Medieval Society

Lesson at a glance

Suitable for: Key stage 3

Time period: Medieval 974-1485

Curriculum topics: Medieval Life, Significant individuals

Suggested inquiry questions: How would you use these documents to understand the different roles of medieval women in society? How are women represented in wills, petitions, court and financial records?

Potential activities: Research Nicholaa de la Haye or any of the women represented in the seals and petitions found in our medieval seals and castles lessons shown in Related Resources. Use the external link below to listen to the music of Hildegard of Bingen, German abbess and writer, composer, philosopher, medical writer and practitioner.

Download: Lesson pack

What roles did women play in Medieval times?

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

Task 1 – Women in the countryside

This deed or grant of land shows that it is genuine as Joan Marshal’s own seal with an image of a dolphin is attached to the document. Joan had some claim to part of a field called ‘the east field’ in Langham, Essex probably as part of her dowry, usually a third of her husband’s money and lands set aside for her to live on after his death, 10 April 1325. Catalogue ref: DL 25/1515.

  • Why do you think Joan Marshal chose a dolphin for her seal?
  • Why do you think Joan has ‘given up my rights’ and sold her land to John de Langwode?
  • Why do you think John de Langwode wanted the land?
  • What does this document tell you about how medieval villagers farmed their lands?
  • Why do you think this document was created and had a seal attached to it?
  • What do you think the document shows about Joan Marshal’s position in society?

Task 2 – Women in the countryside

Source 2a:

This document from the late 1100s concerns the sale of some family land with a mill on it in Lincolnshire. Catalogue ref: DL 25/2719

  • Look at the four surviving seals on this document. Can you find the women’s names: Aliz (Alice), Pupelina and Gene (Genevieve)? [Clue: the names might be upside down]
  • What kind of farming do you think this land is used for?
  • Why do you think the women are included in this document and have attached their seals?
  • Why do you think they are selling this land to their cousin? [We know Odo is Arnald Galle’s nephew from a different document in the same collection].

Source 2b:

According to this Latin charter from the records of Alvingham Priory from the late twelfth century, Pupelina and her son from her first marriage, gave six acres of land nearby to an abbey in Lincolnshire. Catalogue ref: Bodleian Library MS Laud Misc. 642 folio 86r.

  • How wealthy do you think this family was according Source 2a and Source 2b?
  • What position do you think they held in society?
  • Why were women involved in the sale of land in both of these documents?
  • What do these documents reveal about
    (a) Life of medieval women?
    (b) Life in the countryside?

Task 3 – Foreign women

This is a petition sent to Philippa of Hainault by Jacques de Artevelde, burgess [townsman] of Ghent. 16 January [1343] Catalogue ref: SC 1/56/57

Queen Philippa of Hainault was married to Edward III (born c. 1310, married 1328, died 1369). She came from Hainault, which is an area on the border between Belgium and France. She was considered a model queen, and the chronicler Jean Froissart said she was ‘the most courteous, noble and liberal queen that ever reigned’.

  • What does this source tell you about Philippa’s role as queen?
  • What is Jacques expecting her to do?
  • Do you think Queen Philippa’s role was different to that of today’s monarch?

The England’s immigrants database lists all the people who are known to have immigrated to England in the later middle ages. Try searching for the Netherlands and then choosing ‘women’. It should give you the 58 women who were originally from Belgium. If you click ‘summary’ for any woman listed, it will tell you what more we know about them.

  • What kind of information can we find about these women using this database?
  • What information do we not learn about them?
  • What more would you like to know?

Task 4 – Independent noblewomen

Source 4a

This document from September 1283 shows that Henry III appointed two men to look into what Agnes de Vescy had done in Yorkshire. Catalogue ref: C 66 /102 m. 10 from 1283

Agnes de Vescy (born de Ferrers) was a noblewoman in the thirteenth century. She was one of the many co-heiresses of the Marshal family in England and Ireland, through her mother, Sibyl Marshal. She married William de Vescy around 1244 and was widowed about ten years later. For the rest of her life, she did not remarry and died in 1290. As a widow and heiress, she controlled her own lands and money. There is a range of documents written about her, but we do not have any written by Agnes herself.

In the document, a prior means the person in charge of a priory where a group of monks lived and worked together. A canon means a member of the religious community who served a cathedral or other church.

  • What was Agnes de Vescy’s role in the events that led to Malton Abbey’s complaint?
  • Why do you think Agnes was involved in these events?
  • Why was Agnes a woman of influence and power?

Source 4b

This is a petition from Maud de Lacy’s cousin, Agnes de Vescy dated between 1272 and 1283, Catalogue ref: SC 8/124/6174.

