Women in Medieval Society

"Early medieval women possessed public roles, rights, and responsibilities. Women contributed through their labor and their management to the welfare of the community. (Social mobility often occurred when men married women of higher social rank and children inherited their legal and social position.) Women played an important part in public affairs; they practiced birth control-through abortion and infanticide; women committed crimes and were indicted; they owned property and administered estates. The drive toward economic growth and expansion abroad rested upon the capacity of women to staff and manage economic endeavors at home. In the later Middle Ages, the social position ot women altered radically. It did not necessarily improve, and the reasons why the role of women in society tended to become more restrictive are examined in these essays. The nuances of change, registered through an analysis of class, locale, and the role of the Church as the dominant arbiter of social values, give them their great merit and relevance today. These essays were written by David Herlihy, Emily Coleman, Heath Dillard, Brenda Boulton, Barbara Hanawalt, Sue Sheridan Walker, Stanley Chonjacki, and Susan Mosher Stuard, the editor. In organizing the book for maximum usefulness, she chose a combination of new and already published but widely scattered research."--