Customer Reviews

Women in Frankish Society: Marriage and the Cloister, 500-900 (The Middle ages)

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It was fascinating to me to learn, as the author says in this excellent book, that "however oppressed they appear in the light of modern criteria, medieval women were far more visible, vocal, and powerful than their sisters in antiquity." During the early medieval period the ideal of equality of the sexes as revealed in the Gospels was taken for granted; only when Christianity became more a state religion were women repressed by the male hierarchy. But for a long time women (it's important to realize that the women Wemple refers to were those of the aristocracy only) retained certain legal and inheritance rights and often shared their husbands' work and had economic power as well. One of the most important developments was the women's monasteries, separate from the men's, where intellectual as well as spiritual needs were fostered and shared with the "outside" world. It's a tragedy after so much progress had been made to find women, thanks mainly to changes in marriage laws, gradually being relegated merely to procreative and family roles. Wemple writes well: she is scholarly but not numbingly so, and the book is both informative and intriguing.

This book was one that really opened people's minds to what could be discovered about women in the early-medieval era, and it still makes for fascinating reading, particularly when she speaks about pre-Christian family patterns and the impact of conversion onm things like marriage and inheritance. Some of her theoretical framework is a bit dated now, but this is still a starting place for those interested in pre-modern women's history. It helps that, despite the fact that many of the names and situation are unfamiliar to most people, she writes the book in an enganging stule.