Medieval Information

It is a common belief that women during the Dark Ages were badly punished and forced to work. While this was true in many instances, it was not always the case. A very clear example of this is the appearance of many woman rulers such as Joan of Arc, Julian of Norwich, etc.

Additionally, women could have very significant roles in society such as being Queens, etc. Some women were even allowed to rule a castle! This was actually very frequent - and normally, when a castle's lord was away, he would either appoint his wife or a high noble to defend it.

During the crusades, women did also take a significant role. It is true that many women did embark onto the Holy Land in order to clean their sins. However, frequently they were mistreated and thus; they returned home. For the women who stayed, they had to work twice as hard as most men were away so they had to cover for their husband's (if married) work.

Regular peasants were badly treated. Of course, so was the male population. Evidently, females took very different roles than men - as females of course, were unable to fight as a man could. This led many men to training whilst women had to stay home to work at the crops and teach the couple's kids new things.

Women would very frequently marry at a very young age. This was mainly because life expectancy was much lower than today. Since men very frequently died in battles, women were very frequently left alone and it was completely forbidden to marry again.

Additionally, women were very frequently accused of totally false claims such as attempting satanic practices more commonly referred to as witchery. This led many women to the stake where they would be burned alive. For men, this very rarely happened unless they were trapped exerting the actual satanic practice.

As we can see, life for women was not easy. They were, however, loved by many during the Dark Ages including many kings who made their life easier. As there were good kings, so were there bad ones who would yell at them and force them to work twice as hard. As time passed, women were given more freedom and they were eventually allowed to make many roles who were previously for men only.