Women in the Days of Cathedrals

Book excerpt: This book addresses many questions about the status of women in the Middle Ages and presents surprising answers. Readers learn that the most ancient treatise on education in France was written by a woman; and medicine was practiced regularly by women in the thirteenth century; that in the twelfth century the Order of Fontevraud gathered both monks and religious sisters under the authority of an abbess. This is a systematic study that provides a multitude of concrete examples. No aspect of feminine activity in the medieval period is neglected: administration of property, professions and commerce, intellectual life, politics, writers, educators, sovereigns, and those who enlivened the royal courts. Moreover, the author draws from the history of law and the history of events and social customs to sketch an outline of the evolution of the societal influence of women, from the freedoms and autonomy they acquired, to the decline of their public influence. This study sheds much light on the feudal and medieval periods which have so often, and mistakenly, been called a ‘dark’ age for women.