Feminae: Medieval Women and Gender Index


  • Record Number: 9152
  • Author(s)/Creator(s): Skinner , Patricia.
  • Contributor(s):
  • Title: Gender and Poverty in the Medieval Community
  • Source: Medieval Women in Their Communities.  Edited by Diane Watt.  University of Toronto Press, 1997.  Pages 204 - 221.
  • Description:
  • Article Type: Essay
  • Subject (See Also): Community Life Economics Gender Land Tenure Poverty Property Widows
  • Award Note:
  • Geographic Area: Italy
  • Century: 10-11
  • Primary Evidence:
  • Illustrations:
  • Table:
  • Abstract:
  • Related Resources: "Patricia Skinner's "Gender and Poverty in the Medieval Community," looks at what is often taken as a truism--that poverty was an overwhelmingly female experience--to see if in fact, the empirical supports this contention. Looking at early medieval Italy, she concludes that women did indeed fall into poverty more often than men because of the legal prohibitions that prevented them from playing full roles in the medieval economy. Legal constraints gave women fewer opportunities than men to try to help themselves and their children when they fell into need. For example, women could not sell unproductive land as a means of alleviating poverty, because of rules protecting the inheritance of male children. This reality also led many contemporaries to conclude that women were more likely than men to be poor." From the review written by Katherine L. French of "Medieval Women in Their Communities," "Medieval Review" (TMR ID: 96.12.11). [Reproduced by permission of the "Medieval Review."].
  • Author's Affiliation: University of Southhampton
  • Conference Info: - , -
  • Year of Publication: 1997.
  • Language: English
  • ISSN/ISBN: 0802042899