How can a woman stand up to the misogyny of men?
That is the tag line of the second Meonbridge Chronicle, A Woman’s Lot. The storylines (for there are several threads) are about marital discord, women’s thwarted ambitions, and the quest for love, and also about the tensions between the poorer in society and the richer, and the ups and downs of rural life in medieval Hampshire.
But especially about the particular attitude held in the Middle Ages by men – or at least some of them – towards women.
The novel begins in the spring of 1352, about two years after the end of the first Chronicle, Fortune’s Wheel. In Fortune’s Wheel, after the devastation wrought by the Black Death in 1349-50, society as a whole began to change. Feudal lords lost their former power in the face of resistance by their tenants, who were no longer willing to be confined to a single manor or to be paid less than they could obtain elsewhere.
 |
The Black Death.
Wikimedia Commons. |
It seemed as if women’s lot might also change. When so many people – perhaps as many as a third or even a half of the country’s population – had died from the plague, it seemed logical that everyone, including women, might have to turn their hand to whatever needed to be done. And perhaps, at first at least, this was what happened. Women saw opportunities for themselves to break out of the old mould and take on new occupations, and indeed to be a little more independent. (Sadly, it didn’t last. By the fifteenth century, everything had returned more or less to the status quo: male dominance reasserted itself and women were put back in their place…)
So, underpinning the storylines of A Woman’s Lot is the status quo of male dominance, thwarting – or attempting to thwart – women’s struggle to improve their lot. Medieval women were, for centuries, subjugated to men (some, of course, still are). Men generally wielded control over their wives, daughters and servants, sometimes directly in the form of overt misogyny, sometimes in less overt but nonetheless powerful assertions of male authority. This is by no means to suggest that all medieval men were misogynistic. But such an attitude in just one or two individual, influential men could have disastrous consequences.
In some contemporary medieval literature, we find a contrast between the chivalric idealisation of the noble lady, based on the cult of the Virgin Mary, and a misogynistic contempt for women as the inheritors of Eve. Women were seen as “second class”, expected to devote themselves to their domestic functions, and refused any sort of public office. The restriction of women’s rights was justified on the basis of their supposed limited intelligence, wiliness and avarice. Indeed, all sorts of weaknesses were often ascribed to women as a class, including vanity and greed, wantonness and volatility. Some men despised women, or feared them perhaps, as the dangerous “daughters of Eve”. Others perhaps simply believed women were neither very bright nor trustworthy, and felt they had to be kept in their lowly place. (I’m aware that this attitude is probably not entirely confined to the Middle Ages!)
 |
| Adam & Eve. Wikimedia Commons. |
Men’s control over women was perhaps strongest amongst the upper classes, where power and money lay in the making of beneficial marriages and the production of heirs, although the peasant classes, too, were interested in making useful alliances. However, I suspect the clergy – or some of them – were especially eager to keep women under strict control, fearful perhaps, and therefore critical, of their alleged wickedness and frailty. There’s no doubt that the function, role and social position of women in fourteenth century England was heavily influenced by religious dogma and the teachings of the Church, and all men of every class would believe in their “God-given” right to dominate and chastise their wives.
 |
| Wifely Duties. Wikimedia Commons. |
I daresay it’s true that medieval women generally accepted their lot in life. That’s not to say that they believed that they were either especially wicked or frail, but it perhaps didn’t occur to most that there was much they could do to change the way things were.
However, there’s also evidence that many medieval women weren’t down-trodden chattels at all. Competent manor chatelaines, wealthy peasant housewives and business women were strong and capable and very far from either the feeble-minded or the saintly creatures portrayed in much of the literature. Chaucer’s Wife of Bath is a fine example of a woman who was more than a match for the men in her life! And I somehow doubt that all men held women in contempt: many – well, at least a few – surely loved and respected them, and understood what they were capable of?
The main drivers, then, for the story of A Woman’s Lot are the misogynistic attitudes of some Meonbridge men, which set in train events that lead to tragedy or almost tragedy. But, countering their misogyny are other men, and women, who recognise the injustice that those attitudes can engender.
A Woman’s Lot is narrated in the voices of four women, Eleanor Titherige, Susanna Miller, Agnes Sawyer and Emma Ward, all of whom had a role in Fortune’s Wheel.
Eleanor, left orphaned by the plague, inherited her father’s substantial flock of sheep and, after initial worries about her own abilities to cope, decided to make a go of it. In A Woman’s Lot, her flock is thriving, but her path won’t continue smoothly, either on a business level or in her love life.
 |
| Sheep in a pen. Wikimedia Commons. |
At the end of Fortune’s Wheel, Susanna had just married the miller’s younger brother, Henry, and seemed very happy. Two years later, she’s still mostly content, but has a nagging worry that will lead her into disaster.
Agnes went missing before the start of Fortune’s Wheel, and the reason for her disappearance, and her brother John’s efforts to find her, were a constant thread throughout that novel. In A Woman’s Lot, Agnes is one of those women who’d like to break the conventional mould a little and grasp what she perceives as the new opportunities brought by the plague.
Emma, too, believes there are more opportunities “out there” for her and her family, and is eager to pursue them.
Of course, such misogynistic attitudes to women as I portray aren’t without parallels in our own time, but I’m not attempting to draw comparisons. My tale is one of the fourteenth century, one that doesn’t try to make Meonbridge’s women “feminists”. Their stories aren’t about women’s rights and liberation, but about them trying to make the best of opportunities within the context of the society they live in.
Although she’s a successful farmer, Eleanor isn’t happy about being unmarried: she has the usual desires for love and family life but, more importantly, she believes that social mores, as well as practicalities, really do require her to be wed.
Susanna is a good medieval wife – she doesn’t wish to throw off the bonds of marriage but wants to make her marriage better, in the medieval way that she understands. Agnes and Emma, too, are not seeking to overthrow society, just to make, in their eyes, a more worthwhile contribution.
It’s an interesting time to write about, and I do hope you feel you’d like to explore the world of fourteenth century Meonbridge…
The audiobook version of A Woman’s Lot is narrated by Alex Lee, who brings the world of Meonbridge and its inhabitants beautifully to life.
.png)
