Feminae: Medieval Women and Gender Index


  • Record Number: 10125
  • Author(s)/Creator(s): Livingstone , Amy
  • Contributor(s):
  • Title: Aristocratic Women in the Chartrain
  • Source: Aristocratic Women in Medieval France.  Edited by Theodore Evergates.  University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999.  Pages 44 - 73.
  • Description:
  • Article Type: Essay
  • Subject (See Also): Charters and Diplomatics Chartrain, France Family Feudalism Marriage Noble Women Patronage, Ecclesiastical Power Property Widows
  • Award Note:
  • Geographic Area: France
  • Century: 11-12
  • Primary Evidence:
  • Illustrations: One genealogical chart. Descendance for the families of Montigny, FrŽteval, Alluyes-Brou, and the Vidames of Chartres.
  • Table: One map. The Chartrain with the episcopal cities and the monasteries marked.
  • Abstract: The prominent medieval scholar, Georges Duby, characterized the medieval world as the "male" middle ages - a description that scholars have readily adopted. This essay challenges this interpretation. Based on charter evidence from the west of France, this essay demonstrates that aristocratic women~~were extremely important members of both their society and family. Aristocratic daughters, wives and widows, participated in the full range of familial and lordly activities, including adjudication, litigation, inheritance and lordship. The lives that are recoverable from these documents prove that women~~were vital participants in their families, in the world of lords and vassals, and were important allies for the church. The experience of the elite women of the Chartrain demonstrates the prominence that many women enjoyed in the society of eleventh and twelfth-century France. [Abstract submitted by the author to the Medieval Feminist Index.]~~
  • Related Resources: Not all women possessed powers as extensive as Countess Adela. Yet they were not entirely dispossessed either. As Amy Livingstone shows in a model study which complements remarkably well our knowledge of the lot of medieval women in the Chartrain, an area
  • Author's Affiliation: Wittenburg University
  • Conference Info: - , -
  • Year of Publication: 1999.
  • Language: English
  • ISSN/ISBN: 0812235037