Feminae: Medieval Women and Gender Index


  • Record Number: 17695
  • Author(s)/Creator(s): Opitz , Claudia.
  • Contributor(s):
  • Title: Life in the Late Middle Ages [The late-medieval era was a period of enormous change for women in work, family, life, and religion. Although women had an inferior legal status (laws limited their rights within the family and public sphere), some freedom did exist for women within marriage. Aristocratic women could be very influential because of their economic standing, middle class women could control household budgets, and rural women and wives of urban craftsmen sometimes had their status as laborers recognized. The author provides an overview of motherhood, fertility, contraception, women’s work (in rural and urban environments), and women’s participation in the fields of education, healing, health care, and crafts. Single women and widows could exert some power in their marginal positions. The author views convents as empowering institutions for women, although some people had anxieties about the status of women mystics. Title note supplied by Feminae.].
  • Source: A History of Women in the West. Volume 2: Silences of the Middle Ages.  Edited by Christiane Klapisch-Zuber.  Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1992.  Pages 267 - 317.
  • Description:
  • Article Type: Essay
  • Subject (See Also): Daily Life Social Class Social Roles Women in Active Roles Women's Status Work
  • Award Note:
  • Geographic Area: General
  • Century: 13- 14- 15
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  • Conference Info: - , -
  • Year of Publication: 1992.
  • Language: English
  • ISSN/ISBN: 0674403711