Research Portfolio Essay #10 Friday, Nov 24 2006

Medieval Women. Eileen Power. London: Cambridge University Press, 1975. 112 pages.

“Her ambition was to produce a study [of medieval women] fuller and better grounded in evidence than any of the existing books on the subject” (7). Already in the first few lines of Medieval Women, editor M.M. Postan makes the intent of the text clear. She clearly realized that this was an enormous idea, since women of all classes were marginalized in medieval society, and digging through history for their stories is no easy task. In fact, throughout her entire life, “she never ceased to collect material or produce summaries of evidence for her study of medieval women” (7). Though Power did not live to see her life’s work published, Postan informs us that “the book is largely made up of texts Eileen Power composed herself” and therefore her original intent still stands (7). In this essay I will first summarize Power’s assertions about medieval noblewomen and working class women, and second I will evaluate how well she achieved her intent.

Power stresses the importance of the medieval lady by underlining the multiple roles she played in her life: “In the ideal of chivalry she was… the source of all romance and the object of all worship… In law and the fabric of feudal society she was primarily important as a landowner… In the family, she was important as wife and mother” (35). In my summary of Power’s chapter on the lady, I will review her positions on each of the noblewoman’s roles. In the sphere of chivalry, “the lady of chivalry was indeed a beautiful, artificial figure, but never perhaps… a figure of a real person” (36). This role of the medieval lady is more of a figurehead position; here she is regarded as a muse instead of as a person. This idea of the lady is what we see in medieval poems and stories. Meanwhile, “in passing to the lady as a landowner, we say goodbye to romance and meet a very real person indeed” (38). A lady was a landowner at all stages of life, from when she acquired a dowry as a young girl, to when she took over her husband’s land while he was away on Crusade. Aside from simply owning the land, a lady, in her role as wife and mother, had to be a capable sovereign over it. If something happened to her husband, “she had to be prepared to take his place at any moment” (42). For similar reasons, she had to ensure that her children were brought up right to so they could eventually succeed her in overseeing the land and make smart marriage matches. Still, once children were of a certain age, “it was customary to send [them] away to the households of great persons to learn the manners of good breeding” (46). But having the children off her hands did not mean an end of work for the medieval lady. She still had an enormous household to maintain. Before the Industrial Revolution, all food, clothing and other necessities were made right on the manor. This meant that there was a considerable amount of servants to oversee, and “housekeeping in these days called for considerable organization” (47). Therefore, according to Power, between her role in chivalry, her role as a landowner, and as a wife and mother all kept the medieval lady very busy.

As we see in Power’s next chapter, working women in the town and country also had a lot of responsibility in their hands. In her own words, “as we descend the social scale, we do not find the role of women declining” (53). Actually, in the working class, “it was necessary for the married woman to earn a supplementary wage and necessary for the single woman to earn a livelihood” (53). In other words, most women started their working careers as single adolescents, and ended them as widows, taking over their husband’s work. In the city, most adolescent women found work as domestic servants. However, it was not unknown for them to become apprenticed, as “girls were often apprenticed to trades in the same ways as boys” (57). These girls would learn from the craftsman’s wife just as male apprentices would learn from the craftsman. Apprenticed women could “support themselves by their craft if they remained unmarried” (59). However, craft guilds realized that “women’s wages were lower even for the same work, and men were afraid of being undercut by cheap labor” (60). More and more male run guilds barred women from their crafts, so it became more opportune for women to marry and assist their husband with his trade. After his death, the widow would usually take over it, or remarry another craftsman of the same trade. Though there were many working women who chose an urban lifestyle, “the largest class of working women [were the] peasants and dwellers on all manors scattered up and down England” (71). However, these women are “less prominent in medieval sources, perhaps because [they] were taken for granted” and because there are no firsthand documents from the women themselves. These female workers spent their days far more arduously than their city brethren, with countless “strenuous hours and weeks… spent by [their] husbands’ sides in fields and pastures” (71). Both of the medieval poets Chaucer and Langland depicted portraits of “their unending labor and brave faces turned to the world” (74). While Chaucer’s depiction was “simple and frugal” and Langland’s was “truer and more tragic,” it cannot be disputed that peasant women led a difficult, laborious existence (72, 73). Therefore, according to Power’s account, the labor of working women in the city and country was important to the survival of medieval life.

Finally, I will attempt to evaluate Medieval Women based on Eileen Power’s depictions of the lives of different classes of women in the middle ages. I believe that the book, unfortunately, did not achieve its author’s intent of making it a “fuller and better grounded in evidence” study of medieval women than ever before (7). While I found the book interesting and informative, it was by no means extraordinary. The book used the same sources as many of the articles I reviewed for my research portfolio: it used the same Chaucer quote and Christine de Pizan quote as I saw earlier in my research, and a scan of the bibliography seems quite similar. While I am willing to forgive Power for this since there is not much on the subject that survived the middle ages, I do believe that the lack of new content causes the book to fall short of its intent. A possibility suggested by the book is that it is possible to create more in depth studies of medieval women than ever before, despite the low survival rate of first hand medieval accounts. This is implied by Power’s intent to do just that. Even with a finite amount of material, there are limitless bounds of how historians can display them and account for them. I am aware that this book was published in 1975 and countless studies have been done since, but I think Power would have believed we can still delve deeper even today. The text is quite through on the subject of women in different positions of class structure in the middle ages, but what it has left out are sources. With a field as ancient as medievalism, I believe Power could have fleshed out her text with more sources from contemporary historians. Surely some ground has been broken on medieval women’s history since her first hand accounts were written. The way the book compares to others on the subject is its character flaw: it is too similar to them. Medieval Women is a nice enough book, but there is nothing groundbreaking in it that causes it to stand out from other books I’ve read on the subject. I am not convinced, even, that Power always knew what she was talking about. In the text, she has consistently odd spellings of words I’ve seen before in other medieval studies. For example, she spells Christine de Pizan’s name “de Pisan” and translates the story of “Rose the Regrator and her husband Covetousness” as “Rose the Regrator and her husband Avarice” (75, 62). These spellings could be accounted by the age of this text, but I still find it unsettling that she would use these translations when I have consistently heard them spelled differently. In conclusion, Eileen Power’s Medieval Women makes a good read for dabbling medievalists, but more informed medieval scholars would probably find it ordinary and elementary.

Lauren Orsini, University of Mary Washington

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Research Portfolio Essay #9 Wednesday, Nov 22 2006

Nelson, Janet L. Medieval Queenship. Women in Medieval Western European Culture, Garland Publishing Inc.New York, 1999 – Article. pp. 179-206. 

