Medieval Society

• Tasks
• Background
• Teachers' notes
• External links
• Connection to curriculum

Medieval women’s lives were as varied as they are today, but unlike today, most women (and men) lived in the countryside and worked the land on what were known as manors, estates on which tenants rented their properties from the lord and often performed services for him at harvest time. Women can also be found living and working in towns and cities, or in religious communities. There were extremely rich and powerful women, such as queens and noblewomen, but there were also countless ordinary women, whose names we do not always know, who emerge from the archives.

Use this lesson to find out about their lives in medieval England and Ireland from records held at The National Archives.

---

Tasks

---

Background

Women’s lives in medieval times were most often shaped by the family they were born into and their economic, social and legal position. One of the most important differences between women’s position today concerned the law. Medieval women were treated differently under the law to men depending on whether or not they were married. In medieval English law, an unmarried woman was under the authority of her father or brother, or another male relative, and they represented her in any court case, or business matter. A married woman and her husband were treated as one person legally, usually represented by the husband even when it related to his wife’s interests or property. However, a widow whose husband had died could act on her own and manage her own business and lands. Many medieval widows were socially very powerful because of this.

Women appear in the records alongside male relatives, by themselves and with other women. The most obvious examples of groups of women living and working together are in convents as nuns. Some convents were particularly known for education and their libraries, but most were quite small. The head of a convent, the abbess, managed the community and its finances. We also find women running businesses in towns, often after the deaths of their male relatives. Sometimes women might receive formal training as apprentices, but often their education was informal. Instead, they were expected to fit in any paid work they did around family life, usually for less money than men, although there are times in the sources when men and women received the same rate of pay.

Powerful women, including members of the nobility and royal family, managed large and complex households. They might be responsible for feeding and supplying

hundreds of individuals at any one time. These households would include servants, both men and women, as well as young women who were there as ladies-in-waiting to be educated in the ways of a large, busy organisation.

Many girls would have experienced a period of being sent away for their education, whether they were noble girls sent to other noble families, or peasant girls sent to another farm to learn there as servants. In family workshops in towns and cities, the wife of the head craftsman would probably be involved in teaching apprentices as well as working alongside male family members when needed.

Our word ‘spinster,’ meaning an unmarried woman, comes from spinning wool. This was a job that was generally done by women during ‘the Middle Ages’. Another largely female job was brewing ale, which most people drank rather than water because it was cleaner and safer. Ale might be made at home for a family or as a small business supplying neighbours. Women also appear in the archives as immigrants, moving to England either by themselves or with family members.

---

Teachers' notes

The aim of this lesson is to show how the history of medieval women can be found in all types of document series held at The National Archives and elsewhere. The sources provide a variety of evidence for women’s lives.

Starter activity

Teachers could use the Illustration image of Christine de Pizan as a starter activity.

Teachers could explain to the students how Christine de Pizan (1364-1430) was one of the earliest women to earn her living by writing after her husband died. Born in Italy, she lived at the French court after her father, Thomas de Pizan, an astrologer, became secretary to King Charles V of France. She was a Greek and Latin scholar and had access to important libraries and collections of books. Christine de Pizan wrote about the lack of education for women and their lack of rights and freedoms, as well as poetry, and religious and political commentary.

Her most well-known work is ‘The book of the City of Ladies’ (1405) which described the achievements of women, which imagined a city populated only by women. ‘The Treasure of the City of the Ladies’ followed making the point that if women had equal rights they can contribute to society. Christine de Pizan was arguably one of the earliest feminist writers.

• Can you describe the image?
• Why do you think it was created?
• What does it reveal about the class and social position of Christine de Pizan?
• How typical do you think her life was in comparison to the experience of other medieval women?
• Who do think was the audience for her writings?
• How would her work have benefited the lives of women in general?

For the lesson students explore how women appear in court cases, in petitions, and in wills. Court records record the details of disputes between individuals heard by judges [see source 4c.] Petitions were received by queens asking them to do things or to make things happen, [see Source 3 and 4b]. Women appear in wills, both their own wills and in those of men, [see sources 6c, 7b and 7c]. The fifteenth-century poem “What the Goodwife taught her daughter” was a popular poem showing how women were expected to behave- not necessarily how they did behave! [See Source 6a]. Other sources explore how girls appear in a statute from 1406 concerning a law about their education in ‘Statutes of the Realm’, [see source 6a]. It is important to note that of course the sources do infer details about wider medieval society, for example the church and we have provided questions to prompt this.

