficult and placed heavy burdens on women that former mothers never encountered. In the end, the rise of towns, merchants, money, capitalism, and the return of Roman law (all originating during the 14th century) degraded the power of women and made life much more difficult.

Education

During the Middle Ages, the role of a mother was not something to be looked down upon or inferior to that of a man, just the opposite. Before our industrial food system, a vital role for women (and men) was to provide food for the family. Time was needed to grow, raise, and prepare food in these self-sufficient units where both sexes played a role. However, the most vital function of a mother is the children’s education. Again, before the government became our educator, it was believed God gave the role to parents, not to the state. This is a parent’s most important job, and women govern this area.

Education controls the worldview and beliefs of children, which govern their future actions, morality, religion, culture, society, and politics. Education is the seed; everything else is the plant, the fruit, the bark, its outgrowth. Once more, we are speaking of a time very different from our own. Capitalism, socialism, and centralisation had not yet dominated; government education had not transformed human society and nature. The most important area to get right for all of humanity was entrusted to women. The highest privilege, the most significant honour you could bestow, was to women. As the mother is removed as the primary educator and caregiver, the most basic human needs, such as being loved, go unmet, and mental illness, drug use, crime, violence, bullying, and more spread in society (Smith, 2024).

Today, we tell women that politics or money is the only route to power. Yet the impact and importance of motherhood and the family structure are the true hands that rock the cradle of the world. The single most important job any parent can have is being an educator, which is precisely why the state takes this vital role from parents and encourages feminism.

Though it is out of fashion today, this view has held on in specific traditional systems of thought. C. S. Lewis said, “A housewife’s work…is surely, in reality, the most important work in the world…your job is the one for which all others exist.” Educating children is an essential job in the world.

God’s school is called THE FAMILY…She is who rules the destinies of the world, not man… man, although he shall march with banners flying and to the music of fife and drum to the world’s end, will always find that there is a power behind the throne greater than the throne itself…it is most important that mothers should be pure, peaceable, gentle, long-suffering and godly–which they never can be if permitted or inclined to enter the lists and compete with selfish and lustful man for the prizes of place and public emolument (Daniel Hundley, Social Relations in our Southern States)

So vital was her calling that in a collection of essays, What’s Wrong with the World, traditionalist G. K. Chesterton argued that women could not be more powerful than in the home, where the most important decisions are made. “To be Queen Elizabeth within a definite area, deciding sales, banquets, labour, and holidays; to be Whiteley within a certain area, providing toys, boots, sheets, cakes, and books; to be Aristotle within a certain area, teaching morals, manners, theology, and hygiene.” Chesterton goes on, “government is only one side of life. The other half is called Society, in which women are admittedly dominant. And they have always been ready to maintain that their kingdom is better governed than ours.”

Women were also more independent than often assumed. It was not uncommon for them to travel alone without their husbands out of the country (Kempe). Men also needed permission from their wives to go on a crusade. Pope Urban, the famous igniter of the Crusading movement, put tremendous effort into travelling and preaching sermons to stir up passion and commitment among men to go on crusade. However, he would not allow anyone to go without first acquiring permission from their wives. It did not matter what the Church desired, or the Pope or as they believed God, first things must be agreed upon with the wife! (Weidenkopf, 272; Asbridge, 48). Further, Crusading was not just for men; many women also took the cross (Weidenkopf, 97, 272, 278; Riley-Smith, 14; August C. Krey).

Modern authoritarian governments have sought to eradicate motherhood and to become our mothers and educators, our morality teachers, to tell us what to believe, etc. You will often hear it said that politics is downstream from culture. Therefore, the culture you have will determine the politics. Politics is derived from culture, all very true. However, culture is determined by education, and what people believe to be true will control how they act, behave, vote, etc. Thus, women controlled culture and politics. Today we have removed them from those vital areas, and it should not surprise us that male interest has dominated. To influence society today, women are only now allowed a vote; in other words, they are powerless (Smith, 2024).

Wives transformed the minds and hearts of children and husbands, thus controlling nations’ current and future politics from the home and via education. But they also did it through religion. For example, Saint Clotilda, queen of France in the 6th century, helped convert King Clovis to Catholicism, right at the origins of France. His conversion played a role in the French being Catholic rather than Arian Christian. Other Early Medieval wives significantly impacted the landscape and future of medieval Christendom; their evangelical efforts converted various kings and nobles from paganism and heresy (Pernoud 11-16, 23), thus transforming culture and politics, all controlled from “behind the scenes” but really where the most vital decisions occur, in the home, mind, and hearts. Further, many early medieval women funded monasteries, nunneries, churches, and hospitals. The first hotel to support pilgrims to Rome and the first hospital were created by early Christian women (Pernoud, 24-25).