            In the Middle Ages, subjects considered the role of their queen to be the glue that held together “the king’s two bodies… his role as her husband and his position as head of state” (204). Extending this metaphor, author Janet L. Nelson suggests that the medieval queen, too, has two bodies. In her article, “Medieval Queenship,” Nelson makes one important assertion: that by the nature of their position, medieval queens filled two roles- that of the king’s wife and that of power wielding figurehead.

            If a queen wanted to stay in power, than she would be wise to fulfill her first position as the wife of the king. In this position, she had a lot of expectations to live up to. In the medieval period, “so important was the choice of marriage” that male heirs to the throne would often reject their parents’ choice of an ideal bride (187). Usually, the bride an heir would select was foreign born, and brought an immense dowry of wealth with her. According to Nelson, “foreign marriage brought a useful alliance, prestige, and an infusion of movable wealth” so it proved to be a successful and lucrative match for prospective kings (187). Since royal brides came from foreign lands to be married, they often had a difficult time adapting to a new culture. Therefore, in the later middle ages, girls were trained early as prospective brides by “learning the language and customs of the prospective husband’s land” (188). Another part of the queen’s position that was determined by her husband was when her consecration was. In the early middle ages, the king’s wife was not always consecrated as a queen. When the king decided to take this step, it “signaled dynastic intent” and prepared for his succession after death (183). Later on, when queenly consecration was the norm, it contained these old parallels of a hint at dynasty: “the prayers for the queen’s consecration emphatically stated her role… as mother of future kings” (186). This ritual leads right in to the queen’s next role in her position as the king’s husband: producer and mother of heirs. This was consistently considered “the queen’s prime function” and having a son always “secured her position… and offered hope of long term power within and through the family” (193-194). The upbringing of the children was a responsibility “that belong partly or primarily to the queen” and their future lay in her hands (194). Finally, a queen could use her position as the royal wife to influence the king. Medieval female writer Christine de Pizan advised the queen to act as “advocate and mediator between the prince her husband… and her people” (200-201). Historical evidence points out that “intercession was always a possible form of action for medieval queens” when it came to their husbands’ political doings (201).
Queens could “exploit their sexuality” or their use their “dower lands” in order to sway their husband the king’s decisions (192, 202). Of course, above all, the most effective way for queens to have political influence in their husband’s lives was to give birth to a son. In summary, the queen’s position and dowry, consecration, production of an heir, and influence over the king were the four positions she fulfilled in the role of the king’s wife.

            The second position that a medieval queen held was that of a power wielding figurehead. The first of these powers came from the nature of her position as a queen. Images of queens (such as Mary, queen of heaven, Esther, and Jezebel) are found frequently in the Bible, and therefore “strongly influenced medieval writers (including female ones)” (181). The idea of queens appeared prominently in “art and liturgy, revealing of an enhanced symbolic role” (180). People got their idea of what a queen should be from the Bible and other literature, and this increased the queen’s role and standing among her subjects. Second was the queen’s power of diplomacy. Because the queen was usually a foreign born princess of another country’s royal family, and because of the queen’s “dual identity as both king’s daughter and king’s wife,” she was “uniquely qualified” to act as a go-between for the two kingdoms. Both kings were in a position to listen to her advice since she was accustomed to situations in both countries. As mentioned before in Christine de Pizan’s advice, the queen was also obliged to act as a diplomat between the king and his people. Third, the queen had “power to secure the succession of her favored candidate to the throne, usually her own son” (195). Lineage consciousness was constantly on the mind of a medieval queen, and a wise queen would take pains to make her “personal preferences… very public ones” so that the whole kingdom would realize the consequences that would result from her pick not making it to the throne (195). Finally, the queen was also involved in almsgiving and could choose who to be generous to in order to determine who would rise in power. In the medieval palace, “material display and gift-giving were the means of government” (199). Therefore, a queen “would create patron-client relationships with the young nobles at the palace who would in time become the great men of the kingdom” (199). Becoming a queen’s favorite was an effective way for a nobleman to secure his rise to power.
Queens could have a similar relationship with churchmen, “acting on their behalf but also seeking their support” (200). In fact, “the tradition of papal correspondence with queens, soliciting their benign influence on their husbands… spanned the entire medieval period” (200). The fact that gaining the queen’s support was such a sure way for subjects to gain power reveals just how much power and influence the queen had as a power wielding figurehead.

            As shown in Janet L. Nelson’s article, “Medieval Queenship,” a successful queen in the middle ages would have had to wear two hats, that of the king’s wife and that of the royal figurehead. In both of these positions, queens managed to have great influence over both their husband and their subjects. In conclusion, due to the obvious division between the two positions, I agree with Nelson’s assertion that the queen had two different roles to fulfill in order to remain in power.

Lauren Orsini, University of Mary Washington

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Research Portfolio Essay #8 Wednesday, Nov 22 2006

Dent, Trisha K. and McRee, Benjamin R. Working Women in the Medieval City. Women in Medieval Western European Culture, Garland Publishing Inc. New York, 1999 – Article. pp. 241-256
 

            In the most commonly held concept of the medieval city, it’s the men who do the buying and selling, the working and crafting, and participate in the commotion of every day life. Women tend to occupy the margins, tending to children, housework, or cooking. However, the article states that “women were, in fact, active participants in the economic life of medieval cities” (141). If this is so, how can it be that history has forgotten the economic participation of working class medieval women? As Trisha K. Dent and Benjamin R. McRee explain in their article, “Working Women in the Medieval City,” the visibility of women’s work was determined by the types of occupations they held.

            According to this article, women participated mainly in five different areas of work: domestic service, petty retail, textiles, healing, and prostitution. The first of these was the most common. A woman of each of the social classes except the very highest “typically began her work life as a servant” (244). At twelve or so, women left their family homes to find a job in this line of work. Since so many women engaged in domestic service, it was not considered degrading, and urban women “could expect to find work in their own neighborhoods” (244). A servant’s tasks would include domestic chores, and perhaps if her master was involved in a trade, “masters could easily involve servants in their trade” by requesting help with early preparation of goods (244).

 Petty retail was the next most common occupation for women. These women “took… products door to door or sold them on the street” (245). In European medieval cities, these women were known as “hucksters” or “regrators” and these were not compliments (245). Women who were involved in these less than respected jobs “were often recent immigrants who were poor and lacked the capital and connections to secure other kinds of work” (246). Petty retailers who were slightly better off could purchase stalls on the street from which to display their wares. Though this occupation was considered “petty” as one can tell from the title the article gives, “in most urban markets, women were the principle vendors of fruits and vegetables” (246).

