Hildegard of Bingen receiving divine knowledge
Welcome to Medieval Women!
This class will survey western European women’s history from c. 500-1500 AD. Women’s experiences were largely overlooked by historians for much of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Over the past few decades, however, that situation has changed significantly. Historians started to think more broadly about categories like “power” and “politics” and began to investigate women as important historical actors. At first, this meant that historians focused their attention on the biographies of exceptional women such as Eleanor of Aquitaine, Blanche of Castile, and Joan of Arc. As important as these women are, they are clearly exceptional women drawn mainly from the upper classes and their lives cannot tell us much about the daily lives of more ordinary women. More recently, historians have sought to remedy this limitation by broadening their scope and considering what can be known about women of all classes. They have also begun to ask questions about a wider variety of topics—women’s spirituality, for example, or gynecology and women’s health, or the image of women in literature. Gender also became an issue, not least because recent work on (male and female) sexuality revealed the important role gendered language and imagery has historically played in the construction of political hierarchies. This class attempts to take advantage of some of this recent literature, focusing on women’s experiences in the medieval and early Renaissance periods, and on the role played by gender in the secular and ecclesiastical politics of that era.
W Credit:
All students enrolled in this course will receive a W credit. You do not have to submit additional work to receive it.
Course Format
This will be a synchronous, in-person class. I will be recording the in-person lectures using Panopto in case you miss any lectures or need to review them, but my expectation is that we will all meet in class for lecture unless you are ill (then please stay home and let me know by email). Also, just be aware that there are sometimes glitches with Panopto recordings and that you can't really rely on them as a perfect substitute for coming to class. I'll do my best to ensure that all of the recordings have good audio and clear video, but I can't always control what happens.
If we do happen to experience any Covid surges, or need to pivot back to online classes for any reason, I'll notify you through a Canvas course announcement (please make sure you check your UW email on a regular basis, since all important class announcements will be sent to it). Otherwise, the expectation will be that we will all show up for class in person (unless you're ill - then please stay home and let me know by email).
Instructor Contact Info:
Professor Urbanski (urbanski@uw.edu)
Office: 316B Smith
Office Hours: Tuesday and Thursday 11-12 or by appointment
TA: Ari Forsyth (arijaf@uw.edu)
Office: SMI 214 or via Zoom
Office Hours: By Appointment
General Rules for Contacting Instructors:
- Please check the syllabus and/or assignment handout to see if they contain the information you need before emailing instructors with questions.
- You can email us to make appointments or for quick questions, but you should come to see us during office hours or after lecture for anything that requires more than a one or two sentence response.
- Office hours are periods that we set aside specifically to meet with our students. You should come to office hours if you need help with an assignment, have questions that require a detailed response, or just want to chat about the course, medieval stuff, monsters, or cats. You can even come to office hours with a friend from class if you like.
- We check our email regularly during normal business hours (M-F between 8 am and 5 pm).
- We will reply to emails within a reasonable time-frame (within 24 hours during the week and by the afternoon of the next business day for emails received over the weekend or on holidays).
Assignments and Grading:
15% - Weekly short writing assignments
20% - Midterm Exam
OPEN FRIDAY (4/21) AT 8 AM TO TUESDAY (4/25) AT 11:59 PM
20% - 1200-1500 word (4-5 pages) paper reviewing a secondary study
DUE TUESDAY, MAY 2, BY 11:59 PM
25% - 1800- 2100 word (6-7 pages) paper on a topic of your choice
DUE TUESDAY, MAY 23, BY 11:59 PM
20% - Final Exam
OPEN FROM FRIDAY (6/2) AT 8 AM TO TUESDAY (6/6) AT 11:59 PM
You must turn in both papers and take both exams in order to pass the course.
Grades will be assigned as percentages on individual assignments and exams and converted to the 4.0 scale for the final course grade.
