Study of "the Medieval Maiden"

[SeverinR]

The medieval maiden: young womanhood in late medieval England - Medievalists.net

What would be expected of a girl in late Medieval England period.

Interesting:
No contract for marriage could be entered into until both parties were 7 yrs old. (more of an agreement, since either person could annul the contract before they married.)

No person can enter marriage before: 12 for girls and 14 for boys.

The part I read, a girl was expected to follow maidenhood(raise a family) or follow the religious life(nunnery).

 

[SeverinR]

The thing I like about this, is it shows reasoning and how it was. So we can look at what was and can modify it to our worlds. Rather then just guessing and trying to justify our change.

There is all kinds of stuff on what boys did, but a few sentences on what women did.

 

[skip.knox]

Take note, though, as the reviewer does: this is stuff written by males who probably had little direct experience with young women. We are talking about ideals and types, rather than the variety of real experiences. It's also worth empahsizing that this is about England, and England was definitely not the Continent, and that the late Middle Ages were significantly different from earlier centuries. With those caveats, though, this sort of work is great raw material for writerly plunder.

BTW, it's easy to think the historical record is all about males, but that's not quite it. You can see the issue from a different perspective by reading Ruth Karras' book, From Boys To Men, which is just about the *only* book I can cite that addresses the topic of masculinity in the Middle Ages. Most of our records are about what men *did*, but there's really very little about what it meant to be male. Karras is an outstanding historian, and she's able to offer some insights from very scattered sources.