Women who truly “want a voice” and power should not seek it through the ballot box (and neither should men); it won’t do you any good. Instead, put on your crown as Queen of the most crucial kingdom on this side of heaven, the family. Do you want people to hear your voice? Start with your children, raising them to hear and obey you. The loving voice of a mother is better received than holding a sign and screaming at strangers in the street. Do you want to be counter-cultural? Stay married for life, be an example of unconditional love to your kids and husband, and most of all, homeschool your kids. It’s the most counter-cultural decision you can make, and the results will show it. Doing these things will change the home, change the family, change the society, change the culture, and naturally change politics. If women around the country took these steps, it would radically transform the world. It would impact the future far more than picking one politician over another, lost in a sea of votes.

Modern Feminism

Professor Carrie Gress wrote, “Due to modern feminism, we’ve been put back in a place where we are worse off than before.” Her “before” comparison generally refers only to the French Revolution, after the role and status of women had already declined from the Middle Ages (Gress).

Chesterton said feminism was “the hatred of all things feminine,” it sought to ruin the better of the sexes and turn them into working slave-wage-labour men. The few women who did support the original feminism at the time, Chesterton said, were of the privileged upper class who had been scorned by men, separated from families and easily swayed by the capitalists to degrade themselves to become men.

According to Chesterton, to claim that men are more important, i.e., politics is to say that “Women were wrong, and that the men were right…I suppose in every fight, however old, one has a vague aspiration to conquer, but we never wanted to conquer women so completely as this.” To declare politics is more important than motherhood is to claim victory for men, saying they are more vital than motherhood, but this, Chesterton tells us, is an abominable degradation of motherhood.

It should not surprise us that our modern families, devoid of a mother at home, lack feminine traits. Our modern world lacks compassion, forgiveness, and empathy for others. Cancel culture is a perfect example of removing feminine traits from our hearts and homes by removing mothers; it is our modern Inquisition.

Modern conservatives complain about the rise of the “matriarchy” in America and the feminisation of men and society. Yet I think we have lost femininity as well. Lack of compassion, forgiveness, tolerance, tenderness, empathy, kindness, respect, and love for others is commonplace. Our hearts grow cold because we have removed women from the home. We have taken the more gentle, loving, morally pure sex and dragged it through the muck and grime of politics and fed it to money-hungry capitalists. In other words, we have degraded them into industrialised men.

Transforming Society

The independent-centred, free-thinking, self-sufficient Christian extended family farm needed no government assistance and had to be wiped out by the industrialists and the democratic state. The Industrial Revolution has changed us all into consumers instead of self-reliant producers. It has removed free men from the country into cities, away from the support of their extended families. Instead of the family farm being passed down from generation to generation and extended families helping those in need, the government was now needed. No safety nets meant the government must be that safety net—something it was planning to accomplish all along. The family members were free from traditional morals and values, with little to prevent any form of poor behaviour, and relativism became orthodoxy.

As mothers were removed from the home, children began to be educated and influenced less by parents and more by schools, the media, and the government. The government replaced the family as the most influential shaper of the child’s mind, morals, and worldview. The next generation will be made in the image of those who mould their beliefs and worldviews.

The Industrial Revolution changed the economic form and moral superstructure of European and American life. Men, women, and children left home and family, authority and unity, to work as individuals, individually paid, in factories built to house not men but machines…children no longer were economic assets; marriage was delayed…The city offered every discouragement to marriage, but it provided every stimulus and facility for sex. Women were “emancipated”—i.e., industrialised; and contraceptives enabled them to separate intercourse from pregnancy. The authority of the father and mother lost its economic base through the growing individualism of industry. The rebellious youth was no longer constrained by the surveillance of the village; he could hide his sins in the protective anonymity of the city crowd. The progress of science raised the authority of the test tube over that of the crosier; the mechanisation of economic production suggested mechanistic materialistic philosophies; education spread religious doubts; morality lost more and more of its supernatural supports. The old agricultural moral code began to die (The Lessons of History by Will and Ariel Durant).

The industrialist and feminist movements were interconnected. They sought to bring women into the workforce, discouraged traditional family values, and replaced them with values that benefited the industrialists. Thus, support for feminism might mainly be among women today, but the movement for it was initially backed and pushed by wealthy industrialists who benefited much more than women did.

