Fallen Prophet
Well-Known Member
Pssh your mom!
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Pssh your mom!
Shut up.
There's nothing better than getting off in the barn in the hay with my boyfriend.
You don't know anything. God sake.
I think I can see an agreement here.As king I'd put a tax on romping in barns and use the money to build a massive trebuchet to lob boulders and plague ridden corpses at some other king who I think is a ****.
Best get saving if you want to roll in the hay more than once every 5 years.
You be a naked Hindu sadhu besmeared with ashes living on biksha, what is a Hindu sadhu besmeared? What does bishka look like?
Then in the next life become a ruler of a city state living an post and dissolute life with 100 courtesans at the beck and call.
How interesting and creative.
got another 11 hour shift today so I'm gonna exit. But the circulation of books (particularly those fashionable romance novels) didn't happen among women until late 14th and 15th century, and then only wealthy families until the printing press. And the first women degree holders/university graduates weren't until 17th century. Considering the medieval period began in the 5th, and was mostly dominated by very serf and women education adverse lords and kings for the majority of the medieval period, it's not unfair to say that it was taboo for most of the medieval era.
If I was an *average* woman in the *average* of the medieval period, it's likely I'd be illiterate or very nearly so. With most of my instruction, if any, being taught orally about domestic living. Little, if any writing.
There's exceptions, of course, but literacy didn't get above 50% in the general population until the 1800s. More like 10 to 20% in 13th and 14th depending on region and who you ask.
I think I can see an agreement here.
We can go romping in the other King's barns and mess them up instead.
Had their daughters educated. Charlemagne was illiterate, he couldn't write more than his name. Writing was for monks and women, men had to fight, hunt and rule.Were they education averse though?
The church educated women, and leaders from Charlemagne to Alfred educated their daughters.
Had their daughters educated. Charlemagne was illiterate, he couldn't write more than his name. Writing was for monks and women, men had to fight, hunt and rule.
(But though he was illiterate, he was very well educated and pushed education and literacy.)
I repeated that claim a few posts above. We don't really know and we can't discern a male writing from a female but the longer I look at history and newer discoveries, the more I find that the role of women pre-plague has been misrepresented and obscured by later efforts by (male) historians and the church. Based on that experience alone, I find any claim that goes against the traditional historical view immediately believable.I've actually seen claims that more women were literate than males at certain times in European history, at least as regards the nobility.
No idea how true it is or not.
There absolutely were adversaries to education for women. Even founders of early Renaissance teachings and organizers like Erasmus said things like “I do not know the reason, but just as a saddle is not suitable for an ox, so learning is unsuitable for a woman .”Were they education averse though?
The church educated women, and leaders from Charlemagne to Alfred educated their daughters.
Hilda of Whitby - Wikipedia
Gisela, Abbess of Chelles - Wikipedia
Æthelflæd - Wikipedia
I agree with you on this that it wasn't the norm, but it was the norm for men too.
It wasn't so much that it was taboo to educate women, it's hard to declare something taboo if the church and the ruling elites do it after all. It's more that it was not seen as particularly useful.
Very few, if any, pre-modern societies saw education for education's sake as a generic virtue rather than a means to an end or a marker of distinction.
And, to be fair, why should they have?
There absolutely were adversaries to education for women. Even founders of early Renaissance teachings and organizers like Erasmus said things like “I do not know the reason, but just as a saddle is not suitable for an ox, so learning is unsuitable for a woman .”
It wasn't just a matter of generic practicality but active disdain for women in scholarly roles. The best most women could hope for if they wanted to be educated is some basic schooling which often didn't come with grammar schooling in a nunnery where you mostly were expected to do religiously pious needlework. (No seriously, ridiculous amounts of time of medieval nuns was spent making 'educational' illustrativd tapestry.)
Prior to 1300s it was even worse because chivalry and Tertullian virtueism demanded passive, decorative roles for women. Women were literally believed to be intellectually and morally inferior.
If you wanted to be an educated women in the 1300-1500's you'd be better off in Japan or even India.
Female education was a minor concern. Female independence on the other hand lead to some conflicts. This becomes clear in the history of the Beguines.I agree that many people were prejudiced against giving women 'higher' educations, but still many women received them, although usually only if they were nobility, merchant class or in religious orders.
This isn't too different from males of that era though, as education for education's sake was not a commonly held value.
There were also champions of female education.
I'm not sure there was this societal taboo against education, although I agree most men would probably have trouble seeing a woman as an intellectual equal.