Chattels — or What Medieval Women were NOT

OK. I admit it. I’m going to get on my soap-box. This is a rant. But I’ve had enough. I’m sick and tired of hearing that women were “mere chattels” in the Middle Ages. It is NOT true. It is true that they did not enjoy the same rights and privileges as 21^st century women in advanced, post-industrial, Western societies, but they were not at any time in medieval Europe (800 – 1500 AD)  “chattels.”

Let me start by reminding you what the word chattel means. Webster’s Dictionary, Second College Edition, states that a chattel is: “a movable item of personal property, as a piece of furniture, an automobile, a head of livestock.” In short, a chattel is by definition property, an object without rights. It is something that can be disposed of, sold, or destroyed by the owner. Humans who are property are called slaves. Women in Medieval Europe were not slaves—of their husbands or anyone else. Period.

I could end this essay here, but the persistence of the misconception induces me to go a little farther.

The Christianization of Europe led to the gradual elimination of slavery across Western Europe. Former slaves were transformed into “serfs,” whose mobility and freedom was greatly inhibited, but who also enjoyed rights. Most simply and importantly, serfs could not be bought or sold—not even female serfs. Female serfs were not chattels—of their lords or their husbands.

    Furthermore, nothing — absolutely nothing — gives women more power and status than wealth. In societies where women cannot own property (e.g. ancient Athens) they are not only powerless to take their fate into their own hands in an emergency, they are also generally viewed by men as worthless.  Where women can possess, pass-on, and control wealth they are viewed with respect and coveted not only as sexual objects but as contributors to a man’s status and fortune (e.g. ancient Sparta.)

 

Eleanor of Aquitaine was one of the richest heiresses in history.

Medieval women across Europe could inherit, own and dispose of property. The laws obviously varied from realm to realm and over time, but the fundamental right of women to inherit was widespread and reached from the top of society (women could bequeath kingdoms) to the bottom, where peasant women could also inherit and transmit the hereditary rights to their father’s lands, mill or shop. Middle class women such as guildsman’s wives could inherit whole businesses. This made them very valuable as wives.

Widows were particularly well protected. Beyond what they personally inherited they had a right to a share of their deceased husband’s property. For noblewomen that could be vast estates, for poor women maybe little more than some furnishings and bedclothes, but the point is that their situation reflected their husband’s estate not their sex.

Women could learn and engage in trades and business. Skills even more than property foster economic independence and empowerment because property can be lost — in a fire, an invasion, from imprudence and debt — but skills are mobile and enduring, as long as one remains healthy enough to pursue one’s profession. Women in the Middle Ages could learn a variety of trades from brewer and baker to silk-maker, weaver, dyer and more.

4   Medieval society was hierarchical. A woman’s status was dictated by her class more than her sex. A woman of the nobility had more respect and power than a man of the middle classes, and a middle class woman had more respect and power than a peasant man. Women of higher social class could command, control, and indeed oppress men of lower status. 

Women who ruled kingdoms — whether Eleanor of Aquitaine or Melusinde of Jerusalem — and wielded power over noblemen, knights and bishops were not “chattels.” Women who wrote theology and corresponded with popes and emperors and controlled the wealth and inhabitants of religious communities like Hildegard von Bingen were not “chattels.” Women who pursued trades and ran business, amassing fortunes while holding authority over journeymen and apprentices were not “chattels.”

Another factor in the increased status of women in the Middle Ages was the spread of Christianity. In fact it can be argued that Christianity itself was the single most important factor in increasing the status of women in Europe. 

Stop! Forget all the feminist literature you’ve read (or have heard other people talk about without bothering to actually read) which characterizes the “Church” as a patriarchal, misogynous and sexist institution. I don’t want to talk about “equal rights,” ordaining women, or any other issue that agitates modern women. Let’s go back to basics:

Nothing degrades or devalues women more than polygamy. Fatima Mernisse (a Muslim Professor of Sociology) notes: “Polygamy…enhances men’s perception of themselves as primarily sexual beings and emphasizes the sexual nature of the conjugal unit. Moreover, polygamy is a way for the man to humiliate the woman…. ‘Debase a woman by bringing in another one in [to the house].’”[1] The Christian Church diligently opposed polygamy and succeeded in eliminating it from Christian society before the start of the Middle Ages.

Divorce is pre-industrial societies disproportionately benefits men and harms women. I understand that modern (Western) women want the right to divorce, but modern women in advanced, western societies have the benefit of birth control, education, equal opportunity, and many other hard won rights. In the Middle Ages, when women did not enjoy all those privileges/rights, divorce was (and in many non-Christian societies still IS) used overwhelming by men, almost never by women. Divorce enables men (but not women) to discard partners who have grown old, fat, less attractive or simply failed to produce children. In the absence of polygamy, which allows men to simply add another wife to replace the one they’ve grown tired of, divorce is the best way for men to ensure their personal satisfaction with their sexual partner at little personal cost.  The fate of most repudiated wives, on the other hand, was (and is) dismal. 

