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CLARK HIST 252 - Royal and Aristocratic Women in the Middle Ages

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ROYAL AND ARISTOCRATIC WOMEN IN THE MIDDLE AGES In the early and high middle ages royal and aristocratic women were often both politically and economically powerful. Because of the mainly feudal organization of society during these centuries, women could be lords or vassals. If the ladies were liege lords, then they controlled their vassals just like the men. As land was the source of status and wealth, and as women could claim ownership in land, then they too were able to reap the benefits. While women generally did not fight in the wars, they could hire stand-ins, which process became formalized with the scutage fee, a monetary payment in lieu of forty days in arms for a lord. In the late Middle Ages, as nation states developed with their bureaucracies, high-born women lost much of their power, except for some specific women who ruled in their own right. These upper class women throughout the one thousand years of the middle ages, acted in a variety of capacities, and it is difficult to generalize as they had different personalities and circumstances. We can point to the areas where their contributions were evident, with land and its connections determining their power. Women could inherit land in their own right, and by marriage increase their holdings with their dowry. If a young child became king when his father died, then his mother would often-times be regent. These women, by endowing land, giving benefices to churches, hospitals, and other charitable organizations, thus they could affect which place was economically viable. Many of these women defended their castles both economically and militarily if their husbands were gone. Management of the estates ensured that these women gained valuable administrative experience including financial and judicial matters. A woman's ability to carry out her prescribed role as an aristocrat, usually meant that she had acquired schooling either in a convent, was tutored at home, or occasionally she learned with boys in local schools. Religious schools produced virtually all the great intellectual women of the middle ages. Unfortunately, with the establishment and then dominance of universities for education, women's educational level declined because they were not allowed in the universities. Interesting thought, it has been found that noble women in the middle ages were more educated than noble men. These ladies learned to read and write, and to read prayer and poetry books. Heloise, who died in 1163, was extremely well-educated. Usually she is dismissed as the lover of the famous scholar Peter Abelard, who was castrated for his seduction of Heloise, whom he was tutoring as the time. Later Heloise entered a convent, eventually becoming an Abbess, thereby utilizing her private education. Queens were more2educated generally than the rest of the nobility, and these queens usually knew numerous languages including Latin. Eleanor of Aquitaine, is a wonderful example of a highly educated queen, who together with her daughter Marie of Champagne, are given credit for the establishment of the courtly love literature. The ideas of courtly love and by extension courtly love literature are still with us today, but it was during the high middle ages, in the twelve and thirteenth centuries that these ideas originated. Much scholarly research and subsequent debating of the components has ensued. While women invented the genre, it would not have been successful without the men's participation and acceptance. Basically the idea was that a man would seek the love of a woman through writing poetry, and courting her with courtesy and restraint. In order to win the love of his adored lady he must endure all the trials she imposed on him. In return, the lady would compose love songs. Usually the woman was married, so this was an adulterous affair. In the course of the medieval crusading movement, many husbands were gone from home, and this gave a single knight the opportunity to woe his ladylove, but he was the vassal and she the lord. At knightly tournaments, a favor of his ladylove was worn by the competing knight, usually a scarf. Courtly love can be also seen as a protest against the sexual standards of the Church, and a chance for women to elevate their image by demanding respect and courtesy. Many courtly romances such as the stories of Tristan and Isolde and Guenivere and Lancelot were composed during these years, and reinforce the popularity, profusion, and infusion of this literature on society. Eleanor of Aquitaine patronized authors of courtly romances and poetry. Her daughter, Marie of Champagne, was the patroness of the Poet Chretien de Troyes and Andreas Capellanus, who recorded the rules of courtly love in great detail, after Marie established the famous charter. Troyes was the poet who gave King Arthur his round table, knights, and most all the other additions, that were not part of the sixth century Celtic King Arthur's tales. Both ladies were models and inspiration for other courts of Western Europe. In the fourteenth century, Alighieri Dante, author of The Divine Comedy, has his ideal courtly love lady, Beatrice, lead him through all ten heavens to the highest one, where he was granted a short glimpse of divinity. Perhaps this work is the ultimate statement of the concept of courtly love. To support the similarities between both genders of the aristocratic class, they had the same leisure-time activities, hunting, playing chess and backgammon, dancing, singing, and recitation of poetry and stories. Noble women knew how to ride horses well. They even bred falcons, and according3to the scholar John of Salisbury, women were better at breeding falcons than men. Falcons were used to hunt with, and many illuminated manuscripts depict women with bows and arrows aimed at their prey. Marital and family customs for the noble women were predicated on their families' position and wealth. Aristocratic women's marriages were arranged for political purposes, and generally the girl was younger at her wedding than for the peasants. Often times these marriages were contracted while the infants were still in their cradle and some even before their birth. The Church tried to set the rule that betrothals could not be earlier than the age of seven. Many young girls after the betrothals lived with their inlaws in a foreign land while awaiting the age of consummation, twelve for girls and fourteen for boys. Here again the nobility often


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