Introduction

In this critique of Women In The Middle Ages, I will identify the Gies' purpose in writing this book and discuss how well they fulfilled their purpose. Also I will evaluate the merits and shortcomings of this book in relation to the themes, sources used, and the authors' writing style.

Authors' Purpose

The Gies assert that researching and writing about women in the Middle Ages is difficult, due to the sources that are commonly used and which gives a misogynic view of women, such as the writings of Church fathers, contemporary law books, and literary works. The Gies attempt to describe the lives of women in the thousand years known as the early Middle Ages, Dark Ages, and High Middle Ages.

The first section of the book offers background information on the lives of women in the early Middle Ages, and the last section are individual portraits of specific women in the High Middle Ages. The Gies explore several elements that affect women's lives: childbirth, survival, marriage, property rights, legal rights, education, work, political roles, and religious roles.

Authors' Writing Style

Despite the difficulties in writing about medieval women, the Gies do an excellent job of providing the reader with an extended, if not complete, view of the lives of these women. They must necessarily fill in some blanks that history has left us, but the majority of their conclusions seem very logical and believable. For instance, the pervasive belief that women had few legal rights is shown to be not strictly true in the descriptions of the woman who disinherited her son in favor of a kinswoman (21) and other examples of women maintaining control over their own property.

The manner in which the Gies trace the fluctuating status of women in the Middle Ages is seen to be directly connected to politics, economics, and changing social structure. For example, the introduction of the feudal system in ninth century France and, subsequently, other European countries, traces how women