The Christian Church’s insistence on marriage as a life bond was a truly revolutionary innovation that dramatically increased the status and financial security of women. If a man could not simply toss a woman out and get a new wife, he had no choice but to try to come to terms with the wife he had. His wife was elevated from interchangeable sexual partner to life-time partner. Yes, I know a bad marriage can be hell, but a woman in the 6^th, 7^th or 8^th century couldn’t just move to a new city, get a new job and start a new life. Her only option was going back to her own family (if they’d have her) and generally becoming the resented and humiliated “reject,” kicked around and abused by her sisters, sisters-in-law etc.  And, yes, men, particularly wealthy and powerful men, in Christian kingdoms in the Middle Ages still found ways to set aside their wives, but the Church’s stance made it more difficult, time-consuming and expensive. The system wasn’t perfect, but it was a whole lot better than what had gone before—and still prevails in many parts of the non-Christian world. 

3 

Last but not least, contrary to what you have heard people say, the Roman Catholic Church was not always and unremittingly misogynous. Yes, I know, you can find all sorts of quotes to prove the contrary. But “the Church” is not in fact monolithic or static. An 11th century French bishop went on record saying: “Of all the things that God has given for human use, nothing is more beautiful or better than a good woman.”[2] The 13th Century Master-General of the Dominican Order went even further and catalogued women’s virtues, noting that God made woman not from “slime” (as He made man) but from a rib, and pointing out that God made woman not from a man’s foot that he might “esteem her his servant” but from his rib so she would be his “helpmate." He also noted that at Christ’s resurrection, it was a woman to whom He first appeared — a hugely important theological point, by the way.[3]

 

Most important, the mother of Christ was venerated above all other saints in the Middle Ages. The rosary evolved, and Mary’s status as an intermediary between man and God was propagated. Medieval Catholicism thus gave to a women a status unknown in any other religion: Mary was revered not for her fertility or her ability to satisfy man’s lust, but for her virtues: love, generosity, kindness, forgiveness etc. Furthermore, the Virgin Mary inspired imitation, and soon there were a host of other female saints revered for their piety and devotion to God even onto martyrdom. 

On a more mundane level, however, the Medieval Church offered women places of refuge from the violent world around them. Convents offered women an opportunity to pursue scholarship and avoid the often wretched life of wife and mother. Abbesses were usually aristocratic women with excellent connections to the powerful families of their society. As such they could be politically influential, and carried on correspondence with everyone from the pope to kings and emperors.  Some transcended their roles in exceptional ways, such as Hildegard von Bingen, who is revered to this day as a composer, writer and philosopher. But even less exalted and less well-connected women in religious orders could do things like run orphanages and hospices that were above and beyond the purely domestic or commercial activities of their secular sisters.

So, in conclusion, were medieval women equal to men? No. Did they have the same rights and privileges? No. Could they do everything that men did? No. Were they often victims of violence and injustice? Certainly. But the world is not made up of black and white, pure good and pure evil, perfect equality or pure oppression. European women in the Middle Ages enjoyed far more status, freedom and economic empowerment than hundreds of millions of women living in the world today. Please don’t refer to them as “chattels.”

Thank you.

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[1] Fatima Mernisse, Beyond the Veil: Male-Female Dynamics in Modern Muslim Society, Indiana University Press, 1987, p. 48.

[2] Toni Mount, The Medieval Housewife and Other Women of the Middle Ages, Amberley, 2014, p.78.

[3] Ibid.


In all my novels I attempt to portray women in roles reflective of their historical place in the society of the age described. The Balian trilogy contains a number of strong female characters, both good and bad.

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Women in the Kingdom of Jerusalem

The crusader states, established at the beginning of the 12 century, rapidly developed unique political institutions and their own legal traditions. One of the most interesting ways in which they set themselves apart from contemporary societies was the prominent role played by women.  I

In the surrounding Muslim world, of course, women had neither names nor faces, much less a voice, in public. In the Byzantine Empire, on the other hand, women enjoyed considerable freedom, wealth, education and influence, but they did not directly hold power.  In Western Europe, the 12^th century saw several very powerful female rulers, notably the Empress Matilda and Eleanor of Aquitaine, yet the crusader kingdoms stand out because the high status of women in the Holy Land was more comprehensive and institutionalized than in either the Eastern Empire or the Western Europe.

