Women in Frankish Society: Marriage and the Cloister 500 to 900 PDF
Preview Women in Frankish Society: Marriage and the Cloister 500 to 900
WOMEN IN FRANKISH SOCIETY MARRIAGE AND THE CLOISTER 500 TO 900 SUZANNE FONAY WEMPLE “The most complete, scholarly, and important book on medieval women which has appeared in my lifetime. ” Archibald R. Lewis WOMEN IN FRANKISH SOCIETY Marriage and the Cloister, 500 to 900 SUZANNE FONAY WEMPLE In what is probably the most comprehensive and revelatory work yet published on women in the Middle Ages, Suzanne Wemple examines the ways in which the status of women in both secular and religious life changed between 500 and 900. In the Frankish kingdom, women were able to exercise power and apply their talents outside the domestic sphere, though they did not reach either legal or social equality with men. Three distinct cultural forces in Frankish Gaul — Germanic, Roman, and Christian- determined women’s position, and Wemple concludes that their fusion benefited women, noting that females were much freer in Latin Christendom than they had been in pagan society. The cloister, in particular, offered women a means of self-expression that they avidly exploited during the earliest days of the Frankish kingdom, the Merovingian period. Wemple compares the Merovingians, who sanctioned divorce and tolerated polygamy, to the later Carolingians, who translated into secular laws the Christian ideal of marital indissolubility. Delving into the ninth-century application of Christianity to family law, the author points out how the enforcement of monogamy and prohibition of divorce, as (Continued on back flap) Women in Frankish Society THE MIDDLE AGES a series edited by Edward Peters Henry C. Lea Associate Professor of Medieval History University of Pennsylvania SUZANNE FONAY WEMPLE Women in Frankish Society Marriage and the Cloister 500 to 900 RSI Ft ARY ST. V If" 'CENT RECj'IDMA 8Ef$ifc L BOYNTON E \ %£ A f~‘ M If kuD-tr‘lk 'W' si 5 @ University of Pennsylvania Press Philadelphia 1981 THIS BOOK WAS PUBLISHED WITH ASSISTANCE FROM THE PUBLICATIONS PROGRAM OF THE NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE HUMANITIES. Copyright © 1981 by Suzanne Fonay Wemple All rights reserved Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Wemple, Suzanne Fonay. Women in Frankish society. (The Middle ages) Bibliography: p. Includes index. 1. Women—History—Middle ages, 500-1500. 2. France —History—To 987 3. France—History—Medieval period, 987-1515. 4. Women and religion. 5. Women— Legal status, laws, etc. 6. Merovingians—History. 7. Carlovingians—History. I. Title. II. Series: Middle ages. HQ,i 147.F7W45 305.4'o9'o2 80-54051 ISBN 0-8122-7798-8 AACR.2 Printed in the United States of America To my mother, Magda Mihalyfy Szechenyi, and to my daughter, Carolyn Wemple.
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