#susan papino

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“An examination of the economic abilities associated with women in the German, Lowland, and Italian regions of medieval Western Europe reveal that women had the capacity to obtain sizable amounts of land through marriage customs and inheritance laws, and could partake in the public economic realm through the production of textiles and the selling of goods. A medieval women’s influence extends even beyond the realm of economic power, however. A study of the politics of these three regions during the Middle Ages demonstrates that the political position of women was often influential.

The same German society that allowed women to partake in textile production and to acquire wealth and property through inheritance laws also recognized women as citizens. Citizenship in such cities as Lille, Bruges, Frankfurt, and Leiden during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries involved a process of registration; according to the records of Bruges, Leiden, and Frankfurt specifically, independent women were often registered “because in these cities citizenship was easily acquired and was obligatory for almost all workers.”

As “co-managers and co-owners of the household and its property...[women] were inevitably full members of citizenries with households as their constituent units.” German urban women, through their citizenship, fulfilled the “the objective qualifications for governmental positions,” although paradoxically, they were still barred from obtaining such positions by the male-dominated politics of most cities.

The German poem of Ruodlieb again provides an important insight into the actual traditions that governed a woman’s place of power in noble family life. During one of its episodes, Ruodlieb is hosting a banquet at his home, and his mother is in attendance. Ruodlieb “commanded one higher chair to be placed for his mother, so that she in this way she could be seen to be mistress.”

The poem goes on to mention that “by giving honor to his mother in this way, and holding her as his liege-lady, he earned praise not only from the people, but from the almighty a crown and everlasting life in heaven.”Ruodlieb, a noble, allowed his mother to occupy a position of power at the table, and further, such an allowance endeared Ruodlieb not only to his subjects, but also to the higher power.

In the Low Countries, women were afforded a political role as participants in public political acts. Ellen E. Kittell, in her extensive article “Women, Audience, and Public Acts in Medieval Flanders,” describes the integral roles that women employed regarding the link between public performances and law-making in fourteenth century Flemish society. Flanders was unique in that it was little affected by Roman law and rather maintained “a fundamentally Germanic system of law and custom that was based more on public negotiation among groups than on the arbitrary decisions of constituted authorities.”

As Flanders’ thriving commercial and industrial economy grew around the eleventh century, Flemish communes began to utilize citizen participation by allowing a broad cross-section of their population, a cross-section that included the women of the city, to participate in political affairs. Women thus had “routine appearances in public as chief and effective agents in the variety of oral-aural transactions...were countesses and castellans... [and part of] the legal and commercial lives of most cities”.

These public audience law systems in turn allowed women to gain influential positions of power, such as Countess Jeanne in 1206 and Countess Margaret in 1280 acquiring the role of ruling over a county. Even single women were systematically afforded similar rights to perform actions in these public hearings as their married counterparts; their independent status did not disenfranchise them from participating in the existing public political arena.

As in the German and Lowland regions, the political climate of Italy during the Middle Ages provided women with definite political abilities that would not be mirrored in the centuries to come. Although the political systems of Italy differed from those of the northern European civilization, as did their economic policies, the prevalence of powerful Italian queens during the early to mid-Middle Ages demonstrates the type of political power that Italian women could indeed wield.

Joan Kelley discusses in her article the two queens Giovanna I of Naples ruling in 1343 and Giovanna II of Naples ruling in 1414. Giovanna I of Naples was designated as heir to rule over the significant kingdom of Naples, Provence, and Sicily, and Giovanna II was similarly afforded this leadership position through the death of her brother.

Besides the powerful queen figure, other feminine rulers also prevailed in medieval Italian political culture. Matilda of Tuscany, who ruled during the eleventh century, reigned as a powerful countess in this region of Italy. She played an essential role in the conflict between Pope Gregory and Emperor Henry IV. Upon being excommunicated from the church due to his defiance to the Pope, Henry IV attacked Rome and drove Gregory into exile.

It was Matilda’s armies that defended the Pope’s church both during the Pope’s lifetime and after his death. Further, Matilda persistently excluded her husband from handling her property and allowed it to remain solely under her control. As with the other women Italian rulers mentioned above, Matilda maintained a definite sense of autonomy, and had been granted a political leadership position.

