"Women's Voices and Roles" - The Source I discussed in Class

I found this article to be really thought provoking especially when it comes to the status of women and how class could have an effect on this. 

Meale, Carol M. "Women's Voices and Roles." A Companion to Medieval English Literature and Culture c. 1350-1500. Ed. Peter Brown. Victoria: Blackwell Publishing, 2007. 

These are the notes that I took on it, but I would highly suggest reading the whole article, especially if you are considering writing a paper on something related to this topic.

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·        Women thought to be very emotional (thanks Eve!) which was dangerous to women and mankind in general… the nature of women according to popular books like Acrene Wisse was to act in an emotional way that was a gateway to evil and damnation unless they were vigilant

·        Question when investigating women’s history: complex one of how women contended with this ethos within their own lives – internalize this gendered construct or negotiate with it?

·        Suggests that by looking at social, cultural and economic realities for women you can see that negotiating was primary strategy despite fact that they were considered inferior to men in MANY ways – from birth until death, women considered property of one man or another

Women, Education and Writing

·        Weird to think of women and writing during this time period together since most women illiterate, but it can be done- Julian of Norwich and Margery Kempe = two best known female authors of time, Kempe illiterate, Norwich debated, used other avenues to write

·        Most educated girls trained in nunneries, can be seen in fact that with the rise of universities (not open to women) the knowledge women had of any language besides English declined

·        Opportunity for some within elementary schooling in individual households conducted by the woman of the house or by the resident chaplain

·        Letter collections are the best representation of the voices of medieval women -à through them we see that women were aware of the local/national politics that could affect them/their families. One of best examples found in the Armburgh Papers when Joan Armburgh wrote to John Horell of Essex chewing him out for what she saw as an act of treachery by him towards her and her maternal family… not sure if she wrote or dictated the letter, but a very clear voice.

o   The Wyf of Bath and her distinct voice

·        Uniting factor in this correspondence/the books by Kempe and Norwich = mixture of colloquial and technical (legal/religious) which characterizes language used

Patronage, Books and Social Networking

·        Assessing women’s roles in patronage of the arts easier in some areas than others. Architecture mainly for men but also heavily dependent on class and wealth of the woman … lower class women typically patronized places of devotion

·        Interpretation of the patronage of manuscripts/paintings not so difficult… usually written names in/on them, better records

·        But well documented lives of women are RARE

Women, Power and Status

·        Power/privilege came with cost – widowhood, had to involve themselves in admin/management of their estates, making sure that all was in order until their HUSBAND’s heir came of age

·        Men away from land because abroad in war with France or seeing to affairs elsewhere, so had to shoulder the burden of management

·        Urban women more free to make choices about their lives than gentry/noble contemporaries…some women able to carry on the trades of their husbands while they did not remarry, but paid less

·        Women the most marginalized when they became prostitutes à stigmatized by not being allowed to live within the enclosed walls of the city, other ways of marking women who were prostitutes written into city ordinances

·        Viewed as morally debased by the sin of lust à the “Daughters of Eve”

·        May have come from lower social classes, but not necessarily exclusive to lower class

Conclusion

·        Two predominant themes: dynamic changes took place in English society from 1350à, due to these changes, women’s roles were diverse and themselves were in a state of flux

·        The varying fortunes of women discussed here demonstrate that all generalizations must be deconstructed… by doing this we start to recover the history of women

Tying it into Canterbury Tales

·        The Wyf of Bath à a very distinctive voice despite not being literate and “dictating” her story to Chaucer. This is similar to the Armburgh paper which shows the distinctive voice of Joan (the writer of the letter) and her awareness of the local/national issues of the time

·        Despite not being literate, it’s very apparent that the Wyf isn’t stupid and knows what’s going on. She realizes the injustices being done to women, and she calls people on it… the “Thou sayest passages”

·        The idea that while men want women because they are pretty or chaste or good around the house etc (AND not because of who they are as people) but yet women are the evil influence

·        Going back to the idea that women were considered to be emotional and “Eve-like” ‘Thow seyst’ passage p. 223 l. 337-339… she’s acknowledging this idea and calling it ridiculous by comparing women to cats in order to show how ridiculous it is

·        Class of women matters too

·        Reeve’s tale the women are objects to be slept with and aren’t given names (lower class women) but the Wyf of Bath who has a higher status is given an entire tale and auto-bio prologue for herself

·        Other women of higher status are also named… like Emelye in the Knight’s Tale and even the Prioress is named (high position as probable daughter of a member of the upper class/aristocracy AND as a nun/member of the church)

I hope this is somewhat helpful!!