 Women were also involved in “the largest and most complex industry in the Middle Ages- the production of textiles” (246). There were many steps to this industry- carding wool, spinning it into thread, weaving thread into cloth, then washing, dying, fulling, and tailoring to create a finished product. Although in the early medieval period, “production of cloth and clothing had been almost entirely in the hands of women,” with the rise of towns, men took over the later stages of production, which made more of a profit (246-247). However, the early stages required less training and could be done in one’s spare time, which made them ideal occupations for many urban women.

Medieval women were also involved in health care. There were female physicians trained by other female doctors, since they weren’t allowed to attend universities. Male university trained doctors “often challenged the right of these women to practice medicine” since they did not have university training, thus completing the Catch-22 (247). However, no man ever contested the right of a midwife to continue delivering babies. In fact, since “men were generally banned from obstetrics in the Middle Ages,” they were the only ones capable of the task (247). Midwives were generally considered knowledgeable by the male population and “were sometimes asked to provide expert testimony in cases where rape or abortion was suspected” (247). Women also worked in health care as “barbers, nurses, apothecaries, and hospital managers” until the fifteenth century when “male barbers [etc.] began to form guilds excluding them” (248).

Finally, urban women also worked as prostitutes. While this occupation was regulated heavily by cities, prostitutes did not consider their jobs as shameful, since “a substantial number of women [in a 1471 survey] identified themselves freely as prostitutes” (249). However, it was a dangerous occupation since “prostitutes were vulnerable to abuse by customers and pimps or to punishment by the authorities” (249). However, the church, the biggest medieval authority of all, never tried to be rid of it. In fact, “clergymen were often the chief customers of medieval prostitutes, and churchmen sometimes owned brothels” (248). Furthermore, the church thought that “the presence of prostitutes helped prevent fornication, rape, and sodomy” therefore canceling out other sins (248). Therefore, in the eyes of the church, the job of the prostitute was incredibly important to the health of the medieval city.

 These occupations in domestic service, petty retail, textiles, health, and prostitution all have one thing in common that may demonstrate why women became a forgotten part of economic life in the medieval city: they are all behind the scenes. Servants, while they performed critical functions in households and even in preparation for craftsmanship, were confined to the sphere of their masters’ homes. Petty retailers were an important part of the food market, but were called names and disrespected. Women involved in textiles were confined to the early stages of cloth making, and the male dyers, fullers, and tailors took all the credit. Healers were either criticized for their credibility, like physicians, or involved in something intimate that left them behind the scenes, like midwives. And of course, the very nature of prostitution went against the biggest influence in the medieval world- the church. Visibly, women were indeed in the margins of the medieval city. But, as shown in “Working Women in the Medieval City,” urban women in the Middle Ages made a big impact.

Lauren Orsini, University of Mary Washington  

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Research Portfolio Essay #7 Wednesday, Nov 22 2006

Hettinger, Madonna J., So Strategize: The Demands in the Day of the Peasant Woman in Medieval Europe. Women in Medieval Western European Culture, Garland Publishing Inc.
New York, 1999 – Article. pp. 48-64

 

            Medieval peasant women are unfortunate enough to have fallen into two groups that often slip through the cracks of history: the lower class and the least powerful gender. Still worse, one of our best records of the lives of peasant women in the Middle Ages is The Boke of Husbandry, written by upper class brothers Anthony and John Fitzherbert, who are “twice removed” from female peasant life (48). In her article, “So Strategize: The Demands in the Day of the Peasant Woman in Medieval Europe,” Madonna J. Hettinger asserts that we can obtain the clearest picture of the medieval peasant woman by dissecting her labors, her relationships, and the audience of the Fitzherberts’ book.

            While The Boke of Husbandry is not a how-to manual, it still describes a laundry list of tasks that peasant women were expected to do daily. In fact, much of the most important work to maintaining a peasant household was regarded as women’s work. The book lists “sweeping, tending suckling calves, straining milk, dressing children, and preparing the husband’s meals” as the women’s chief early morning duties, but neglects to include that there are even more than this, such as building the fire and fetching water, that must be done before the day can even begin (55). Since all this work was done indoors, “her home was no refuge from [the workplace], rather it was a workplace” (54). Women also worked outdoors, gathering products from the field that made their way into the kitchen or the house, such as wheat before it became bread, and flax before it became spun thread. Aside from domestic tasks inside and outside of the house, women were also responsible for creating a very important sellable product: ale. Brewing ale was a difficult and dangerous task, but since the product spoiled quickly, it had to be made regularly, and “women were repeatedly active as producers and sellers of ale” (56). Another important product that peasant women were responsible for producing was labor, in the form of children. Unlike their other tasks, “childbearing was a constant activity” and could not be put aside (59). In this way, even the woman’s sexual functions were a form of work in her life. By witnessing this endless list of daily chores, we can speculate on what type of person the peasant woman must have been: the strong, essential backbone of the peasant homestead.

            We can also attempt to obtain an idea of the medieval peasant woman’s life through the relationships she was a part of. Predictably, she had a strong relationship with her children. In fact, she alone was responsible for “nurturing, protecting, and training her children, the family’s future labor force” (59). Just like her mother must have taught her, she would have gradually “introduced [them] to increasingly difficult chores related to house, yard, and fields as their physical development permitted” (59). Secondly, it is apparent that the peasant woman had a relationship with her husband. Most peasant women married quickly “because of the necessity of complimentary male and female skills in the household economy of the Middle Ages” (59). Marriage was also a sure way for peasant women to ensure economic security for themselves. Still, women were bound tightly to their husbands for more than that, because while “the woman gained a certain amount of security… she lost her legal identity to a significant degree” (60). Therefore, marriage was a symbiotic relationship: men needed women for their labor and ability to produce children, and women needed men for economic security as well as to represent their legal interests. Third, a peasant woman also had to consider her relationship to her landlord on a daily basis. Her economic activities were important to her landlord because “her sales of bread and ale were taxed by the manorial court” (57). Most landlords had regular dues for peasant women to pay, even single women and widows. Since medieval peasant women had to consider her relationship to her children, her husband, and her landlord every day, witnessing accounts of each helps us to gain a better picture of her daily life.

