Wife Of Bath

Women In The Middle Ages

The women of the middle ages had a standard and void to fill as a wife and a mother. they were pawn pieces in middle age society that the patriarchal males used gain money, property or even advancement in nobility. Women were to be obedient to their fathers and loyal to their husbands. Meanwhile, there were many other women in the Middle Ages that made there own way, fortune, and fame with out the aid of strict rules and custums. Many of these women were the ones to be remembered and were written about throughout history. Many followed strict religious morals like Joan of Arc, some left us crazy legends like Lady Godiva, and others defied the patriarchal system all together like Chaucers infamous character, The Wife of Bath. Chaucer's Wife of Bath is best understood in the context of other female figures in medieval literature like Joan of Arc and Lady Godiva.

Men mostly dominated the society during the middle ages and many stories were written about them, and many of them were forgotten because there were so many of them. However, women during the middle ages, when they were written about, they were rarely forgotten because it was so rare for them to be written about in the first place. Many of the women written about were the wives of nobles and kings, or the daughters of them. There names were written down only because they wanted to be remembered in history or they were part of a long geneology and their name is part of a long family tree. However these are the womens whose names just happen to be written down but long forgotten in the depths of the library.

The other main reason for a woman in the middle ages to have her name remembered is because she did something that affected history and deserved to be remembered though out time. These women are the ones that stepped the toes out of line and crossed social boundries that were once thought unacceptable. They made a name for themselves, they didnt just use there names.

Joan of arc is one of the most recognized religious figures in history that was not written in the Bible. As a woman she defied many rules regarding dress; she refused to wear womans clothing(Sackwell-West). She impressed many men with her passion and her drive. She was determined to lead the french. She was written about by many men, singing her praises and admiring her determination to make people understand that her visions of God were real. Because these men wrote about her she went down in history as a woman that defied standard customs and followed her religion. Religious scholars too novelists wrote about her and her triumph over a hierarchy and religious institutions condemning her for her blasphemous behavior

History says that lady Godiva begged and pleaded for her husband to lift the very large taxes on their ingdom, the people were suffering for it and the money was only going towards her husbands extravagances. He said he would lift the tax if she rode through town “naked.(Learner)” This is all history tells us because no one is absolutely sure about what he meant by “naked.” Story after story built upon eachother furthering the legend of the lady Godiva riding naked on her horse with only her long hair to cover her. Once she did though in any for of naked, whether it be naked of her jewels, covered in only a petticoat, or with nothing but her long hair, the king lifted the taxes as soon as she finished her ride.

When these women broke the rules they were remembered and written about many times. Whether they were true or not, both joan or arc and lady godiva will be remembered for the rest of time because there stories portrayed different kinds of women in the middle