Use and abuse; the status of a woman in a noble house

Like today, Middle Ages society was governed by men. And just like today, those brave, smart, and powerful men were also insecure. Their problem was adultery. They judged everybody in accordance with their own behavior. So, if they were infidels to their wives, they assumed the wives did the same.


This is a painting by Vasily Polenov that I found on Wikipedia.
 It represents a father bringing his daughter to his lord.
Look at the posture of the lord...
It looks like he is counting his sheep!

If the household of ordinary people was a little more relaxed, being a matter of economy involved (work and feed the family), the nobles’ households were very strict regarding the women physical freedom. Maybe those restrictions were coming via church, were the men were in power over “weaker souls” that could be easier seduced by other men (that could have been husbands too) and fall into sin. Women were closely watched for any sign of “deviant” behavior. If caught, or even suspected, they risk their lives. Here is what
we read in A History of Private Life:

“The first duty of the head of household was to watch over, punish, and if necessary kill his wife, sister and daughters as well as the widows and orphans of his brothers, cousins and vassals.Since females were dangerous, patriarchal power over them was reinforced. They were kept under lock and key in the most isolated part of the house: the chamber des dames (the room of the ladies, my translation from french) was not a place for seduction or amusement but a kind of prison, in which women were incarcerated because men fear them” (A History of Private Life; II, Revelation of the Medieval World; George Duby; 1988, Harvard College; p.77).

But why were women so feared? Well, for once, they were the link to an alliance. Most of the time, men did not marry a woman because they loved her or got along very well. It was because of who her daddy was. The marriages were negotiated. The more powerful the dad, the more desired the daughter.
 
Then, men had to keep that alliance alive. Even in the event of the death of the wife, if the death occurred because of infidelity, then the man risked being disgraced by his father-in-law, not speaking about the shame that came with it.
Also, some women were  feared because of what secrets they may have had, what
magical tricks they may have learned or for the seduction they could have pursued upon men.

And maybe some fears were legitimate because society devalued women, which, in return, were abused ...by men.

But unlike in medieval times, today, women have a better life (or do they?).

The European Middle Ages Social Hierarchy

The Middle Ages

The boss of the my boss is my boss

Like today, some people lived better than others in the Middle Ages. In fact, very few had a better life than the rest of them. It was all based on wealth (like today). But unlike today, when basically everybody could get rich with proper attitude, tools, and luck, in the Middle Ages, one should have been born into a wealthy family. Access to power and money was limited to a few people. The social hierarchy of the Middle Ages was very different from our contemporary hierarchy and was based on the amount of land someone owned.
Here is the simplified social tree:

The King
He was the head of the state, the boss of everybody else, had the most power, and was the richest of them all. His mom and dad were usually kings and queens, too, and the same was true about Grandpa and Grandma.
Some kings were better than others, and a few of them declared themselves Emperors, which is a bigger, fatter king who ruled over more than one nation.
The king was the boss of the barons, the lords, and the peasants. Sometimes, in some places, they were the boss of the bishops, too.

The Bishops
These people were chosen from within the church. They were once priests but advanced to administrative positions. It looks like they are mainly remembered as tax collectors, which, like today, nobody likes. They ruled over dioceses and were the bosses of all the priests and monasteries within a diocese. They were very rich, and often, they grew powerful and influential.

The Barons
Barons were people who received a tenure, or fief, from their boss, the King. At first, they were knights, and the King gave them a piece of land as a reward for their bravery in a battle. Then, they ruled over that piece of land, acquiring all the agricultural products, selling them, and making money. If one was raised to the noble rank of baron, then their children would be barons, too.
Over the centuries, some barons grew so powerful that they didn’t want to work for the kings anymore and made their own state so they could, too, be bosses.

The Lords
The Lords were people who rented land from the barons (who were given land by the king). So, barons were the lords’ bosses. A baron could be the boss of many lords.
The lords had the peasants work the land for them. They were not as rich as the barons, and many of them lived a simple life, but they had a better social status than the peasants. And they could advance to be barons if they did well in battles and killed a lot of enemies.

The peasants
The peasants were the lower people in the European Middle Ages hierarchy. They made up the majority of people. They lived a simple life, and they worked hard for their bosses, who were the lords. In exchange for their hard work, they usually got bread and beer. They had a very small piece of land that the lord had given them so they could have some other food besides bread and beer. The son of a peasant was a peasant, too, and there was no chance that such a son would, someday, advance to a lord position.

So, between or within these social classes, there were other positions held by people chosen within that respective class. These positions were mainly administrative jobs with little or no influence over the system.

Historians have a name for this European Middle Age Hierarchy: it is the cold Feudal System Or Feudalism, where a feud is a piece of land given to somebody in exchange for some sort of service. The Feudalism system of the Middle Ages is, though, more complex, and I may describe it in other articles.