Image of women in the Middle Ages
Introduction
The idea of medieval society is strongly marked by a theological and masculine vision. The image we have of women in the Middle Ages is total subordination. Lately, historiography has emphasized making a history of women who, far from denying the male and subordinate role of women at that time, has allowed to clarify and understand. In this article, on the one hand, we want to talk about how women were represented in the Middle Ages. On the other, we will talk about the different roles that women played in medieval society.
Developing
Representations of women in the Middle Ages, the medievo was a period in which the Catholic Church had enormous political, economic and social power. The clergy were practically the only ones who knew how to read and write. Thus, through written works, but, above all, through the pulpit, they had the enormous power to build imaginary. From the Catholic Church, two were the images that were built of women. One, embodied in the figure of the Virgin Mary, who had virtues that only holy women could have. The other way of representing women was based on the figure of Eva.
This figure of Genesis endowed women with negative ideas. They would be associated with evil, darkness, imperfection, dirt, deception and disease. Women symbolized temptation and seduction in front of man. They were the form of sin, the last temptation. This satanized woman, associated with evil, is the one that generated the figure of the witch. The witch was not only a representation of women, but were considered real beings. Therefore, a persecution began against them that had its peak in the Modern Age. Women who enjoyed any kind of independence were prone to be considered witches.
Every woman was included to escape the gender roles established and that would be out of male control through the family. Solte, single or widowed women, poor, old, foreigners, melancholic, healing. "Woman is the form of sin". According to Anna Caballé, the demonization of women as a form of sin was a strategy used by the Catholic Church. Given the obligation of the priests to fulfill celibacy, the Church had to face the male sexual desire to convince men to be part of it.
“The intelligence of ecclesiastical power is to locate repression in an uncontrollable and vital aspect of human nature, and, therefore, to place the individual in permanent conflict between his desire and the prohibition of it, so that he cannot escape the feeling to the feelingof guilt.”Women in the literary field: in medieval literature there is an ambivalence in the way of representing women. On the one hand, there is the conception of women in courtly culture. Thus, in Provencal poetry, Cortés Love and Bona tired, where love stories were told in which the ladies were praised. These were admired by men, represented as taxpayers.
On the other hand, the bad tired was developed, in which women were trying to ridicule the public’s comicity. In addition to the bad tired in Provencal poetry, didactic works were also created in which women were described with the sole objective of defending the supremacy of the male against women, according to Anna Caballe. “It is an envious, light, irascible, greedy sex, excessive in the voracious beverage;Enjoy with revenge, you always long to overcome without fear of any crime or deception in order to overcome;By lawful and illegal means he wishes to obtain what he wants and nothing that is pleasant seems illegitimate ”.
Many were the literary characters that were created to represent women with certain negative characters. Some were Melusina, La Celestina, Geneva, Viviana or Morgana. All these women represented that condition of the evil woman above in the text of Íñigo de Mendoza. Medical arguments about the woman’s body One of the most recurring medieval topics of female character was that of female sexual sexuality. This topic that, once again, wanted to defend a privileged position of man, was endorswhich, once he has known intercourse, can exhaust the male and make it sick."
At the same time that this negative speech of women developed, another type of literature exalted an ideal type of woman, a virtuous woman, perfect married woman, etc. These arguments were an effort to reduce women to the domestic sphere. Now, what was the daily life of women in the Middle Ages? The daily life of women in the Middle Ages. Feudal society was strongly marked by social stratification. Thus, depending on the birthplace of a person, it became part of one estate or other. The mobility between estates was practically stagnant,
Therefore, if a person was born in the peasantry, his whole life would remain in that estate. Thus, depending on the estate to which women belonged, they performed one role or another within society. Thus, in the Middle Ages we can find women who exercised prostitution, peasant women or artisan, religious, noble and even queens. The lowest strata: prostitutes, peasants and urban women. Prostitutes were the lowest stratum. They were marginalized women, exposed to all kinds of violence, venereal diseases and public clerk.
Generally, women who exercised prostitution were poor widows with children or violated women who had been rejected by their families. As is the case today, there was a double standard with this profession. Despite how bad view it was, its exercise was accepted normally, since, according to J -studies. Rossiaud was a way to protect marriage and avoid aggression against young girls. The widest estate of the medieval population pyramid was formed by the peasantry and urban workers. Within this estate, women were relegated to the domestic space where, in addition to participating in the family economy, they performed the care tasks.
Recent research are demonstrating that outside the domestic field they also carried out economic activities of different kinds. Thus, they worked as lingerie, shackles, shoemakers, clusters, etc. Religious women in the Middle Ages: in the Middle Ages the figure of the nun had a lot of prominence, since many women decided to dedicate their lives to the Lord. Some of them felt the call, but mostly the reasons that made them enter a convent were four:
- Have greater independence and freedom.
- Poverty.
- Get forgiveness of sins committed.
- For being widows.
These women were a very heterogeneous, highly valued and cultivated group. Some of the female figures that have not been invisible belong to this group. An example of this is Santa Teresa de Jesús. The women who belonged to the nobility also performed their activities in the domestic sphere: control of the domestic service, education and care of the children or being aware of the family economy when the husband was absent from the home.
conclusion
Education was one of the differences between these women and those of the previous section. The female figure was considered an instrument for procreation and a political tool. Thus, through marriage, political pacts were sealed among families. In this scenario, women had a secondary role, although there were times when they could acquire a leading role and accumulate a lot of power, as in the case of some queens.
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