Start here
Medieval Women: Their Roles and Rights
How medieval women worked on farms, in brewing, textiles and trade, and how class, place and marital status shaped the jobs they could do.
Life and Learning
Women in Medieval Society
Work, law, family and religious life for medieval women.
Medieval Women: A Look at Their Roles and Rights
A plain overview of medieval women's legal status: property, marriage, inheritance and widowhood, and how rules differed between regions of Europe.
Medieval Women: Roles, Rights, and Representation
How medieval texts and images portrayed women, from the Virgin Mary to Eve, and why those ideals often differed from the lives women actually lived.
Medieval Women: Uncovering the Forgotten Histories
Meet medieval queens, abbesses and writers whose lives were recorded, and learn why most ordinary women left so little trace in the historical record.
Medieval Women: Uncovering the Roles and Rights of Females
How medieval women ran households, bore and raised children, and managed daily family life, from noble ladies on estates to peasant wives in villages.
Medieval Women: Unveiling their Roles and Rights
How nuns, convents and lay devotion gave medieval women education, community and sometimes real authority, along with strict limits set by the church.
Midwives and Childbirth
How childbirth was managed in the Middle Ages: the role of midwives, birthing customs, religious practices, the real risks to mothers and babies, and limits of the evidence.
The Medieval Woman: A Study of Her Roles and Limitations
A clear overview of the limits that law, church teaching and custom placed on medieval women, and why the evidence about how far those limits applied is uncertain.
The Role of Women in Medieval Society: Limited but Not Powerless
Where medieval women held real influence despite legal limits: widows, abbesses, queens and craftswomen, and how that influence worked in practice.
Related topics
More in life and learning
Learning and Science Schools, universities, stars and maps. Food and Drink What people ate and drank, from peasant pottage to noble feasts. Dress, Festivals and Folklore Clothing, holy days, customs and legends. Literature and Legends Poems, sagas and tales told across the Middle Ages. Music and Entertainment Songs, dance, jesters and court amusements. Science and Technology Alchemy, astronomy, ships and the tools that changed work. Poets and Authors Writers of the medieval world and those who shaped how it is remembered. Medieval Lives Typical lives of a peasant, a knight and a monk. Courtly Love and Ideals Love, chastity and etiquette in noble circles. Elements, Humors and Senses Medieval theories of matter, the body and perception. Medieval Worldview How medieval people thought about time, seasons, life stages and fate. Universities, Oxford and Cambridge How universities arose and how Oxford and Cambridge took shape. Everyday Life Details Homes, hygiene, childhood, marriage and death in ordinary medieval lives.