I have been asked to write an essay on the subject of the role of women in the middle ages. In this essay I am attempting to out line the opinion that how hard life for women was. There were some ways that women could gain both personal and legal freedom but this was very difficult. Women could not even say or do what they wanted without permission from men.
What kinds of work did medieval women have to do?.
Different classes of women would have done different jobs. The poor women would have worked because their husbands would not have been able to support them and their many children on his wages alone. She would have had so many children due to the high death rate because there was no cure for disease and there was no contraception. She would have taken any jobs she could find, for example gathering hay in a field and they worked with no shoes on their feet. - Source 0. Women would have helped her husband ploughing and even he would have been working for a farmer. She took her baby with her in the freezing cold. - Source 9. If she had of been a widow she may have taken over her dead husband's job. This may have been a blacksmith, to do this job she would have had to be very strong. - Source 5. A stonemason would have also had to be very strong -Source 13. .
Women who had no money could become a nun; this would mean she had rights, as they remain celibate, because as soon as they marry their land and property becomes her husbands and at his disposal. - Source 3. This would provide protection as they grow their own food and have a secure home. They would have a chance to live a religious life and it gave them the chance of a career. There were also many famous nuns and abbesses. - Source 18.
A midwife was another occupation for a woman as no males were admitted to the ward when a woman was giving birth. Some of these midwives often doctors in their own right and had many patients.