            Considering the audience of the The Boke of Husbandry is a third way that we can obtain a picture of the medieval peasant woman’s life. This task may be the most important, since it allows us to sieve out which sections of the book were not meant to inform us but to entertain others. Hettinger suggests that the book is meant to describe the “art of husbandry” for the upper classes to marvel at, since it lists tasks instead of explaining how to do them (50). However, the authors Fitzherbert address the book to “a young gentleman so that he may… read to his servants what chapter he wilt” (50). In this way, the book is at best indirectly written for peasant women to read. There is an upside to the authors intending the book for the upper class: it helped to dispel both the romantic and stereotypical images people had about peasant women. Christine de Pizan, an affluent noblewoman of the period, wrote: “Although they are commonly raised on black bread… and they work very hard, their lives are more secure and abundant in the essentials than the lives of some who are placed very high” (60) de Pizan could have learned from this book to attain a better picture of the real life peasant woman. On the other side of the spectrum, the brothers Fitzherbert also deny typical stereotypes about the “oppressed, unthinking” peasant woman (62). Their portrayal of the many tasks she is capable of in any given day helped inform their noble audience about what their serfs and servants are truly like. By recognizing the book’s audience and the intent of the Fitzherberts, we can better recognize the reality of the peasant woman’s life.

            Madonna J. Hettinger’s essay, “So Strategize: The Demands in the Day of the Peasant Woman in Medieval Europe” leaves us with a question: is The Boke of Husbandry a reliable source for historians? After reading the article, I believe that it indeed must be considered by historians, as it is one of the only firsthand accounts of medieval peasant life. Compared with legal documents that survived from the middle ages, it appears that the accounts of the peasant woman’s labors and relations are accurate. However, I believe it is also important that one recognizes the audience and purpose of the book. If we assumed that the book was designed for peasant women or as a historical account of their lives, then it would be far less accurate. My solution is that we use legal documents parallel to the book, just as Hettinger herself did, explaining that she, and other scholars of the middle ages, knew to obtain information “through careful examination of manorial accounts and court rolls, wills, records of accidental death, tax records, and literary sources” (53). In conclusion, we can learn the most about medieval peasant women by neither ignoring nor neglecting The Boke of Husbandry.

 

Lauren Orsini, University of Mary Washington

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Research Portfolio Essay #6 Saturday, Nov 11 2006

Amy Livingston, Powerful Allies and Dangerous Adversaries: Noblewomen in Medieval Society. Women in Medieval Western European Culture, Garland Publishing Inc.
New York, 1999 – Article

 

            Certainly in our survey of courtly literature, medieval authors have often portrayed elite women as noble and worthy of their high status. However, do these stories reflect reality so much that real life noble women possessed the power fitting of their status? In “Powerful Allies and Dangerous Adversaries,” Amy Livingstone examines the lives of medieval noblewomen through their relationships, responsibilities, and the degrees of power they held.

            The life of a medieval noblewoman was heavily influenced by the relationships she was part of during her lifetime. The first relationship she probably experienced was between herself and her parents and siblings. She would have spent most of her time with them, as Livingstone states, “The immediate noble family was nuclear, consisting of a mother, father, and siblings” (12). Most important to her upbringing was the mother, as “mothers were responsible for educating their… children” (12). Noble daughters were important to their parents because they “could expect to inherit a portion of the family land” and therefore were valuable heiresses that could be used in marriage alliances when they were of age (13). Indeed, “Anglo-Saxon parents did not prefer sons to daughters” as both could benefit the family (13). The next relationship a noblewoman would experience was between herself and her husband. At this point, probably in her late teens, she would “be granted a dowry,” a physical manifestation of her value to her husband (14). Obviously, love was not usually of importance in a marriage match, so most noblewomen had a much stronger, far from monetary, relationship with her children. In these relationships “there could be no doubt of affection and care” (16). Noblewoman mothers were “vital in determining the future of their children” and spent much of their time involved in their upbringing, just as their mothers had been with them (16). These three relationships that noblewomen experienced in their lives all demonstrate balances of power: daughters were both subordinate and valuable to parents and husband, and mothers were powerful influences on their children’s lives.

            Noblewomen also maintained important responsibilities throughout their lifetimes. First was their responsibility to their husbands. When noblewomen went from becoming daughters of the house to mistresses of the household, many new tasks were given to them to keep their new homes running smoothly (14). In fact, so many noblewomen were made in charge of the finances of the household that their was a demand for Christine de Pizan’s handbook, which “encourages noble wives to become well versed in money matters… because frugal women run their estates more efficiently and are less vulnerable to unscrupulous… businessmen” (15). That there was a need for this text demonstrates the importance of what noblewomen were expected to do for their husbands. Noblewomen’s responsibilities changed while their husbands were away. While husbands went away to war or Crusade, “their wives assumed control of family land, offices, and responsibilities” (17). On the opposite spectrum, if the war came close to home, “noblewomen were called upon to defend their property” (23). Noblewomen were also responsible for what happened to their children. They personally “participated in arranging advantageous marriages or religious careers for their daughters and sons” (16). They were even involved in legal matters regarding the children such as “control and disposition of the family fiefs” (17). These three situations demonstrate the amount of responsibilities noblewomen were expected to carry out during their lifetimes.

      Since noblewomen had so many responsibilities in life, it is no far stretch to suspect that they also held high degrees of power during their lifetimes. Women had incredible power, for one, to influence the people around them. They “controlled knights, held courts to settle legal disputes, and engaged in military defense of their homes; some even were extremely violent and disruptive elements of medieval society” (19). Since noblemen were warriors who fought on crusades, women very often outlived their husbands, and enjoyed even more power as widows. A widow had a much higher legal status since “after the death of her husband, a woman received her dower which consisted of one third of her husband’s holdings” (19). This gave them all the power any nobleman would have, including power to own land. When Philippa of Courville outlived her husband, “she [took] on her husband’s duties… and exercised the same rights and prerogatives that all the previous lords of Courville had enjoyed” (20). Women also had power to influence the Church. Noblewomen were given the opportunity to “leave the papacy [their] extensive holdings,” and often did (26). Many noblewomen “enjoyed cordial… relationships with the clerics of the region which, on occasion, compelled them to act as intercessors between their families and the local ecclesiastical institutions” (25). This led to their becoming “vital allies in the attempts to reform the church” (25). The fact that noblewomen were able to influence their lordships, husbands, and even the church indicates that they did indeed hold power befitting to their status.

By the end of the article, it is apparent that Livingstone used the title to refer not to the trials noblewomen faced in their daily interactions, but to represent the women themselves. Through their relationships, responsibilities, and exercises of power, one can see that noblewomen in the middle ages were a force to be reckoned with. Livingstone points out in her own conclusion that “women found innovative ways… of subtly exercising their influence” regardless of how male-dominated their situations were (29).