4.0 95-100%
3.5 90%
2.5 80%
1.5 70%
0.7 62% (lowest passing grade)
Late Assignments and Extensions
All assignments are due by the stated date and time. No late work will be accepted unless an extension request is made prior to the assignment deadline. I have a “no questions asked" policy for extensions. If you are asking for an extension, I will presume you have good reasons and will grant the extension as long as it is:
- submitted to me by email (urbanski@uw.edu) before the due date/time, and
- you tell me in your email when you will turn in the work (it should be within two days at most unless there are extenuating circumstances)
If you submit frequent requests for extensions, I will reach out to see what is going on and reserve the right to grant them or not.
Required Books:
Andreus Capellanus, The Art of Courtly Love, trans. John Jay Parry (Columbia University Press, 1990)
The Romance of the Rose, trans. Frances Horgan (Oxford University Press, 2009)
The Book of Margery Kempe, trans. Barry Windeatt (Penguin, 2000)
Selected Writings of Christine de Pizan, trans Renate Blumenfeld-Kosinski and Kevin Brownlee (Norton, 1997)
NOTE: Many of the readings for this course are PDFs embedded in the syllabus below.
Recommended Books:
William Cook and Ronald Herzman, The Medieval World View: An Introduction
Miri Rubin, The Middle Ages: A Very Short Introduction
There is no required textbook for this course. I will be providing historical context in lecture, but students with no background in the Middle Ages may want to consult a good, general textbook on the period. Cook and Herzman’s book is one of the best, and it is reasonably priced. If you're looking for a concise, broad overview of the Middle Ages, Miri Rubin's book delivers a ton of information in a very short format. Both books are available new and used on Amazon.
Resources:
Epistolae: Medieval Women's Latin Correspondence (with English translations)
https://epistolae.ctl.columbia.edu/women/
Feminae: Medieval Women and Gender Index
http://inpress.lib.uiowa.edu/feminae/Default.aspx
Monastic Matrix: A scholarly resource for the study of women’s religious communities from 400 to 1600 CE
Labyrinth: Resources for Medieval Studies
https://blogs.commons.georgetown.edu/labyrinth/
Learning Objectives:
Studying history requires you to engage in critical thinking, analyze evidence in primary sources, build persuasive arguments about how and why things happened using that evidence, and articulate your arguments in clear and concise prose.
In addition to acquiring an understanding of the position of women within western Europe during the Middle Ages, students will learn to:
- Apply critical theory to the historical development of gender.
- Critically evaluate primary and secondary sources.
- Analyze the historical evidence found in primary sources and construct persuasive and clear arguments using such evidence.
- Analyze and evaluate the arguments found in secondary sources.
- Evaluate competing historical arguments using primary source evidence.
- Appreciate the distance between raw historical evidence and historians’ interpretations of that evidence.
Lectures:
Lectures are extremely important in this class. Since we do not have a textbook, I will be attempting to contextualize women’s experiences within the broader expanse of European history as I go along. If you miss lecture, you will lack the historical context necessary to understand and interpret our sources. Exams will focus on material presented in lecture, and papers will require you to integrate material from lecture to analyze our sources.
Reading and Discussion:
We will be discussing our sources during the second half of class on Thursdays. You should complete the reading for the week before then and come to class prepared to contribute to discussion.
Weekly Short Writing Assignments (Reading Responses):
We will also have weekly short writing assignments due before class on Thursdays in which I will pose a general question about the week’s reading, and you will provide a 250-300 word response (these should take you about 30 minutes to complete and links to them are embedded in the syllabus below). The writing assignments are meant to ensure that you have done the reading for the week, given it some thought, and are prepared for discussion. They also give you a low stakes opportunity to write about our sources and receive feedback, and will help prepare you for the kinds of writing we will do on the papers and exams.
The weekly short writing assignments comprise 15% of your grade for the course. Each assignment will be graded on a 100% scale, but zeros will be given in cases where no writing assignment or an assignment that demonstrates no familiarity with the reading is submitted.
Everyone will be allowed to miss one weekly writing assignment without penalty.
