The Depiction of Gender Roles from Marginalia in the French Book of Hours in the Loras College Library Special Collections by: Kelsey Sheridan
The interactions between men and women in the past had a significant impact on the development of today’s gender roles, creating expectations and limitations that influence the relationship between the two sexes. It is important to understand gender roles and how they developed over time so that we can better comprehend how our society functions today. In order to discern how the relationships between men and women were during the Middle Ages we will look at the French Book of Hours. The marginalia located in the book depicts the how people of the time viewed women in society and in relation to men, the images expressing cultural attitudes and assumptions common during the time of production.
There were two different views of women at this time, both of them having positive and negative aspects, and therefore carrying mixed messages about the female sex. One view was that of courtly love, where women were esteemed for their beauty, grace and other feminine qualities, on the other hand there was that of the Church, which valued women for qualities like spirituality, virginity, and intelligence. In the Middle Ages the ideas of courtly love and chivalry took hold and greatly influenced the traditional gender roles of women; the poems of the troubadours of this time venerate and adore women, sometimes presenting select women as strong and powerful, but at the same time continuing to maintain the feminine ideals of the time such as beauty, elegance, generosity, etc. While courtly love elevated women to a high social position and valued them, the idealization of the female sex actually led them to be placed on a restrictive pedestal, confined to the courtly expectations of the time. During the same time that the culture and ideas of courtly love were sweeping across Europe, the Church was espousing its own ideas about women. The Church also relayed some positive images, despite the notorious misogyny of clerics such as Jean de Meun, the author of the Romance of the Rose. The Church and religious writers celebrated women for characteristics such as charity, chastity, religious spirituality, and intelligence: Jacques de Vitry, for example, wrote a hagiographical account of Marie d’Oignies, one of the first beguins, and maintained a devotion to her throughout his life. In courtly love women were restricted to specific ideals (how to act, what they should look like, etc.) but with the Church and religious writers women were venerated for qualities that they exhibited that made them set them apart from all others and that made them special. That specialness had the dual effect of reverencing specific women, often for challenging social conventions, while at the same time marginalizing them as unusual specimens and hence reinforcing cultural attitudes about gender.
The French Book of Hours in the Loras College collection reflects some of the cultural assumptions about gender roles in the late Middle Ages. Looking at the first image we see a man and a women in front of a trellis of flowers, seemingly about to embrace. If we take a closer look at the picture, however, we can see many different intricacies that shed some light on the image. Based on the dress of the woman she is obviously not a peasant or poor woman. She is wearing shoes and a veil, and her dress is nice and seems well made. Based on these observations this would mean she is most likely of the aristocracy or upper middle class, but clearly not royal. When we look at the woman in correlation to the man we can see that she is portrayed differently than he is. Physically she is smaller and thinner than he, reflecting both physical and political weakness. Also, not only is she more diminuitive, but she is also looking up to the man in the image, giving him the power in the relationship and relegating her to a subordinate role. In contrast the man obviously appears as robust and taller, making him seem strong and a giving him the illusion of power. Now while the man is portrayed in a superior manner, it can be ascertained that even though the man and woman are not equals, they have a similar social standing. We can see this because there is no blatant depiction of a superior social status than the difference between the sexes; there is no phallic symbols or signs of women’s inferiority to man displayed in the marginalia. Hence, we can see that in a devotional text, images were used to reflect traditional roles in the context of religious practice.
There were two different views of women at this time, both of them having positive and negative aspects, and therefore carrying mixed messages about the female sex. One view was that of courtly love, where women were esteemed for their beauty, grace and other feminine qualities, on the other hand there was that of the Church, which valued women for qualities like spirituality, virginity, and intelligence. In the Middle Ages the ideas of courtly love and chivalry took hold and greatly influenced the traditional gender roles of women; the poems of the troubadours of this time venerate and adore women, sometimes presenting select women as strong and powerful, but at the same time continuing to maintain the feminine ideals of the time such as beauty, elegance, generosity, etc. While courtly love elevated women to a high social position and valued them, the idealization of the female sex actually led them to be placed on a restrictive pedestal, confined to the courtly expectations of the time. During the same time that the culture and ideas of courtly love were sweeping across Europe, the Church was espousing its own ideas about women. The Church also relayed some positive images, despite the notorious misogyny of clerics such as Jean de Meun, the author of the Romance of the Rose. The Church and religious writers celebrated women for characteristics such as charity, chastity, religious spirituality, and intelligence: Jacques de Vitry, for example, wrote a hagiographical account of Marie d’Oignies, one of the first beguins, and maintained a devotion to her throughout his life. In courtly love women were restricted to specific ideals (how to act, what they should look like, etc.) but with the Church and religious writers women were venerated for qualities that they exhibited that made them set them apart from all others and that made them special. That specialness had the dual effect of reverencing specific women, often for challenging social conventions, while at the same time marginalizing them as unusual specimens and hence reinforcing cultural attitudes about gender.
