1 WOMEN’S ROLES IN SOCIETY IN MEDIEVAL TIME

2 WOMEN'S ROLES  We can put the women into five categories based on know they were known during medieval society.  Women from the class that was landed and free. (Lady of Manor)  Religious Women. (Nun)  Townswomen.(Middle class)  Women of lower Estate. (Lower Class)  Peasants

3 Lady of the Manor: Often ran manors, farms, and castles. Influential person. The authority when husband wasn’t present.

4 Religious Women: The convent was another alternative for upper class women instead of marriage. Praying, study, and work. Worked 5 to 6 hours.

5 Townswomen: Middle class women expected to.. Maintain house hold. Assist their husband in business. For Example.. Help her husband in his trade.

6 Women of lower Estate: Townswomen whose occupations needed little or no training skill. Lower middle class perhaps urban poor. Many were immigrants from countryside. Street-vendors.

7 Peasant Women: Expected to share in all their husband’s labor on the farm. Traditional household chores. Many didn’t marry due to a shortage of eligible partners.

8 TREATMENT  Upper Class: well respected.  Religious women: important role, treated with kindness but well disciplined.  Middle class: had authority in business; equally or even superior to men.  Lower Class: Poor pay  Peasants: Slaves.

9 AUTHORITY  Social Status.  Land/Property.  The richer you are the more authority you have.  Lower class had no authority what so ever.

10 EXAMPLES/RFERENCES FROM CLASS!!  The Wife Of Bath: Townswomen/Middleclass from Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales.  She belongs to the third group of women workers.

11 WORKS CITED  Fox, Sally. The Medieval Woman: An Illuminated Book of Days. Boston: Little, Brown and Company,  Gies, Frances and Joseph. Women in the Middle Ages. Barnes and Noble,  Robertson, D.W., Jr. " 'And for My Land Thus Hastow Mordred Me?' Land Tenure, the Cloth Industry, and the Wife of Bath." Chaucer Review 13 ( ):  Stuart, Susan Mosher. Women in Medieval Society. University of Pennsylvania Press, 1976.