Why so many women are missing
Most people who lived in the Middle Ages left no written trace at all, and this is especially true of women. Records such as chronicles, charters, legal documents and church registers were usually produced by men for institutions run by men. They focused on kings, bishops, landholders and wars. A woman might appear only as a name beside her husband’s, as a witness or defendant in a court case, or in a list of people who paid a fine. Many women appear nowhere by name.
Literacy also played a role. Fewer women than men were taught to read and write, though the gap varied by period and rank. Even when women did write, their works were copied less often, attributed to men or lost. When historians speak of “forgotten” women, they usually mean women who are hard to find in the evidence, not women who did nothing.
Queens and royal women
Women born into or married into royal families are among the best-documented. A queen might hold land, patronize churches and artists, raise heirs, and act as a regent when a king was absent or a child ruled. Some wielded considerable political influence.
Eleanor of Aquitaine is a well-known example: she inherited a large duchy, was queen of France and then of England, and remained politically important for decades, though historians debate some of the stories later told about her. Matilda, daughter of King Henry I of England, claimed the English throne in a long civil war with her cousin Stephen but was never crowned. In the Byzantine world, empresses such as Theodora in the sixth century and Irene in the eighth held notable power, and in some cases ruled in their own right.
Even for these women, our sources are shaped by writers with their own views. Chroniclers praised or blamed queens according to how they fit expectations, so reading carefully matters.
Abbesses and nuns
Religious life offered women a route to learning and authority, and the records of monasteries often survive better than those of ordinary households. Abbesses ran large communities, managed property and sometimes had authority over both women and men in double monasteries, which housed both. Hildegard of Bingen, a twelfth-century German abbess, wrote about theology, music and natural remedies and corresponded with powerful figures. Her fame is exceptional, but it shows what was possible for a learned woman in a convent.
Women who wrote
A number of women wrote works that survive. Hrotsvit of Gandersheim, a tenth-century canoness, wrote plays and poems in Latin. Marie de France, writing in the twelfth century, composed verse tales, though little is known about her identity. Julian of Norwich wrote about her religious visions in the late fourteenth century and is often cited as one of the earliest known women to write a book in English. Christine de Pizan, born in Italy and living in France, supported her family by writing and produced works on history, politics and the defense of women in the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries.
Many other women owned books, commissioned manuscripts or left wills that mention them, even when they did not write. Women were also patrons of art and learning.
Women outside the elite
Evidence for ordinary women is scattered but real. Manorial court rolls record women who brewed, were fined for selling bad ale, or inherited land. Tax records list some women as heads of household or widows. Wills, guild records and city accounts mention women in trade. Women involved in religious movements, such as the lay communities of Beguines in parts of northern Europe, appear in church documents and sometimes in suspicion from authorities.
Some individual lives are known because they came into conflict with the law. Joan of Arc’s trial left extensive records, which is one reason we know so much about her, though the documents were produced by an unfriendly court.
How historians recover women’s lives
Researchers use several approaches.
- Reading existing sources “against the grain” to see women in the background of male-focused records.
- Using archaeology, such as burial remains and household objects.
- Studying objects like textiles, books and seals owned by women.
- Using wills, property records and court cases to trace their actions.
- Looking at images and letters, being careful about their conventions.
These methods reveal that women were active in the economy, the church and politics, but they also show how limited our knowledge is.
A note on caution
It is tempting to find a heroine in every record, but responsible history avoids both erasing women and overstating how typical the famous ones were. Eleanor, Hildegard and Christine were exceptional because of rank, education or circumstance. The more ordinary story of most women is told by gaps, hints and small entries, and some of it will remain unknown.