Women in Frankish Society: Marriage and the Cloister, 5 to 9

By Suzanne Fonay Wemple

Book Overview

Women in Frankish Society is a careful and thorough study of women and their roles in the Merovingian and Carolingian periods of the Middle Ages. During the 5th through 9th centuries, Frankish society transformed from a relatively primitive tribal structure to a more complex hierarchical organization. Suzanne Fonay Wemple sets out to understand the forces at work in expanding and limiting women's sphere of activity and influence during this time. Her goal is to explain the gap between the ideals and laws on one hand and the social reality on the other. What effect did the administrative structures and social stratification in Merovingian society have on equality between the sexes? Did the emergence of the nuclear family and enforcement of monogamy in the Carolingian era enhance or erode the power and status of women?

Wemple examines a wealth of primary sources, such deeds, testaments, formulae, genealogy, ecclesiastical and secular court records, letters, treatises, and poems in order to reveal the enduring German, Roman, and Christian cultural legacies in the Carolingian Empire. She attends to women in secular life and matters of law, economy, marriage, and inheritance, as well as chronicling the changes to women's experiences in religious life, from the waning influence of women in the Frankish church to the rise of female asceticism and monasticism.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0812212096
• ISBN13: 9780812212099
• Release Date: April 1985
• Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
• Length: 368 Pages
• Weight: 1.26 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 5.8" x 8.9"

Customer Reviews

Women in Medieval Europe

It was fascinating to me to learn, as the author says in this excellent book, that "however oppressed they appear in the light of modern criteria, medieval women were far more visible, vocal, and powerful than their sisters in antiquity." During the early medieval period the ideal of equality of the sexes as revealed in the Gospels was taken for granted; only when Christianity became more a state religion were women repressed by the male hierarchy. But for a long time women (it's important to realize that the women Wemple refers to were those of the aristocracy only) retained certain legal and inheritance rights and often shared their husbands' work and had economic power as well. One of the most important developments was the women's monasteries, separate from the men's, where intellectual as well as spiritual needs were fostered and shared with the "outside" world. It's a tragedy after so much progress had been made to find women, thanks mainly to changes in marriage laws, gradually being relegated merely to procreative and family roles. Wemple writes well: she is scholarly but not numbingly so, and the book is both informative and intriguing.

A little dated but still very useful!

This book was one that really opened people's minds to what could be discovered about women in the early-medieval era, and it still makes for fascinating reading, particularly when she speaks about pre-Christian family patterns and the impact of conversion onm things like marriage and inheritance. Some of her theoretical framework is a bit dated now, but this is still a starting place for those interested in pre-modern women's history. It helps that, despite the fact that many of the names and situation are unfamiliar to most people, she writes the book in an enganging stule.