Participation in Discussion:
While it will be impossible for everyone to participate in discussion every week in a class this large, you should make a point of contributing to discussion at least a few times during the quarter. Even if you do not regularly contribute to discussion, your attentive presence during discussion will help to clarify the material and prepare you for papers and exams.
Papers:
One of the major goals of this course is to help you improve your ability to read and analyze historical sources and to write persuasive historical essays. It is a fundamental premise of this class that writing is a means of learning. Reading and talking about documents from the past are useful exercises; however, writing about those texts requires you to engage with them in an entirely different manner. Learning to analyze and review the writing of others is also an excellent way to improve your own writing. There are two required papers for this course. The first paper asks you to read, analyze, and review a secondary work in the field. The second and longer paper asks you to tackle a question that interests you using a primary source we have read in class. Instructions for the papers will be posted on the course website and discussed in class.
Exams:
The midterm and final exam will each be available through Canvas for five days. You can decide when to take them within this open period. Both exams will include definitions and short answer questions drawn from lecture, as well as a primary source analyses section. I will issue study guides for the exams a week in advance of each exam.
Academic Standards and Conduct:
Honesty, ethical conduct, and academic integrity are expected in this course. Academic integrity includes a commitment to not engage in or tolerate acts of falsification, misrepresentation, or deception. Acts of dishonesty include cheating or copying, plagiarizing, submitting another person's work as one’s own, using Internet sources without citation, having another student take your exam or working together with other students on your exam, tampering with the work of another student, facilitating other students’ acts of academic dishonesty, etc.
Unless I specify otherwise, all assignments and exams are to be completed by the student alone, without inappropriate assistance of any kind (this includes using any form of AI assistance, such as ChatGPT).
Students who engage in acts of dishonesty will receive an “F” on the assignment or exam. If the assignment in question is a paper, you will have to rewrite the paper in order to pass the course, but will still receive an F on the paper. Instances of egregious plagiarism will be reported to the University of Washington’s Office of Community Standards and Student Conduct for further disciplinary action.
Accommodations:
Please let me know as early as possible if you require religious accommodations or DRS accommodations, or if there is anything I can do to support your learning style.
Information on UW policies regarding Religious Accommodations, Student Conduct, Disability Resources, Academic Integrity, and Campus Safety can be found at https://registrar.washington.edu/staffandfaculty/syllabi-guidelines/
The syllabus is subject to change at the instructor’s discretion.
WEEK ONE (3/28 and 3/30): INTRODUCTION
Lectures:
- Introduction and Gender Theory
- Early Germanic Society
No discussion or reading this week
WEEK TWO (4/4 and 4/6): WOMEN IN EARLY GERMANIC SOCIETY
Lectures:
3. Women in Early Germanic Society
DISCUSSION (complete the reading and submit the writing assignment before class on Thursday):
Reading Guide:
- Pay attention to Wealhtheow, Hildeburh, Modthryth, Hygd, Freawaru, Grendel’s mother, and the Geatish woman.
- What roles do you see women playing?
- What is the social status of each of these women? How does this limit what we can know?
- Do women speak? What do they say? Are their words valued in this society?
- Are women actors in this society? What do they do? What weight do their actions carry?
- What qualities/actions are praised in women?
- What qualities/actions are criticized?
WEEK THREE (4/12 and 4/13): FOR WHOM WERE THE “DARK AGES” DARK?
Lectures:
4. Marriage and the Family in the Early Middle Ages
5. Abbesses and Holy Women
DISCUSSION (complete the reading and submit the writing assignment before class on Thursday):
Rudolf of Fulda's, Life of Leoba; readings on Abbess Hilda from Bede’s History of the English Church and People, Book IV, chapters 23-24; and excerpts from the Letters of Boniface (letters 4, 15, 17, 18, 21, and 41)
Reading Guide:
- What does female sanctity look like?
- What virtues, miracles, etc. are attributed to these women?
- Do these women have power/authority?
- What is the source of that power/authority and how do they use it?
- How do they interact with men (esp. Boniface)? How are they viewed by them?
- How do they interact with their community? How are they viewed by the community?
