Why read Women in the Medieval English Countryside?

Book cover of Women in the Medieval English Countryside: Gender and Household in Brigstock before the Plague

Book description

In this book, Judith Bennett addresses the gap in our knowledge of medieval country women by examining how their lives differed from those of rural men. Drawing on her study of an English manor in the early-fourteenth century, she finds that rural women were severely restricted in their public roles…

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European history

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Why read it?

1 author picked Women in the Medieval English Countryside as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Justine Firnhaber-Baker

Author

It’s a real frustration of mine that so much historical writing pays little or no attention to women, even though they made up half the population.

However ‘important’ whatever the men were doing was, they couldn’t have done it without women. There’s more written on elite medieval women—queens, noblewomen, abbesses, etc.—than there used to be, but peasant women remain mostly neglected.

I like Bennett’s book not only because she pays attention to village women but also because it doesn’t sugarcoat the story. Peasant women could do many things in medieval England, like owning property, going to court, and running businesses,…

From Justine's list on medieval peasants.