medieval misogyny
I have finished listening to Will Durant’s Story of Civilization, volume 4, The Age of Faith on 37 1.5 hour cassettes. Here are a couple quotes from original sources that I just had to save and share:
Many medieval clergy complained that women used “so much paint on their faces that none was left to adorn the icons of the church.”
A clergyman of 1220 eloquently rebuked the women of his parish: “Ye women, ye have bowels of compassion, and ye go to church more readily than the men. And many of you would be saved but for this one snare: in order that ye may compass men’s praise, ye spend all your labor on your garments. Many of you pay as much to the seamstress as for the cloth itself. It must have shields on the shoulders; it must be flounced and tucked all ’round the hem. It is not enough for you to show your pride in your very buttonholes, ye must also send your feet to hell by special torments. Ye busy youselves with your veils; ye twitch them hither, ye twitch them thither, ye gild them here and there with gold thread and spend thereon all your trouble. Ye will spend a good six month’s work on a single veil, which is sinful great travail. And all that man may praise your dress: ‘Ah God! How fair! Was ever so fair a garment?’ ‘But, Brother Burtall,’ ye say, ‘we do it only for the goodman’s [husband's] sake that he may gaze the less on other women.’ Oh, believe me! If thy goodman were a good man indeed, he would rather behold thy chaste conversation.”
And, of course, the only other person to use scraps of this quote (that I could find on Google) used it to prove how horribly sexist and misogynist the medieval Church was. Thus, he introduces the above quote with the following sentence: “The Church portrayed women as slaves to vanity.”
Imagine! Such abuse! Such mistreatment! Teaching that women are slaves to vanity….the nerve!
