‘Second-Class Citizens’. to What Extent Is This an Accurate Description of Women in Western European Society Between 1100 and 1400?

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History Essay Holly Luzak 18197372 Word Count: 1314 (not including references) Question: ‘Second-class citizens’. To what extent is this an accurate description of women in western European society between 1100 and 1400? ‘Second-class citizens’. To what extent is this an accurate description of women in western European society between 1100 and 1400? To answer this question research will be made into how women were expected to act in western European society through nobility, townswomen and women that were considered peasants. This will be shown through varying views held as some believed that being a second class citizen depended on your class and where you were from as some women might have had more of a chance to step away from the sex classes, while others didn’t have this opportunity. This will help answer the question about whether or not women were second class citizens, and whether how right this question is about women or how wrong it is. If we look at noble women in the medieval ages between 1100-1400, they were able to have a happy life with wealth and riches that they could use at their disposal. Though there was more pressure on women in nobility compared to other women as they had more “demanded of them than other women.” While the husbands were at home they still had to obey them, this can’t be said though when the men go away for business, travel or for war because the women of the house would hold the authority. In the novel ‘The fourth Estate’ written by Shulamith Shahar “Women sometimes defended their castle, while their husbands were away”This suggests and supports the theory that noble women held authority when the men were not at home. When the husband died and this happened quite frequently for men at young ages because they would fight in crusades and often not returning the wives would have the right to inherit her husband’s land.

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