 

Lauren Orsini, University of Mary Washington

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Research Portfolio Essay #5 Sunday, Oct 15 2006

Chaucer and Gender, Michael Masi. New York: Peter Lang Publishing, 2005. 161 pages.

 

            On how his book Chaucer and Gender came to be, Michael Masi is direct: “As graduate students… during the late 1960’s we never heard mention of ‘gender studies’” (ix). In short, Masi recognized Chaucerian gender studies as a new and important field in the study of medieval literature. Over a period of three decades, Masi expanded his medieval feminist studies into a wider range of what is now called gender studies. Masi defines this field in the first chapter of his book as “the history of empowerment, the advantages which one gender (male) has over the other” (2). “The importance of gender and gender relations in the literature of the Middle Ages,” notes Masi, “not only struck me as extremely useful and inherently interesting, but also elicited considerable response from students” (ix). Therefore, Masi designed this book as a tool for students of the emerging field of medieval gender studies. In this essay, I will first summarize Masi’s background of gender studies for evaluating the text; second, summarize some topics Masi addresses in his book and then evaluate how well he achieves his goal.

            Right in the summary on the back of the book, Masi notes that Chaucer has been long considered to be “a writer with psychological sensitivities.” That he pointed this out so early on in the reader’s impression of the book indicates that Chaucer was unusual for the medieval period. To further exemplify this, Masi dedicates the first chapter of the book to a review of medieval gender theory. This serves as a background for evaluating the rest of the text. Masi explains that, even in the Middle Ages, there was already a well developed dichotomy between man and woman. He notes that in order to determine how this binary came to medieval thinkers, “one must look to the scriptures or the speculations of the ancients for logical explanations of this biological condition” (3). Like most modern scholars of medieval culture, Masi acknowledges that the gender construct rested on the twin pillars of antique thought and Christianity. While he addresses the temptation of Eve as a major cause of medieval misogyny, Masi as a gender studies theorist adds on to the feminist perspective by noting that “Genesis also stresses the importance of the union and cooperation between the genders” (7). While Eve is seen as “weak and vunerable,” she is also seen as important as Adam’s “helpmate” (7). Another influence on medieval thinkers, Aristotle, also sees women as “defective,” but acknowledges that women are necessary to “incubate” the male sperm (13). Since both of these schools of thought still acknowledge the importance of the relationship between male and female, Masi then suggests that “courtly love… is probably the singular most important factor in the polarization of the genders” (8). Here, the relationship between man and woman is artificial, so it is removed from the biological relationship that both antique thought and Christian thought assumes. Since Chaucer includes courtly tradition in his works, Masi suggests that “Chaucer must have derived a variety of notions about gender from… mainstream sources such as Aristotle… Aquinas… Ovid and the Roman de la Rose” (21). In other words, Chaucer’s ideas of gender came from many of the great works of antiquity and the Middle Ages, so one must consider all these works when interpreting Chaucerian gender constructs.

            Masi discusses a range of issues involving Chaucer’s depiction of the relationship between the genders. However, since my particular range of studies involves women and the supernatural, I will summarize “Chapter 7: Chaucer and the Incubus” (145-161). In the Middle Ages, the incubus was considered to be “a supernatural demonic personality which is invoked as a threat to women” (145). The incubus can represent “the return of the repressed” in psychological terms, or be used as a tool by women to excuse an unexplained pregnancy. In Chaucer, the incubus demonstrates the vulnerability of women even while they are asleep. Masi claims that there are “at least three allusions to the incubus and perhaps one to a succuba” in the works of Chaucer (147). Two of these allusions occur in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. One of these allusions can be found in The Wife of Bath’s Tale. The Wife of Bath refers to incubi satirically in response to “the presence of friars in this land who have now chased away all evil spirits and merely replaced the incubus but can do no more harm than make a woman pregnant” (147). For the Wife, incubi are a benign species that seduce women no more than human men. Given the Wife of Bath’s story, it is likely that her experiences have caused her not to think of the incubus as a “hostile rapist” but as “the friendly incubus which appears in the likeness of an attractive young man” (145). The next allusion occurs in The Miller’s Tale, which he supposedly wrote around the same time he penned The Wife of Bath’s Tale. After the student and the Miller struggle over the Miller’s wife’s bed, they fall back onto the Miller’s wife, and “she startles awake and afraid. In terror she cries to her savior for help, invoking the Holy Cross of Bromeholm” (156). Though she does not explicitly refer to an incubus, the fact that she “instinctively invokes” the Cross of Bromeholm proves that this is what she feared. Masi writes that “the reason for the Cross’ fame was the relic’s special power as protector against the devil,” showing that she feared a demonic presence (158). According to Masi, when Chaucer utilizes the incubus, he goes against gender stereotypes and “seems to delve into those areas where motivation and behavior are driven by distinct gender awareness, an awareness which sometimes plays against the stereotypes” (160). The use of incubi demonstrates Chaucer’s knowledge and sympathy for the feminine.

            Utilizing the Masi’s background of medieval gender constructs and the summary of the actual text, I will now purport to evaluate the book. If Masi’s goal was to design an academic tool for students of gender studies, he was very successful. Masi included examples and parallels from Chaucer’s contemporaries as well as other gender studies done on Chaucer. The fact that the text remains unbiased allows it to serve as a suitable textbook for students of the humanities. One of the possibilities suggested by this book is obvious from the introduction onward- that Chaucer can be studied through the lens of the emerging field of gender studies. Since Chaucer had feminine sympathies despite his own gender, it is fitting to study his portrayal of male and female relationships since he was able to identify with both sexes. Since Chaucer was also very psychologically motivated and attuned, it would be interesting to study how his characters are motivated by gender. At the same time, I feel that the book clearly leaves out some important questions about the masculine gender. In the chapter Chaucer and the Incubus, I feel that Masi could have included the male reaction to this female-centric threat. The fact that some of their wives claimed to be attacked by male demons must have affected men in some way. Though I have never read another book on the subject of Chaucer and gender, I can assume that this text presents a newer, more daring field. Since gender studies has only recently been recognized, I can assume that Chaucer and Gender was one of the first of its kind. However, compared against other books on various Chaucerian studies, I feel that Masi’s text includes many more examples from other Chaucerian scholars. Also, the fact that Masi uses both the Middle English and modern English translations of Chaucer whenever he quotes him is incredibly helpful for a student just beginning to study Chaucer. A specific point that I did not find convincing in this text is that Chaucer never uses the incubus to demonstrate “the exploitation of a woman’s fear or a dark indicator of how some female fantasies may operate” (160). Since Chaucer purported to entertain with his work, I think that these sensational topics would have appealed to him. Since the Wife of Bath sees incubi as benign, it is not a stretch to assume she might enjoy being seduced as one, and who is to say that the Miller’s wife did not see the threat of the incubus as payment for her previous sexual transgression. In summary, though there are faults with Michael Masi’s text, Chaucer and Gender, one can refer these to the fact that it is a pioneer idea in a new field of Chaucerian studies. I believe that it serves as a readable and academic textbook for students of gender studies.

