Medieval Europe was a hard time for women. In the era, patriarchal thoughts were dominating the society. According to the British Library: “Throughout the Middle Ages, the place of women in society was often dictated by biblical texts. The writings of the apostle Paul, in particular, emphasized men's authority over women, forbidding women from teaching, and instructing them to remain silent (Alixe Bovey).”
Furthermore, people lived in the middle age held church in an extremely sacred position and according to the Bible, Eve was made from Adam's rib. People believe that due to the fact that Eva ate the forbidden fruit, she should be responsible for seeing each other's naked and expulsion from paradise. The belief greatly affected medieval art: |
| Temptation of eve |
"In medieval art, the responsibility of women for this 'original sin,' is often emphasized by giving a female head to the serpent who tempts Eve to disobey God. The story underlined the belief that women were inferior to men, and that they were morally weaker and likely to tempt men into sin.(Alixe Bovey).”
“While women's social roles remained circumscribed by a Christian ethic that stressed obedience and chastity, by the demands of maternal and domestic responsibility, and by the feudal legal system organized around the control of property, there is evidence that their lives, were also shaped by economic and social forces outside ecclesiastic control, at least during the period of the early Middle Ages. Women's lives do not appear to have been privatized and their social functions subordinated to, or defined by, their sexual capacities (Chadwick 44)." In the middle age, women’s roles were decided by men, and therefore, most women are objectified. They were seen as appendants of their husbands or the males in their families.
As Chadwick stated in her book: "The Church’s hierarchical organization reinforced the class distinctions in society; its patriarchal dogma included a full set of theories on the natural inferiority of women (Chadwick 44)." Due to the controlling belief of society, it was tough for women who tried to make livings by themselves. The situation is perfectly demonstrated in Emily Mary Osborn's nameless and friendless. The woman in the painting is showing her artwork to someone who looks like the owner of the store, and a little boy is standing next to her, who looks like her son.
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| Nameless and Friendless |
She is trying to sell her work so that she might be able to get a decent meal for herself and her child. However, the man who is holding her artwork is staring in contempt. He does not think the lady is a good artist. Also, there is other two man who sits at the behind of the woman were secretly peeking at the woman. It is obvious from the painting that none of the men in the store were taking the woman seriously, which reflected how hard it was for a woman to earn a living by herself in the middle age.
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| Feeding the Swans |
The life is not just hard for women to belong to middle or low classes women. Even for those women who belong to the upper class, their presence is still not ideal. Edith Haylar's Feeding, the Swans, looks very peaceful and harmony at first sight; however, if you look closely you will notice something different: Swans are usually the signature of beauty, but in the painting, they lost unlimited sky, they were trapped in a small pond and fed by a human. Having stuck in the place, those swans lost their freedom and unique pride. In the painting, they are no longer the scared swans but more like ordinary ducks.
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| Judith and her Maidservant |
No matter which era we are living in, we can always find some pioneer: some paintings in middle age illustrated women's rebel. In Orazio Gentileschi's Judith and her Maidservant, killing Judith is the way those two women in the art take their power back. It is an announcement that women should never be objectified or be underestimated. We can see no hesitation or fear in their eyes. They were determined to finish what they had started. They were certain that what they did was just.
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| Self Portrait, Sofonisba Anguissola |
Sofonisba Anguissola is one of the pioneers. Like Guerilla Girls states: "One of the few ways a woman could work as an artist was to be born into a family of artists that needed assistance in the family workshop. A rare exception to this was Sofonisba Anguissola. Some of these women, including those who follow, figured out how to establish themselves as independent artists (Guerilla Girls, 29)." In the self-portrait, Sofonisba Anguissola was painting, which clearly contradicts the common belief that women cannot be an artist unless they are born by one. Sofonisba Anguissola definitely inspired lots of women to ignore the social agreed-upon value and follow their dream of becoming artists.
However, we can still see the trace of medieval women's low social position in the painting. In the artwork Sofonisba Anguissola was wearing a black dress: "Generally, women’s fashions in the medieval era were fairly bland and non-descript; clothing usually involved draped fabrics, which were usually baggy and mundanely colored (Medieval Gender)."
Thanks to those pioneer women's social class have been increasing. It is hard to make the society eliminate patriarchy but as long as there are still people fighting for it. The truly equal society will come eventually.
Work Cited
Alixe Bovey, Women in medieval society, https://www.bl.uk/the-middle-ages/articles/women-in-medieval-society
Medieval Gender, http://www.medievalgender.org.uk/about/
Chadwick, Whitney. Women, Art, and Society. Langara College, 2016.
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