There, indeed, was a place in the economic and political sectors of society in the German, Lowland, and Italian regions of medieval Europe for the female population. The feudal and family-oriented government structure allowed for women to acquire political power, and the important economic roles that women played in society further influenced their significant status in the cultures of these regions---as David Herlihy states, “women in the early Middle Ages...played a major role in the display of kin connections; they were also stations in the flow of wealth down the generations; they were supervisors, managers, producers.”

Through changes in the political, social, and economic systems of each region, women gradually began to lose much of the economic and political powers that they previously enjoyed, however. In order to demonstrate the extent to which women suffered a loss in status and influential visibility as the Middle Ages approached the opening of the Renaissance, it is prudent to again analyze the German, Lowland, and Italian regions specifically and the changes that occurred in these areas over time. By comparing the society of the later Middle Ages and early modern period to that of the earlier medieval times, the disparities that existed for women are made remarkably evident.

Women in medieval German economic culture, as mentioned above, were active in the textile industries and allowed financial power through inheritance and marriage customs. An examination of the economic actions in later German society reveals a very different feminine condition, however. One of the first aspects of women’s economic involvement that was affected was their role in the textile industry. There was a general increase in both the guild and governmental regulations imposed on women workers.

Research performed by Merry Weisner cited in Judith Brown’s article states the consolidation of guilds in sixteenth and seventeenth century Nuremburg resulted in “regulations excluding women from traditional occupations and relegated them to the margins of the world of work.” In 1421 a major conflict emerged in Cologne concerning religious female weavers and local linen weavers, resulting in a restriction of the number of looms the women could operate.

In the town of Strasbourg, the later Middle Ages saw reductions in the roles of women in the woolen industry; “women at Strasbourg as indeed in many towns were reduced to helpers and auxiliaries.” And women in sixteenth century Nurnberg “successfully protested an ordinance of 1530 [that] deprived them of the right to employ maids in their workshops...their victory was only temporary,” demonstrating the losses in female influence occurring in the later years of the Middle Ages.

Other economic changes ensued regarding a women’s place in society as well. The bridegifts and morning gifts that allowed women to procure economic power through the acquirement of property underwent a series of reductions as the Middle Ages progressed. The earlier gifts often included deeds for property, while over the course of the tenth and eleventh centuries, “fewer deeds gave the wife outright ownership, and even the usufruct was generally restricted to the use of the husband and wife jointly, not to the wife exclusively.” Eventually “daughters claim on the inheritance gradually gave way to the dowry provided by her family,” and the morning gift and bridgegift customs were changed entirely.

Also, a weakening of the feudal system in Germany also accelerated the reduction of a woman’s economic role in society, for the extensive “powers exercised by women were...largely derived from the rather irregular powers held by the great families of the age.” As the Constitutio de feudis of 1037 was passed by Konrad II, women were thereby excluded from the inheritance of fiefs, a measure which over time greatly affected their ability to obtain property and in turn an economic status in society.

To better demonstrate the assertion that women indeed did lose economic clout in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, it is useful to examine the laws of German communities during this time. Such regulations are available for the German town of Madgeburg for the year of 1261. One law providing information about the measures that are taken after the death of a husband states that a widow “shall have no share in his property except what he has given her in court, or has appointed for her dower...if the man has no provisions for her, her children must support her as long as she does not remarry.”

Unlike the customs described in such studies as that conducted by John Freed concerning the Archdiocese of Salzburg, married German women in later medieval society had a very tenuous grasp on property. The economic power that women could accrue through land inheritance prior the later Middle Ages is not at all mirrored in the inheritance laws described for this specific thirteenth century German town

Other evidence exists that demonstrates the economic losses women incurred during the later Middle Ages as well. The Ladies Tournament, a German tale of courtly behavior composed by an anonymous author during the thirteenth century, discusses the proprieties and traditions associated with noble marriage and family life. Although the general pretense of the story is of a community of men and a community of women conversing over matters of courtly rules rather than being an epic tale, its purpose is similar to Ruodlieb’s in that it provides insight into the traditions governing marriage in German society during that time.

In Sarah Westphal-Wihl’s analysis of the story, a marriage is described, as it is in the story of Ruodlieb; however, rather than an exchange of dowries, “the only marital assignment mentioned in the text is the dowry...there is no hint of a contribution from the groom’s side, or of any informal exchange of gifts.”