As part of the lesson students are asked to search other financial records that give us evidence for women’s economic activity, for example by using taxation records digitised for the England’s Immigrants database.

All documents are provided with transcripts with difficult terms defined in square brackets. Some also have simplified transcripts for additional support. Students can work through the questions individually or in pairs and report back to the class. Alternatively, teachers may want to use this lesson in two parts owing to the large number of sources. Finally it is worth considering with students what other sources could help us understand the lives of medieval women.

Further Activities

• Use the sources to write the day in the life of a medieval woman of your choice
• Which source is most surprising/interesting?
• Curate your exhibition on the role of medieval women using the sources in this lesson and those found in our lesson on Medieval seals.

Sources

Illustration image: Wikimedia Commons: British Library. Harley 4431, f.259v.

From compendium of Christine de Pizan’s works, 1413. Produced in her scriptorium in Paris.

Source 1: Document with seal concerning Joan Marshal, Catalogue ref: DL 25/1515

Source 2a: Deed of Pupelina Galle, her sons and her daughters. Late 12th century Catalogue ref: DL 25/2719

Source 2b: Charter from Pupelina Galle, her son and her husband to Alvingham Priory. Catalogue ref: Bodleian Library MS Laud Misc. 642 folio 86r.

Source 3: Petition sent to Philippa of Hainault by Jacques de Artevelde. 1343 Catalogue ref: SC 1/56/57

Source 4a: Commission investigating Agnes de Vescy, 1283 Catalogue ref: C 66 /102 m. 10

Source 4b: Petition from Maud de Lacy, Agnes’ cousin, c. 1275 Catalogue ref: SC 8/124/6174.

Source 5: Indenture between Agnes Allosley, the prioress of Catesby Abbey and family of John Horewood of Staverton, 1457, Catalogue ref: E 326/8274.

Source 6a: Statutes of the Realm, 1406. The ‘Statutes of the Realm’ is a collection of the Acts of the Parliament of England from earliest times until 1707. Catalogue ref: C 65/68 m. 2.

Source 6b: Extract from a fourteenth-century poem, ‘How the Good Wife taught her daughter’ from ‘Women in England c1275-1525 : Documentary sources, translated and edited by P. J. P. Goldberg (Manchester, Manchester University Press, 1999), pp. 97-103.

Source 6c: A fourteenth-century will [printed in R.R. Sharpe, Wills enrolled in the Court of Hustings, London I (London, 1889), p. 445.] The original is in the London Metropolitan Archives Catalogue ref: CLA/023/DW/01/068

Source 6d: Christine de Pizan, The boke of the cyte of ladyes, trans. B. Anslay, edited H. Johnston (Tempe, Arizona; 2004) I.27.

Source 7a: This document concerned a payment from a brewer about using false measurements. 1278 Catalogue ref: E 101/230/28 m.2

Source 7b:Will printed in R.R. Sharpe, Wills enrolled in the Court of Hustings, London II. (London, 1890) p. 299. The original is at London Metropolitan Archives Catalogue ref: CLA/023/DW/01/120

Source 7c: Will from a woman in 1349 who has an apprentice. Printed in R.R. Sharpe, Wills enrolled in the Court of Hustings (London, 1899), p 106. The original is in the London Metropolitan Archives Catalogue ref: CLA/023/DW/01/076

---

External links

Find out more about Hildegard of Bingen and listen to one of her compositions here: https://womennart.com/2018/03/07/who-was-hildegard-of-bingen/

Discussion of medieval women writers from the British Library: https://www.bl.uk/medieval-literature/articles/womens-voices-in-the-medieval-period

Article from British Library with sources: https://www.bl.uk/the-middle-ages/articles/women-in-medieval-society

A blog from the British Library the roles of Medieval and Renaissance women: https://blogs.bl.uk/digitisedmanuscripts/2022/02/medieval-and-renaissance-women.html

Video describing the lives of medieval women. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9YJlmBcg-So

Connection to curriculum

The development of Church, state and society in Medieval Britain 1066-1509: Society, economy and culture: for example, feudalism, religion in daily life (parishes, monasteries, abbeys), farming, trade and towns (especially the wool trade), art, architecture and literature

Back to top