WEEK FOUR (4/18 and 4/20): LIFE AT COURT IN THE HIGH MIDDLE AGES
*MIDTERM EXAM OPEN FRIDAY (4/21) AT 8 AM TO TUESDAY (4/25) AT 11:59 PM
Lectures:
6. A Narrowing of Options
7. The Setting of Courtly Love
DISCUSSION (complete the reading and submit the writing assignment before class on Thursday):
Andreas Capellanus, The Art of Courtly Love (this is a required book), skim the introduction, read pp. 28-211
You can skim through the long dialogues in Book I, pp. 36-141, but read enough of them to understand what kinds of advice he is giving to men from various classes when it comes to wooing women of various classes; make sure to read books II and III.
Reading Guide:
- Who is Capellanus and why is he writing?
- How does he characterize love? How does he characterize marriage? Are they compatible?
- How important is class in this work?
- What should you look for in a woman or a man?
- Should you pursue love at all?
- What does he say about women in Book III, and how does this compare with the previous two books?
- Considering that Capellanus was writing in a satirical tradition following Ovid, what should we make of his advice?
- To what extent do you think Capellanus’ work reflects actual attitudes toward women in the twelfth century?
WEEK FIVE (4/25 and 4/27): WOMEN AND POWER IN THE HIGH MIDDLE AGES
Lectures:
8. Women and Power in the High Middle Ages
Medieval Lives: The Damsel
DISCUSSION (complete the reading and submit the writing assignment before class on Thursday):
Elizabeth A.R. Brown, “Eleanor of Aquitaine: Parent, Queen, and Duchess”
Ralph V. Turner, “Eleanor of Aquitaine, Twelfth-Century English Chroniclers and Her ‘Black Legend’”
Reading Guide:
Elizabeth A.R. Brown, “Eleanor of Aquitaine: Parent, Queen, and Duchess”
- How does Brown view most of the studies of Eleanor that have been published?
- What does Brown present as the most serious impediment to studying Eleanor?
- What is Brown’s thesis (her main argument)?
- Be able to offer a synopsis of Eleanor’s life (you’ll have to tease this out of Brown’s article by paying close attention).
- How did her lineage and her birth/upbringing in southern France affect Eleanor’s expectations about women and power?
- How did Eleanor become duchess of Aquitaine? What does this tell us about inheritance patterns and women’s status in twelfth-century France?
- What was her relationship with her first husband, Louis VII, like? How active was she in getting that marriage dissolved?
- What was her relationship with her second husband, Henry II, like? What was Eleanor’s relationship with her children, especially her sons, like?
- How did Eleanor engage in politics during the course of her life and how did her opportunities and forms of engagement change once she was widowed?
Ralph V. Turner, “Eleanor of Aquitaine, Twelfth-Century English Chroniclers and Her ‘Black Legend’”
- What is Turner’s thesis?
- What are the elements of the “black legend” associated with Eleanor? What actual events were they based upon?
- What authors perpetuated this black legend and what does Turner present as their motives?
- Did any of these authors have first-hand knowledge of any of the events that contributed to this legend? How far removed from these events were they?
- Does Turner see any reason for accepting any elements of this legend as factual?
- What does the “black legend” associated with Eleanor reveal about how clerical, male authors viewed powerful women?
WEEK SIX (5/2 and 5/4): A PERSECUTING SOCIETY
*FIRST PAPER DUE TUESDAY, MAY 2, BY 11:59 PM
Lectures:
9. A Time of Definitions
- The Drive for Uniformity
DISCUSSION (complete the reading and submit the writing assignment before class on Thursday):
The Romance of the Rose (this is a required book), tr. Horgan, skim the introduction, pp. 3-61, 111-245, 300-335 (ch. 1-3, 5-8, and 11-12), pay close attention to authorship
Reading Guide:
- How is love portrayed in ch. 1-3, and how is it portrayed in the other chapters? Is there a disconnect between them? Why?
- How does the depiction of love in ch. 1-3 compare to what we saw in Capellanus Books I and II?