According to Westphal, the dowry emerged as a custom in Germany by 1200, and although the earlier customs of morning gifts and other gifts on the part of the husband still existed, they are not mentioned in the text of The Tournament of Ladies. This telling omission highlights a growing emphasis on the dowry of a woman, and the concurrent diminishment of a man’s gift to his bride. From the time of Ruodlieb during the eleventh century to that of the Tournament, women’s ability to acquire property and through marriage customs had been altered greatly.

The women of Germany were losing economic influence as the Middle Ages progressed, and comparable losses affected women in the Low Countries as well. Simon’s work reveals that while some “women may have occupied prominent positions in trade and in a few crafts during the thirteenth, fourteenth, and early fifteenth centuries...their numbers declined in the next decades.”

Also, like in the German regions of Europe, restrictions were increasingly placed on female industrial workers; in both Ghent and Flanders “in 1374 the wives of fullers or women of any sort were forbidden to wash any types of clothes.”

Further restrictions were also delineated concerning the economic tasks undertaken by women in beguinages: “because the beguines were able to produce goods cheaply, they found themselves drawn into disputes with the guilds and corporations who considered the beguine activities to be unfair competition.”The earlier urban culture that allowed for a high degree of female participation was doubtlessly being challenged.”

- Susan Papino, Shifting Experiences: The Changing Roles of Women in the Italian, Lowland, and German Regions of Western Europe from the Middle Ages to the Early Modern Period

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“…The evolution of medieval women in religion and among the religious institutions is conspicuously characterized by the compromising of women’s religious influence and saintly roles. Just as women no longer were afforded the opportunity for economic involvement and political leadership, their position and representation associated with the Catholic Church was similarly affected.

In order to fully demonstrate the various ways in which the course of the Middle Ages is marked by a decline in women’s religious capabilities, this section will discuss the changes in women’s religious cultures from both a general and regional perspective, again focusing on the regions of Germany, Italy, and the Low Countries. As with the political and material realms of medieval society in these diverse regions, women in the eyes of the Catholic Church were stripped of their influence with the passage of time.

Some of the most important indicators of the trends that existed regarding the role of women in early medieval religion are the general characteristics associated with female sainthood during these years. Evidence concerning a woman’s ability to achieve certain active roles in the church suggests that women were afforded opportunities to participate greatly in religious affairs.

Jane Tibbetts Schulenberg, in her article “Public and Private Roles,” states “it appears that in barbarian Europe of the early Middle Ages, women enjoyed a certain potential and indeed wider opportunities in the ‘public’ realms as confirmed by their selection to the celestial gynaeceum.” Further, women in the early Middle Ages were sought by their male counterparts in church matters to “aid in missionary work, to establish churches, monasteries, and centers of education.”

Although typically denied access to the secular church hierarchy, women “were rewarded with recognition of sainthood for their roles as pious queens, abbesses, consecrated virgins/nuns, hermits, and martyrs.” Many of the specific women saints from the early medieval period were engaged from the cloister as powerful abbesses who played an important role in the founding of monastic institutions. The trends that existed regarding women and the acquisition of sainthood clearly demonstrate female religious as often obtaining their saintly status through good works, learning, and leadership.

Within the context of this broadly defined characterization of female saints and religious women in the early Middle Ages, an examination of the specific religious experiences of women in particular regions can further exemplify this point. Following the pattern of the above section, the region of Germany is the first to be explored. Schulenburg maintains that the “golden age” of German females saints during which new religious opportunities arose occurred during the tenth century.

The vitae of specific saints who were recognized during this time exemplify the extent to which this time period really was the height of female religious power in Germany. Saint Hadeloga of the eight century, the founder and abbess of the Kitzingen monastery, has been remembered for being charitably involved in various construction and building activities in the surrounding community; it was under her leadership that a stone bridge was constructed over the river Main at Kitzngen, a fact is asserted emphatically in the German tradition.

Other German saints who have been associated with participating directly in such projects are abbess-saint Landrada of the seventh century, who aided with her “own hands” in the construction of a church for Saint Mary, and the eighth-century abbess- saints Herlindis and Renildis played an integral role in the actual building of a monastery at Eyck. Further, Charlotte Woodford’s description of German religious female’s scholastic achievements, “Women as Historians: The Case of Early Modern German Convents” notes that there are “many well-known writings from nuns from the medieval period”.