In The Economic Theory of Sex: Industrialism, Feminism, and the Disintegration of the Family, Eric Morse points out that in an industrial society, pregnancy and nursing children are seen as a burden instead of a boost to the family economy, “a disease needing a cure.” This led to the eventual legalisation of abortion, contraceptives and legal divorce. Women were encouraged to pursue “careers” like men, and those who stayed at home with the children were discriminated against. The industrialists somehow convinced women that slave wage work was a better life than being at home with the family. Women and men seek flexible work hours, weekends off, holidays, and other such measures, indicating they do desire pleasure over paid labour. Instinctively, we desire family life, leisure, relaxation, the ability to do what we want, and the ability to be our bosses, but society’s pressure (not to mention the desire for money and power to control others—not a good trait) drives others.

Women were told that they would finally be “free and independent” if they joined industrial pursuits. Yet, as Morse penned, the real aim was “To bring women into the realm of industry”, where they would double the workforce, allowing for lower wages to be paid to workers. The capitalist could provide such poor conditions and compensation that half the workforce could walk off, and they would not skip a beat. Since women in the workforce drove down wages and earnings, families now needed two incomes to survive. This forced kids into state-run schools and daycares, further diminishing parental influence.

This industrialist feminism has often led women to dependence, not freedom. Further, they are now dependent on the (typically male) industrial employer or overseer. Catholic author and professor J.R.R Tolkien commented that the push for a woman to be economically independent in his time “really means economic subservience to male commercial employers instead of to a father or a family.” G.K. Chesterton said feminism is “mixed up with a muddled idea that women are free when they serve their employers but slaves when they help their husbands.”

Feminism leaves many women single, chasing their careers under a capitalist boss, but eventually ending up, as Morse observes, alone and dependent on state welfare. He writes, “Evidently, women cannot become truly independent without first becoming dependent upon all-powerful government.”

Further, the more feminism has shaped society and women’s worldviews, and the more individuals accept and implement feminism in their lives, the less happy with their lives they become (Gress). At the end of your life, on your deathbed, you won’t care about how many extra hours you put in that weekend: what will matter is only the people you love and form relationships with, your friends and family. Materialism is not a replacement for living according to how our creator designed us.

The women’s rights push by the industrialists has resulted in significant profits for the latter and transformed women into industrialised men. Feminism has removed the chivalric morals that protected women, and they are now, too often, left as the sole providers, trying to do the job of a man and a woman.

While feminism claims to be for women, it is about bringing women into the men’s industrial and consumer workforce. This has reduced feminine influence on men. G. K Chesterton points out, “they alone rule education…Every man is womanised merely by being born. They talk of the masculine women, but every man is a feminised man.”

Today, this is no longer so. Women have been turned into men; they have lost femininity, and we have pushed women into the same system as men. We have suppressed women.

Feminism… is in no way pro-female or feminine…the main way that feminists have sought to achieve their equality is by defeminising women, diminishing the natural procreative abilities that make them women, and in the end making them more like men…Feminism is anti-feminism, and, instead of making women more equal to men, it has rather destroyed the concept of women altogether (Eric Robert Morse, The Economic Theory of Sex: Industrialism, Feminism, and the Disintegration of the Family, 2016).

Modern feminism seeks to reshape women in the image of men, diminishing their originality and uniqueness in the process. Feminism, writes Gress, seeks to make women “cheap imitations of men.” Female historian Régine Pernoud asks, “Will women long be content with being (inevitably) failed men?” (Pernoud, 250). I believe the answer is no; women are unsatisfied with their current circumstances.

Women’s rights accomplished all that men wished. In a Christian society, certain men tried to avoid the responsibility of fatherhood, which compelled them to marry a girl if she became pregnant. Men wanted sex with no commitment; now, women are also opting for abortion. The original “women’s rights” (her body, her baby) movement wanted the right to keep a baby and not be pressured by men to abort it. Thus, immoral men have been able to sell modern women a political movement to accomplish their ends.

Today the typical feminist woman has no influence, no or few kids, little extended family, works 40-50 hours a week and lacks serious relationships. So she has little impact except for her vote, which is to say she has no impact at all. Feminism pushes women to be unhappy, as they are not allowed to love themselves unless they follow the movement’s agenda. You have to turn your back on feminine traits and become a man; otherwise, you have not made an impact and have not accomplished anything worthy. The state deems family, motherhood, and parents passing down traditions, beliefs, and religion of little value and educates their people to feel the same. These are things the state is for and can handle, they are the rightful educators; thus, we must push women away from these things and teach them they are worthless and unimportant if they engage in them.

Feminism often leaves women single, unhappy, unfulfilled in hourly wage labour, dependent on the state, and controlled by political activists. Traditionally women knew happiness came from not being wage-slave earners but from being at home, centered around family and their kids’ lives, and being in command of their little kingdom.

As historian Michael Rank points out, medieval women did not revolt against the “patriarchy” or identify with modern feminists in any form (Rank and Rank, 4-5). They did not seek “equality” between men and women; these aims resulted from modern democratic thought.