Lauren Orsini,
University of Mary Washington

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Research Portfolio Essay #4 Saturday, Oct 14 2006

Elspeth Whitney, Witches, Saints, and Other “Others”: Women and Deviance in Medieval Culture. Women in medieval Western European culture, Garland Publishing, Inc. New York, 1999 – Article.

 

            As naturally gendered organisms, human beings have forever questioned the relationship between the sexes. In the middle ages, the dichotomy had progressed so far as to suggest that one sex (male) represented good and the other (female) was prone to evil. In her essay, “Witches, Saints, and Other ‘Others’: Women and Deviance in Medieval Culture,” Elspeth Whitney makes two major assertions: first, that medieval women are included in, if not the majority of, prominent deviant communities; and second, that there are inverse parallels between witches and female saints.

            The first observation that Whitney makes is that evil or deviant communities in the middle ages either included, or were totally compiled of, women. There were four major “Othered” groups during the Middle Ages: witches, heretics, lepers, and Jews. The only thing that these communities have in common is that they all are excluded from the norm of Christian life. Therefore, all four groups, though different amongst themselves, were all accused of the same evil deeds because they fit into the “outsider” category (298). By the late medieval period, “accusations of infanticide, sexual perversion, ritual cannibalism, and obscene and scatological practices had coalesced into a powerful image of evil applied to a variety of different groups” (299). Witches and heretic groups were both assumed to “worship the devil” among other acts, while both lepers and Jews were “because of fear of ‘pollution,’… unable to touch food in the marketplace” (298). Exclusion of the four was both total and systematic. Why women were supposed to make up most of these “outsider” groups rests on the fact that medieval culture “rested on the… twin pillars of the pagan classical world and Christianity” (303). Therefore, most medieval thinkers were acquainted with Aristotle, who said “the male is by nature superior, and the female inferior” (304). Aristotle based the inferiority of women on biological ideas, that women were cold and wet while men were hot and dry, and therefore women “lack[ed] the power to concoct semen out of the final state of the nourishment because of the coldness of its nature” (304). It is important to note here that the Greeks saw women as passive incubators for the male sperm while it formed a child. On the other pillar of Christianity, women were not faring any better. For the medieval church, “the biblical Eve came increasingly to symbolize the inherent physicality and sinfulness of women, Adam the innocent victim of a conspiracy between the devil and the first woman” (307). The inclusion of Adam as an innocent victim is a dangerous idea in a “persecution society” such as the medieval period. Prominent men came to see themselves as victims of deviant females who, in their “outsider” groups, did everything from consuming children to worshipping the devil (300).

            Whitney’s second assertion is that in the middle ages the lives of witches and female saints made inverse parallels. First of all, both were prominent in society. In the early middle ages, witches were a peasant’s superstition. However, in the 1450s, “officials of the church, who earlier had dismissed stories of… witches as merely fantasies… began to accept the reality” (301). In 1486, the famous witch hunting pamphlet, Malleus Maleficarum, was first published, consolidating the already emerging idea of the female witch. The stereotype of witch was “increasingly sexualized… at times verging on the pornographic” as the witch became solidly female (301). Her frightening sexuality made her a popular example of evil to both the clergy and medieval thinkers. The female saint was also prominent because “the late Middle Ages saw both a dramatic increase in the absolute number of female saints and an even more striking increase in the number of women saints relative to male saints” (309). These numbers suggest that female spirituality saw a dramatic increase during the period and that “women seem to have been prominent in… many orthodox religious movements” (309). There also arose a number of “highly visible female mystics” whose teachings were as prominent as those of male mystics (309). In fact, these females “frequently became public figures, speaking publically and even, occasionally… influencing papal politics” (310). Second, both were said to be capable of the same magical activities. Whitney notes that, “both are known to fly or ‘levitate,’ to control natural forces, to find lost objects, to tell the future, to read minds…” (310). Also, like the peasant’s early idea of a witch who chose to do good or bad to her neighbors, “saints, in the interest of sanctity, hurt, as well as helped, people” (310). Third, both were persecuted for parallel reasons. Whitney notes that a society’s choice of targeted deviants tells us “about a society’s cultural anxieties” which was, in the case of the Middle Ages, women (299). She adds that “the emergence of the female witch as an object of fear and loathing almost certainly reflected increasing ambivalence about gender and gender roles” (300). Therefore, the persecution of witches put to bed male anxieties about sexuality. The same type of threat led to the increased persecution of female saints. Because men saw women as a sexual temptation drawing them away from religious faith, “female sanctity embodied, in male eyes, an inherent contradiction” (311). An increased distrust of female saints occurred and many of them were put on trial for heresy. Because of the parallel witch trials, men could only see female faith “in negative terms as possession not by God but by Satan” (311). Probably, the parallel between witches and female saints was visible and unsettling to medieval men.

            The idea of the woman as a deviant and a witch was so intensely imprinted into people’s minds that “not until the eighteenth century did the figure of the witch lose its power to invoke the powers of ecclesiastical and secular governments” (302). In fact, the last execution of a witch didn’t occur until 1782. Both of Elspeth Whitney’s assertions, that women made up a large part of “outsider” groups, and that witches and female saints drew startling parallels, show a larger political force at work: the need of men to assure the submission of women to themselves. The fear of powerful or evil women loomed so large in their minds that a “moral panic” was eminent (299). Therefore, it was the “Othering” of women by those in power that led to their frequent portrayal as deviants.

 

Lauren Orsini, University of Mary Washington

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Research Portfolio Essay #3 Sunday, Oct 8 2006

Beate Popkin, Wives, Mothers, and Witches: The Learned Discourse about Women in Early Modern
Europe. Journal of Women’s History; Autumn 1997; 9, 3; GenderWatch (GW) p. 193

 

            It is hard to disagree with the statement that women were frequently negatively portrayed in context to men in the Middle Ages. Author Beate Popkin takes this assertion one step further by stating that the feminine became the “Other” in the Medieval period. In her essay “Wives, Mothers, and Witches: The Learned Discourse about Women in Early Modern Europe,” Popkin makes two major claims. I will address each of her assertions that first, women are “Othered” to men through marriage and sexuality and second, the female witch is the resulting manifestation of the “Othered” woman.