To complete this survey of the roles that women could employ in the religious sector of German society, it is useful to examine the text of a specific woman: Hildegard of Bingen. Hailed as one of the “foremost women of her day,” Hildegard was an abbess, author, and respected mystic during the twelfth century. Although her example is exceptional and her actions cannot be viewed as the prevailing norm for medieval Christian women, her writings do provide important insight into the relations that a woman had with male religious counterparts.

An excerpt of one of her writings, “Letter to her Nuns” reveals the extent to which she was able to exert power and authority. In this letter, which was written to describe the manner in which Hildegard had secureed the land for their monastery, there are several allusions to Hildegard’s respected status. She writes “I came here with the approval of my superiors and with God’s aid I have freely taken possession of it for myself and those who follow me.”

Hildegard had the endorsement of prevailing authorities, and was also a charismatic leader with many followers. She continues: “[I] demanded from the abbot named above the freedom of the place and the possessions of my daughters..., all these things were granted to me through written contract in legal codex.” Demonstrating a definite sense of power and authority, Hildegard is allowed the power to appeal to higher authorities, and is an advocate for the women who are her followers. It is still important to recognize Hildegard’s singularity; however the words and the authoritative tone of this letter doubtlessly demonstrate a woman who maintained a powerful religious role in twelfth century Germany.

The religious development of the Low Countries differs somewhat from that of other regions, and the rise of women in the religious sector of society occurred in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, rather than in the earlier medieval period as in Germany. However, the contrast between the religious roles of women during this time compared to their diminished role during the early Renaissance years similarly mirrors the changes that occurred in the German religious culture a few centuries previous.”

- Susan Papino, Shifting Experiences: The Changing Roles of Women in the Italian, Lowland, and German Regions of Western Europe from the Middle Ages to the Early Modern Period

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“…The economic culture of industrial cities in medieval Germany provides some of the first indications of the various opportunities that existed for women in the general society of the earlier Middle Ages. The men of German cities overwhelmingly controlled urban craft guilds, codified and enforced laws that affected the lives of men and women alike, and essentially acted as the predominate authorities in religious and political affairs.

Medieval German women, however, still had noticeable roles in the production and selling of goods. As Martha C. Howell states in her article “Citizenship and Gender: Women’s Political status in Northern German Cities” women of every class in the “late medieval cities of northern Europe were active and visible participants in the public realm.” One way in which they were such “visible participants” was through manufacturing crafts; they often performed crafts that were unique to their sex. Circumstances in the German city of Cologne particularly demonstrate this phenomenon.

Cologne’s “silk-women had exclusive rights to the craft of silk-making,” and actually maintained an all-female guild in this city. Further, David Herlihy’s article “Women’s work in the Towns of Traditional Europe” asserts that Cologne, as “an important center of silk manufactures” contained two other guilds of yarn makers and gold spinners, which were also controlled by women.

The German female population was also involved in the production and sale of many items that had an integral place in the overall society. They made and sold “beer, bread, pottery, and other goods used both locally and abroad,” ran taverns and inns, brokered deals between traveling merchants and the local producers, and borrowed and lent money. While still subordinated to the general leadership of men in the societies of medieval German cities, the manufacturing and vending realms of society accepted female economic participation.

Further indications of a women’s tenable role in medieval German economics are evident in the culture’s marriage and inheritance customs. During the pre-medieval tribal period of the Germanic culture, women were allowed to enjoy “very few private rights outside the authority of the family.” However the subsequent tribal customs of the sixth, seventh, and eighth centuries, affected by the Roman influence of the civilizations that the tribes had conquered, provided for vast improvements in a women’s economic position.

The tradition of a newlywed husband presenting his bride a morgenbabe, or morning gift, after the consummation of her marriage is one such way in which the customs had changed to allow women to acquire wealth and property. According to Jo Ann McNamara and Suzanne Wemple’s article “The Power of Women Through the Family,” the morning gifts often consisted of property or other land grant. Further, evolution in the custom of a bridegift also grew to award women grants of land. Initially, the bridegift was sum of money paid by a suitor for his potential wife’s hand in marriage.

However, into the early Middle Ages “the sum gradually became a symbolic payment, and the bride received as her own an increasingly large portion of the gift contributed by the bridegroom,” allowing for women to acquire small personal land holdings. McNamara and Wemple’s research into various eleventh century land deeds cite women as being the proprietors of land obtained through the bridgegift custom; in fact, many of the deeds site women as being given “unrestricted ownership” of the property given to them through the bridegift.