This exceptional position for women probably evolved out of the repeated failure of the ruling dynasties to produce male heirs.  A look at the succession in the Kingdom of Jerusalem illustrates this well. When Baldwin II died in 1131, he was succeeded by his daughter, Melisende, who ruled jointly with her husband Fulk of Anjou (grandfather by his first marriage of Henry II of England). When Fulk died in 1143, Melisende remained Queen of Jerusalem, and ruled jointly with her eldest son, Baldwin III.  Although her son eventually side-lined her, it was only after a struggle in which several powerful barons and most of the clergy sided with the Queen. At Baldwin III’s death in 1163, his heir was his brother Amalric I, but Amalric’s heir was the ill-fated Baldwin IV, the Leper King, who could have no children.  This made his sisters (and through them and their husbands) his heirs.  At Baldwin’s death, the crown passed first to his sister Sibylla’s young son, Baldwin V, and, after his death, to her and her husband, Guy de Lusignan.  At Sibylla’s death, Guy lost his right to the crown (in the eyes of the Barons of Outremer), and it passed instead to Baldwin IV’s other sister Isabella and her successive husbands.  When Isabella died, she was succeeded by her only child, a daughter, Marie, and she conferred the kingship on her husband, John de Brienne, before dying giving birth to yet another girl, Yolanda (or Isabelle), who passed the crown of Jerusalem to her husband, Friedrich II, the Holy Roman Emperor.

In short, in the century between the death of Baldwin II and the ascension of Friedrich II, the crown of Jerusalem passed through the female line no less than ten times! Furthermore, the situation in the crusader states and baronies was similar, if not quite so dramatic; that is, the title to baronies repeatedly passed through heiress rather than heirs. This fact alone would have increased the importance of women, but it is significant that these queens (and countesses and ladies) were not passive vessels.

Melisende was Queen in her own right, commanded loyalty and support among her vassals and forced both her husband and later her son to take her political wishes into account.  Sibylla forced upon the kingdom a man patently unsuitable for the kingship and soon detested by her brother, the reigning King, and the majority of the barons.  When her son Baldwin V died, Sibylla – not Guy – was crowned by the patriarch, and she placed the crown on Guy’s head as her consort.  Furthermore, Guy’s vassals viewed their oaths to him absolved the moment Sibylla died – despite Richard of England’s determined support for Guy.  In the end, even the Lionheart gave up and recognized that without Sibylla, Guy could not be King of Jerusalem. The crown passed to Sibylla’s sister, Isabella. Isabella conferred the crown on three men in succession, Conrad of Montferrat, Henri de Champagne and finally AImery de Lusignan. Notably, Henri de Champagne, a nephew of both Philip II of France and Richard I of England (his mother was a daughter of Eleanor of Aquitaine by Louis VII), never even called himself King of Jerusalem; he remained Count of Champagne, while Isabella was Queen of Jerusalem. Her daughter’s husband, John of Brienne, also lost his title of King of Jerusalem at his wife’s death, although he acted as regent for his infant daughter until she wed Friedrich II.

The dynastic importance of women was both cause and effect of a uniquely high status for women in the crusader kingdoms that took many other forms. Not only did women act as regents and receive homage from vassals, they enjoyed a freedom of movement and opinion that scandalized the Muslim – and sometimes the Christian – world.  Some claim Amalric I’s first wife, Agnes de Courtney, was set aside because of her immorality; certainly she was accused of having affairs with a prelate of the church (later the Patriarch of Jerusalem, Heraclius) and with Aimery de Lusignan. Her daughter Sibylla is alleged to have had an affair with Baldwin d’Ibelin before taking Guy de Lusignan to her bed.  A contemporary claimed that Baldwin IV wanted to hang Guy for “debauching” a princess of Jerusalem, but was then persuaded to let his sister marry her lover.  It was behavior such as this that led many in the West to believe Jerusalem had been lost because of God’s wrath with the immoral Christian rulers.

Yet while the antics of the royal women may indeed have deserved censure, the higher status of women generally meant that widows in the crusader kingdoms exercised far more control over their property and their lives. SIbylla is the most prominent example, but she was not alone in choosing her second husband. Constance of Antioch chose Reynald de Chatillon, and Maria Comnena chose Balian d’Ibelin, just to name two other prominent examples. In short, young girls were married often at very tender ages to boys or men of their parents’ choice, but widows had the power, property and right to choose their own husbands – and often did.

The higher status of women also impacted their daily lives. Upper class women were literate as they could not have otherwise conducted their affairs, and they owned books. Some accounts stress that they rode astride for greater safety in an always precarious environment, something that gave them greater mobility. They did not have to go veiled in public, although women almost certainly covered their faces from the ravaging effects of the summer sun when out of doors.  But perhaps most important, they were entitled to their opinions, free to voice them and often heeded by their male contemporaries. Compared to their faceless and voiceless sisters in the Muslim world, this was undoubtedly the greatest privilege of all.