Medieval French Society

Several of my recent posts have touched upon the subject of medieval France and today my eye was caught by a short article about the work of a Norwegian-based historian who specialises in French medieval history. In particular she is interested in the position of women in French society at the time. Although the article is quite short, it is a good summary of her thinking and an indicator of emerging trends in our understanding of medieval French life. Her linkage of French institutions of power and the public life of women is valuable and for all the discussion which concentrate on things like the Salic Law women at all levels did play a prominent part in the life of the country.

Long after the formidable Merovingian Queens great heiresses such as those cited in the article, and others like Eleanor of Aquitaine, Jeanne of Champagne-Navarre, Mahaut of Artois, Mary of Burgundy, and Anne of Brittany as well as royal consorts like Blanche of Castile, Yolanda of Aragon and Claude of France were prominent and often decisive makers of history. Their significance in France is arguably greater than in neighbouring realms, and was accepted in a way that the Empress Matilda was not to be in England. I would agree with the argument that women were influential at all levels of society, if less well recorded. At that lower level Marie de France in the twelfth century and Christine de Pisan in the fifteenth century were, by being mould-breaking literary figures, women who did ensure their subsequent fame. From the peasantry Jeanne d’Arc may well have been unique and certainly unprecedented in her achievement, but she was an immensely significant figure in the history of France. Like Marguerite Porrete more than a century earlier she went to the stake, but contemporaries attempts to obliterate them failed. If you like your historical fiction tough and menacing then Maurice Druon’s Accursed Kings are replete with women with agency…Queen Isabella’s career in England, like Queen Margaret of Anjou later on, may well reflect their French heritage.

The article is from Medievalists.net and can be seen at French women had more power in the Middle Ages than after the Revolution