‘Knight’s service’ was a fixed sum of money paid by each county in Ireland for the king’s wars. It was divided up among the inhabitants and collected by the King’s sheriffs [the main royal official in each county]. Aids and premises are also forms of taxation. Today a bailiff takes people’s possessions away for debts, but a medieval bailiff collected rents for the lord or lady of the manor.

  • What does this source tell us about the lives and responsibilities of Agnes and Maud?
  • What might we find out if we had Agnes’ answer to Maud’s petition?
  • Look at both sources 4a & 4b again. How would you describe Agnes de Vescy and her role in society?

Task 5 – Religious women

This is an indenture, a rental agreement between Agnes Allesley, the Prioress of Catesby Abbey and the family of John Horewood of Staverton, in Northamptonshire. March 1457, Catalogue ref: E 326/8274.

According to the document, the Prioress agreed to rent out a house and fields to John, his wife Alice and their son Thomas in Staverton for 15 shillings in rent to be paid twice a year. The prioress would have kept this copy, and the Horewoods would have kept a copy as well, each attaching their seal to the other’s copy. You can see at the top the jagged edge where the two copies were cut apart. If needed, they could be checked by fitting the cut edges together.

  • How much rent did the Horewoods have to pay Catesby Abbey to rent the messuage or dwelling house and three parts of pasture?
  • Who rented the house and land before the Horewood family?
  • How could there have been a disagreement between Prioress Agnes and the Horewoods?
  • How do you think Prioress Agnes might have dealt with any future disagreement?
  • What does this source tell us about Catesby Abbey’s relationship with people living near it?

 

Task 6 – Women and education

  • Does the law concerning education of girls and boys in Source 6a surprise you? Give your reasons.
  • Can you explain why the education of girls and boys would be different at that time?
  • What does the poem in source 6b infer about the education that girls received?
  • What does source 6c suggest about education for girls?
  • What does source 6d say about what kinds of education were available for girls?
  • Looking at all the sources together, what do you think girls’ educations were like at this time?
  • How different is education for girls and boys today?

Source 6a

This is an extract from the Parliament Roll of 1406. It was published in ‘The Statutes of the Realm: a collection of the Acts of the Parliament of England from earliest times until 1707’. Catalogue ref: C 65/68 m. 2.

Source 6b

This is an 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. One of the manuscripts is London, Lambeth Palace Library MS 853.

Source 6c

This source is an example of 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 was the most famous female author of the middle ages. She was Italian and wrote in France in the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries about politics, women’s lives and history. One of the manuscripts of her work is in the British Library, which has a picture of Christine working in her study. This text is from an early translation into English of Christine’s most famous work, The Book of the City of Ladies (Tempe, Arizona; 2004) I.27.

Task 7 – Women in urban areas

Source 7a
This document contains a payment which concerned a payment from a brewer about using false measurements. Hilary term 1278. Catalogue ref: E 101/230/28 m. 2 face [front of the document]

  • Why do you think she might use the wrong size measurement when selling ale?
  • How do you think she was caught?

Source 7b

This is a will from an apothecary in the City of London. An apothecary prepared and sold medicines and drugs. He leaves his wife Cecilia in charge of his apprentices [those learning the trade] and also leaves her his houses in the city. [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

  • What does it tell us about women’s working lives that Cecilia is left to run his business?
  • An apothecary was a medical professional, providing remedies and medicines for people. How do you think Cecilia would manage training John’s apprentices

Source 7c

This is a will from a woman in 1349 who has an apprentice. It is printed in R.R. Sharpe, Wills enrolled in the Court of Hustings London I (London, 1899), p. 106]. The original is in the London Metropolitan Archives Catalogue ref: CLA/023/DW/01/076

  • What kind of work did Matilda do?
  • What does this will show about the roles of medieval women in the towns?
  • What kind of equipment do you think she is leaving her apprentice William?
  • Who is going to take over William’s training? For how long?
  • Does this will reveal anything about the character of Matilda?
  • What do the terms of Matilda’s will also reveal about medieval society?

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

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Lesson at a glance

Suitable for: Key stage 3

Time period: Medieval 974-1485

Curriculum topics: Medieval Life, Significant individuals

Suggested inquiry questions: How would you use these documents to understand the different roles of medieval women in society? How are women represented in wills, petitions, court and financial records?

Potential activities: Research Nicholaa de la Haye or any of the women represented in the seals and petitions found in our medieval seals and castles lessons shown in Related Resources. Use the external link below to listen to the music of Hildegard of Bingen, German abbess and writer, composer, philosopher, medical writer and practitioner.

Download: Lesson pack

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