While the earlier Salic laws and traditions were restrictive, the gradual modification of these customs to provide a woman with both a morning gift and a portion of her bridegift allowed German women to “acquire impressive personal domains and concomitant economic and political power.”

An analysis of medieval records relating to the Archdiocese of Salzburg performed by John B. Freed in the article “German Source Collections: the Archdiocese of Salzburg as a Case Study” provides similar information about the feminine partialities that existed in the German laws of the early middle ages. Freed’s study traces the records of ecclesiastical corporations, property acquisitions and losses, various disputes, and privileges that were associated with the Catholic church of this region.

Specifically, Freed follows the records relating to the Pettaus family lineage from 982 to late thirteenth century. According to the records, the eleventh century Pettau women “retained considerable control of their property after their marriages.” The husbands of this lineage did not alienate property barring the consent of both their wives and children, especially if the property was part of the women’s inheritance or dowry. Freed’s primary source research, thus, further confirms the extent to which women in feudal medieval German society exercised economic power and influence.

There exist additional primary source documents providing examples of ways in which women were afforded economic rights and power. Excerpts from the mid- eleventh century epic poem entitled Ruodliebfound in Jacqueline Murray’s reader Love, Marriage, and Family in the Middle Ages detail the adventures of the knight, Ruodlieb, and “reveal much about sexual morality and the customs and values governing marriage among the Germanic aristocracy.” At one point in Ruodlieb’s quest, he oversees the marriage between a young woman and man from the German noble class.

The young man states, “I wish this lady to be betrothed to me as my own, so you may be witnesses before me and, I pray, willing ones, when we exchange dowries as is the custom.” The words that are spoken about the “exchanging of dowries” are particularly telling. The word “exchange” signifies that the dowries may be equivalent in size and value; while the women in this marriage must present her husband with a dowry, so must he present her with a valuable gift.

Further, it is important to note that the author delineates these exchanging actions as being “the custom,” highlighting the widespread nature of such economic acts as this. Corresponding with the traditions analyzed in the secondary sources above, these details from the story of Ruodlieb further support the idea that German women in the earlier Middle Ages were economically endowed by the gifts they received from their husbands upon marriage.

German society doubtlessly provided women with the ability to perform fundamental economic functions, as well as the possibility of acquiring property and influence through marriage customs. Studying the culture of pre-modern Low Country culture, however, provides even further evidence supporting the argument that women in medieval Europe were indeed allowed many economic opportunities.

The term “Low Countries” refers to the cities and states existing in the areas now known as Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands. Differing from both the German and southern European societies, the medieval Low Country culture allowed women a unique place in the economic sector of the urban economy. Walter Simon’s in-depth study of the facets of the Lowland religious beguinages Cities of Ladies: Beguine Communities in the Medieval Low Countries 1200-1565 reveals that there was “a wide involvement of women in economic production”, most notably the manufacturing textile industries.

Simons also maintains that vignettes, law codes, court and guild records, contracts and other sources from Low Country archives depict women as “innkeepers, cloth merchants, painters, fishwives...and teachers.”

Further, the inheritance customs of medieval Low Country culture allowed for women to acquire economic influence in society. The restrictive economic nature of a dowry, which was a tangible collection of money, goods, and property given to a man from the family of his prospective wife, did not negatively affect a women’s economic role after entering a marriage. Women in such places as Flanders could actually “inherit from their parents like their brothers...and therefore did not need a dowry to marry.”Inheritance customs such as these that did utilize a dowry “favored the continuity of small enterprises and encouraged women to take a role in them.”

Also, the cultural traditions relating to a woman’s economic status during marriage further demonstrates women’s economic opportunities in the medieval Low Countries. Married women and widows exerted “secure rights...to certain kinds of property, including houses, in most parts of the Low Countries.” An example of how these customs influenced a woman’s economic power is evident in the formation of beguinages, which will be discussed in greater detail later in this study.

According to Simons, these independent religious communities of women had a high incidence of women patrons. And such a correlation suggests that with their assured property rights, women were afforded “the freedom to endow a religious foundation of their choice.” Married women in the Low Countries, according to popular custom, could own land and make important decisions about this property, often independently.”

- Susan Papino, Shifting Experiences: The Changing Roles of Women in the Italian, Lowland, and German Regions of Western Europe from the Middle Ages to the Early Modern Period.