Posted on 09/11/2007 8:28:04 AM PDT by blam
GGG Ping.
yikes...kinda looks like Mad Max Waters
Only in England - the rest of Europe wasn’t so enlightened.
Ya, woman ruled in the past (ya right)
They also were able to enjoy political and ecclesiastical authority and to build and run business ventures.
In the High Middle Ages, the Catholic Church was pretty much the only game in town theologically - yet feminists despise the Church.
Things were a little different in the Islamic World then... and now too.
Women have always ruled — one way or another.
I am reading a fine biography of Eleanor of Aquitaine. She was once the biggest landowner in all of Europe! She owned about a third of France at one time.
The reality is quite different.
that’s the way most in the middle east would like to keep it
Yup. They’ve had the power since before humans walked upright. It’s in their jeans.
Oops, I mean GENES.
This is so true as to be obvious. Women had a great deal of power and influence in the middle ages. Abbesses and Pioresses and female saints were highly influential in the Catholic Church.
The influence of women was greatly reduced by the Renaissance and Reformation—you can take your pick as to which of these intertwined movements was most responsible.
Of course, to call it “girl power” is an anachronism. Back in those days, it was thought important to mature and grow up. You didn’t find people remaining adolescent into their 50s and 60s the way you do today. To say that there were powerful and influential women, not girls, would be more accurate.
Freudian slip?
Really? I was under the impression that the upper classes bartered their women like cattle.
I can't see that phrase without hearing Mr./Ms. Garrison shouting, "Who wants to pound my v-----!"
Sometimes, especially with young girls. However, many wealthy women, whether widows or heiresses, took control of their own property and were quite independent.
Eleanor of Acquitaine is a good example, and she was an example for other women of her time: educated, cultured, and politically aspiring. Of course, sometimes it worked out and sometimes it didn't; Eleanor was under house arrest for a dozen years in her late middle-age.
An excellent source on this subject is Women in the Age of the Cathedrals, by Regine Pernoud.
Thank you. I must look that up to add to my medieval books collection. I have a “Reader”that has many original documents. Those on women were very sexist.
A favorite book I have is a day planner that was never used which is full of Romance writings (I call it my “dirty book.”) People think we’re obsessed with sex. They were, too. It was just more literary. I blushed while reading some of the poems.
Definitely.
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