            Popkin suggests in the beginning of her article that the discourse of women changed as a result of the shift of medieval masculine identities. Previously, there had been “the model of the warrior and the monk, each pursuing his passions in an all male environment” while during the late middle ages men were expected to “focus their attention on the welfare of the nuclear family and live their lives in close proximity to women” (1). At this point, men were now aware of the feminine sphere and their identity became dependent on “a profound need to define woman’s place in relation to man and to assure her subjection to him” (1). Men had to assure themselves that they were living alongside women, not among them. Therefore, the idea commonly shared by late medieval thinkers was that “human beings were created unequal and therefore must assume different positions in society” (2). This was not a new idea; in fact, it dated back to Ancient Greece. Aristotle, for one, “considered women’s inferiority to rest on three characteristics: she was physically weaker than man; she was intellectually less capable; and she was less able to control her emotions through reason” (2). This was also justified in the most influential book of the middle ages- the Bible: “the fact that Eve was made after Adam and from his body… pointed to her baser status” (3). The Bible further asserts that Eve was the first to give into the temptation of the devil, and therefore all women must be protected by men from temptation. Based on these facts, it was very easy for men to see women as “the Other,” the negative opposite of themselves. This made living in families in close proximity to women much more palatable, because a powerful, patriarchal figure was seen as necessary to keep the weaker, lustful female controlled.

            If then, the uncontrolled woman was a naturally sinful creature, then it was easy for medieval thinkers to so completely embrace the idea of a female witch. In an age where “church courts… regulated marriage and punished… infidelity and deviant sexual behaviors,” controlling women’s sexuality was very prominent on men’s minds (3). The idea of the female witch “point[s] out the threat women’s bodies appear to pose to men” (4). At this time “learned urban men in stable marriages faced the moral imperative of subjecting their sexual impulses to their partners- and the proliferation of marriage courts indicate that they did- it should be no surprise that women’s unruliness and sexual disorderliness loomed so large in their minds” (4). Therefore, men instead of facing their inability to cope with this moral task, tended to project their dilemma onto “the Other.” As the problem of morality continued to worry men, the marginalization of the female witch became more and more explicit. Texts like the Malleus Maleficarum and De la Deminimanie des sorciers described the illicit activities of witches in great detail, such as “witches copulating with the Devil… witches’ Sabbaths, with their frantic dancing” (4). The fact that male thinkers chose to portray women in such immoral situations betrayed their sexual anxiety regarding women. Eventually, female witches began to signify “the Other” of men not just sexually, but religiously as well. The idea of the female witch emerged first at “village level,” where she was deemed evil because she targeted others with her magic (6). However, when she reached the ears of the English and Scottish elite, her evil nature shifted: “while at the village level she was regarded as evil because she did harm to others… elite writings attributed her evil nature to the fact that she had rejected God and made a pact with the devil” (6). Now she was not only held accountable of the crime of wrong doing, she was also a practioner of heresy. This was the ultimate form of “the Other” since it was opposite of everything intellectual men held to be good: “not only could fears about one’s ability to master sexual restraint be projected onto the witch, her vilification also served to appease the anxiety intellectuals felt about their allegiance to God” (7). When men considered unwatched women to be capable of becoming witches, they found themselves as the benevolent check to the sinful “Other.”

            As the late middle ages dawned, men began to live among women in family units and “they perceived women’s power as standing in the way of their constructing viable social roles for themselves” (8). By “Othering” women to themselves through the construct of marriage and by manifesting this concept into the idea of the female witch, men were able to see women as a lesser, emotional weaker, more easily tempted version of themselves. By developing their fears about sexual restraint and religious faith into one single concept, men created one obsession that culminated into a false idea about all things feminine. The female witch may not have actually existed, but she was a dangerously real idea in the minds of unconfident, anxious men.

 

Lauren Orsini, University of Mary Washington

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Research Portfolio Essay #2 Sunday, Oct 1 2006

E. Ann Matter, Theories of the Passions and the Ecstasies of Late Medieval Religious Women. Essays in Medieval Studies – Volume 18, 2001, pp. 1-17 – Article.

 

            It is well known to scholars that pious medieval men and women would often experience passions, or visions and fits, as physical and psychological manifestations of their faith. In “Theories of the Passions and the Ecstasies of Late Medieval Religious Women,” E. Ann Matter analyzes this theory as it survived and changed from the early Middle Ages up to the “long Middle Ages,” or the 16^th and 17^th centuries (3). I will examine two assertions that Matter makes in her essay: first, that there was a distinct difference in the passions of men and of women, and second, that female passions were more closely linked with demonic possession and witchcraft.

            In order to understand the medieval perspective of passions, we must observe both the spiritual and medical background to it. Religiously, Christians classified most of the passions as we consider them today (anger, jealously lust, etc.) as part of the Seven Deadly Sins. Today, we see passions as part of internal human nature. And according to Matter, in the Middle Ages people “understood human nature in a different way- if not exactly a result of, then at least intrinsically allied to, external forces” (1). Spiritually, human nature was something external to the human body. This dovetailed marvelously with the medical view of the passions at the time. Much of medieval medical thought was derived from Isidore of Seville’s Entymologie, a translation of classical Greek ideas of medicine.
Seville’s book outlined a four part diagram that grouped one of the four cardinal directions, seasons, elements, and humors of the body together. In other words, external forces such as the seasons and elements determined each person’s inner temperament. The consequence of this widespread belief was an explicit dichotomy separating male and female temperaments, and therefore passions. For example, men fit at the top of the diagram, paired with “South, Summer, Fire, Choler (dry and hot),” and women fit in “North, Winter, Water, Phlegm (moist and cold)” (2). This led to beliefs like that of William of Conches: “The warmest woman is colder than the coldest man” (3). This, of course, refers to internal temperament, not physical temperature. Because of the “humoral theory of human nature, with the strong distinction between male and female essences… [There were] “male” and “female” forms of spirituality and mysticism” (4). Therefore, the passions of men and women were experienced differently based on their opposite internal states.