- How does the portrayal of women in ch. 5-8 and 11-12 compare to what we saw in Book III of Capellanus? Is it more or less misogynistic?
- How is the Lover portrayed? How is the Rose portrayed? Who has agency?
- What kinds of advice do Friend and Old Woman give? What can this advice tell us about gender norms and expectations?
WEEK SEVEN (5/9 and 5/11): SAINTS AND HOLY WOMEN
*THERE ARE NO CLASS MEETINGS, NO READING, AND NO DISCUSSION THIS WEEK*
I'LL POST PRE-RECORDED LECTURES ON PANOPTO FOR YOU TO WATCH
THE RECORDED LECTURES ARE FROM 2021, SO IGNORE THE DUE DATE THEY GIVE FOR THE SECOND PAPER - I'LL RECORD AND POST A SEPARATE VIDEO WITH INSTRUCTIONS FOR OUR SECOND PAPER
Lectures:
11. Women and the Church
- Hildegard of Bingen
NO READING OR DISCUSSION THIS WEEK
WEEK EIGHT (5/16 and 5/18): SEX AND MARRIAGE
*IF YOU ARE CREATING YOUR OWN PAPER TOPIC FOR THE SECOND PAPER, YOU MUST SUBMIT YOUR PROPOSED TOPIC TO ME (URBANSKI@UW.EDU) FOR APPROVAL NO LATER THAN TUESDAY, 5/16, BY 11:59 PM
Lectures:
13. Medieval Marriage (this is a pre-recorded lecture on Panopto)
- Women at Work (we will be back in class for lecture and discussion)
DISCUSSION (complete the reading and submit the writing assignment before class on Thursday):
The Book of Margery Kempe (this is a required book), Book I, chapters 1-38, 45-49, 51-55, 58-59, 61-62, 64-65, 73-79, 84, 86, 88, and Book II, chapters 1, 2, and 10
Reading Guide:
- Who is Margery and what is her social status?
- How does Margery describe her life before her conversion?
- How does she describe her conversion?
- How does her piety manifest itself?
- How do people react to her?
- What is her relationship with her husband like?
- What are her interactions with religious and secular authorities like?
WEEK NINE (5/23 and 5/25): WOMEN AT WORK
*SECOND PAPER DUE TUESDAY, MAY 23, BY 11:59 PM
Lectures:
15. Women on the Margins
- Narrowing of the Workplace
DISCUSSION (complete the reading and submit the writing assignment before class on Thursday):
Blumenfeld-Kosinski, The Selected Writings of Christine de Pizan (this is a required book), 15-29, 41-45, 88-109, 116-155, 184-201, and 252-262
Reading Guide:
- Who is Christine and why is she writing?
- What does Christine have to say about the Roman de la Rose, Ovid, and courtly and clerical misogyny?
- How does she defend herself and other women from misogynist attacks?
- How does she portray herself (what does she describe as her strengths and weaknesses)?
- How does she portray Eve and women in general?
- What practices does she advocate for women?
- Does she appear to have internalized her culture’s misogyny, or accept its gender standards?
WEEK TEN (5/30 and 6/1): WOMEN AND WITCHCRAFT
Lectures:
17. Witch beliefs and accusations
DISCUSSION (complete the reading and submit the writing assignment before class on Thursday):
Malleus Maleficarum, Part I, Questions VI, VIII, IX, and XI
Reading Guide:
- Who are the authors and why are they writing?
- Why do think women are more prone to practicing witch craft than men?
- What kinds of women are most inclined to practicing witch craft?
- How do the authors characterize women in general? What cultural symbols/authorities do they use?
- Can the devil make men impotent?
- Do the authors think witches can really remove men’s penises? How can you tell if a missing penis is due to witch craft?
- What do they suspect midwives of doing?
- What recurrent themes/anxieties do you see expressed in these questions?
FINAL EXAM OPEN FROM FRIDAY (6/2) AT 8 AM TO TUESDAY (6/6) AT 11:59 PM