            Next, Matter focuses exclusively on female passions. Because of the widespread belief in the humoral theory of human nature, even female mystics like Hildegard of Bingen justified their own passions and spirituality in this way. Hildegard took the theory one step further and described the passions of women in all four of the corners of the theory. According to her, “the sanguine woman is soft, tender, fertile… the phlegmatic woman is hardworking, practical, lusty; choleric women are soft, discreet, loyal; and the melancholic woman is the only kind of woman better off without a man… in short, intellectual” (3). Hildegard was the first person to describe the bodily humors in terms of psychosexual human behavior. This “constitute[s] a model capable of accounting for the overlapping of physical and mental states” that were considered to occur during spiritual passions (3). It should be noted that Hildegard also incorporated herself into the theory as a melancholic woman. A later scholar, William of Auvergne, wrote that “women constitutionally given to melancholia… would have a physical disposition to mystical rapture- and that even the reverse is possible- that is, that a woman given to vehement prayer and devotions can actually develop melancholia” (5). This profile fit a number of medieval mystic and visionary women such as Maria of Oignies, Christine the Marvelous, and Brigit of Sweden. However, after a burst of female spiritual activity in the 14^th century, “one can see a ‘progressive caution’ in the hagiographical writing about holy women” (5). This reflects “a dangerous collapse in the representation of the familiar polarities of female spirituality” as outlined in the humoral theory of passion (5). This led to the rising belief that spiritual women were actually overcome by demonic possession, as was the case with the trials of Joan of Arc. The climax came in the publication of the 15^th century handbook “Malleus maleficarum,” which associates Satanic powers with women, who were thought to be weaker and more prone to submission to the devil. The text turns the psychosexual structure of the humoral system against women, stating that “All witchcraft comes from carnal lust, which is in women insatiable” (6). Here, according to Matter, “is the terminus of a previously auspicious… current in the assessment of female spirituality” (6). From then on, women’s passions were seen as Satanic possessions of the devil, and resulted in the later prominently female witchcraft trials of the upcoming centuries.

            E. Ann Matter’s two assertions that first, male and female passions were understood to be different and second, that female passions were linked with demonic possession and witchcraft, both climaxed and manifested themselves in the resulting, predominantly female, witchcraft trials. The mystery in the visions and fits of spiritual women became too unusual for the medieval clergy to handle. Female saints became labeled as female demons, and the collapse of female sanctity was complete. Because the passions were usually a combination of physical and psychological manifestations in people, they were ultimately tied to the unknown. In conclusion, the fact that medieval thinkers feared the unknown was the downfall of religious women.

 

Lauren Orsini, University of Mary Washington

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Research Portfolio Essay #1 Saturday, Sep 30 2006

 Michael D. Bailey, The Feminization of Magic and the Emerging Idea of the Female Witch in the Late Middle Ages. Essays in Medieval Studies – Volume 19, 2002, pp. 120-134.

 

            At the dawn of the Middle Ages, it was widely accepted that there existed magic users in the world, and they were powerful, educated males. By the late Middle Ages, most people acknowledged the concept of the witch: a usually female, always powerful, magic user. Michael D. Bailey’s article “The Feminization of Magic and the Emerging Idea of the Female Witch in the Late Middle Ages” analyzes the medieval viewpoint on magic users and how it may have changed in order for people to believe women could assume this once authoritative position. I will examine two assertions in Bailey’s article: first, that a stereotype shift of magic users had to occur for women to be widely accused of magic usage, and second, women’s magic had to be synonymous with evil in order to be considered feminine.

            Witchlike behavior was always believed to exist throughout the Middle Ages, but was not appropriated to women until the 14^th century. What happened before then to feminize the idea of the typical magic user? Bailey appropriates this cultural shift to the Renaissance of the 12^th century, wherein Western European rediscovered many classical, Hebrew and Arabic books dealing with the occult arts. Bailey notes that, “the systems of magic described in these sources were highly learned, undoubtedly authoritative, and explicitly demonic in nature” (125). After this point, even educated members of society such as the clergy developed respect for the reality and power of magic in the world. The theological sphere considered magic to be “highly complex, ritualized, and formalistic” (125). In 1326, even Pope John XXII felt it necessary to write of and condemn sorcerers who used magical items that they had created in order to summon demons. Therefore, it was unlikely that the dominant “cleric misogyny” would allow religious officials to believe that women were capable of such a learned, skillful act as magic (121). The shift came about when the clergy realized that all magic was done for demonic purposes. From a theological point of view, this meant “the central aspect of witchcraft… was the complete and absolutely explicit submission of the witch… to the devil” (127). When people began to believe that magical prowess rested more on how fully a person could submit herself rather than how learned she was, witchcraft became almost exclusively a feminine idea.

            Bailey asserts that not only did magic have to involve submission to be considered feminine, but it also had to be considered evil. The susceptibility to evil in women was something that everyone could agree with. Women were considered to have more “spiritual weakness and natural proclivity for evil” (120). This idea was further cemented by Heinrich Kramer in 1486 when he wrote: “All witchcraft comes from carnal lust, which in women is insatiable” (120). Of course, women “certainly had the potential for extreme good, even sanctity,” but the idea of “female duplicity” stated that if a woman did not achieve this extreme, she plunged into extreme evil (123). Bailey reminds us of the proverb of
Cicero, which was widely referred to in the Middle Ages: “A woman either loves or hates, there is no third” (123). Therefore, the weakness of women who did not reach this sanctity allowed them to more easily become possessed by and submit to demons (124). The late Middle Age idea of magic users stated that “witches… were typically not highly trained or educated people”, but it did acknowledge that witchcraft was dependent on “submission to evil rather than training or preparation, and on susceptibility to temptation rather than intellectual striving” (126, 127). According to the average thinker in the Middle Ages, who would be better suited for complete abandonment to evil than a woman? As the Middle Ages progressed into their later years, the Church had “linked the operations of magic to female weakness” and “by the early fifteenth century, women accounted for a clear majority of those tried for sorcery” (128). Because “the power of witches rested on their submission to the devil and their susceptibility to his seductions,” and the misogynistic beliefs of the clergy helped them to accept that “women were naturally weaker than men,” women were assumed to be the most powerful and submissive servants of Satan (128).

            Bailey’s words fittingly conclude: “Had clerical authorities clung to either of their earlier conceptions of magic- that is, that the sort of common sorcery often… performed by women was merely empty superstition… or that the real, powerful demonic magic performed by necromancers was… unsuited for women- the witch-hunts would surely not have happened” (128). His assertions that a shift in the idea of magic user occurred to hold women responsible for the most powerful magic and that magic had to be believed evil in order for women to be its most successful practitioners held true to the beliefs of the medieval clergy. Therefore, I agree with Bailey that because of the sexism of the clergy, the idea of a feminine witch had to be an evil and uneducated one.

 

Lauren Orsini, University of Mary Washington

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