The French Book of Hours in the Loras College collection reflects some of the cultural assumptions about gender roles in the late Middle Ages. Looking at the first image we see a man and a women in front of a trellis of flowers, seemingly about to embrace. If we take a closer look at the picture, however, we can see many different intricacies that shed some light on the image. Based on the dress of the woman she is obviously not a peasant or poor woman. She is wearing shoes and a veil, and her dress is nice and seems well made. Based on these observations this would mean she is most likely of the aristocracy or upper middle class, but clearly not royal. When we look at the woman in correlation to the man we can see that she is portrayed differently than he is. Physically she is smaller and thinner than he, reflecting both physical and political weakness. Also, not only is she more diminuitive, but she is also looking up to the man in the image, giving him the power in the relationship and relegating her to a subordinate role. In contrast the man obviously appears as robust and taller, making him seem strong and a giving him the illusion of power. Now while the man is portrayed in a superior manner, it can be ascertained that even though the man and woman are not equals, they have a similar social standing. We can see this because there is no blatant depiction of a superior social status than the difference between the sexes; there is no phallic symbols or signs of women’s inferiority to man displayed in the marginalia. Hence, we can see that in a devotional text, images were used to reflect traditional roles in the context of religious practice.
In the second image from the French Book of Hours we have an illustration of a man and a woman riding on a horse with a castle in the background and a man, presumably a servant or worker of some kind following behind the man and the woman. Looking at the woman’s clothing we can see that she is a woman of high social standing, one of the upper class, and this is based on dress, and especially her headdress which was worn by high class ladies of the time. The man riding the horse with her is someone of some wealth, looking at his clothes and the horse that he is riding on. There is no indication of what type of relationship the woman has with the man on the horse, but we can see that the man following behind them on the horse is of a lower social standing than the two because he is walking behind them, and does not have a horse of his own. The woman is riding sidesaddle behind the man riding the horse, which was very common for women of that time to do; the dresses and various other garments did not allow women to ride astride, also it would have been immodest for a woman to ride astride, because that is how men rode. In the image the man is literally taking the reins and controlling where the horse will go, giving him superiority over her as a man, and maintaining the traditional gender role of women as subordinate to men.
The third image from the Book of Hours is of a woman holding a book. During the Middle Ages it started to become more popular for wealthy or upper class families to educate their daughters, and not just their sons, allowing them to learn at least the basics of reading and writing and gaining a rudimentary education. We can tell that the woman in the image is either wealthy or upper class because of her clothes and her surroundings, which seem to be a castle or manor house. In the medieval time period there were a few women who became famous for their learning and writing, breaking into a field that was almost entirely dominated by men; Christine de Pisan is one example of a woman who became well known throughout Europe for her education and her writing. While women were still continuously viewed as subordinate to men this image shows us that gender roles were adapting and changing during this time and it was becoming acceptable for women to become educated.
The Middle Ages were a period where gender roles were strongly rigid and limiting to women, and even though during this time period women were venerated, adored and held in high esteem the social assumptions about proper relations between men and women always placed men in a dominant position. While there were some women who were able to rise above the limitations placed on them by society, they were still subordinate to man. . The illustrations in Books of Hours such as those at the Loras College library reflect social attitudes and can help illuminate the ways those attitudes were dramatized in material culture.
The third image from the Book of Hours is of a woman holding a book. During the Middle Ages it started to become more popular for wealthy or upper class families to educate their daughters, and not just their sons, allowing them to learn at least the basics of reading and writing and gaining a rudimentary education. We can tell that the woman in the image is either wealthy or upper class because of her clothes and her surroundings, which seem to be a castle or manor house. In the medieval time period there were a few women who became famous for their learning and writing, breaking into a field that was almost entirely dominated by men; Christine de Pisan is one example of a woman who became well known throughout Europe for her education and her writing. While women were still continuously viewed as subordinate to men this image shows us that gender roles were adapting and changing during this time and it was becoming acceptable for women to become educated.
The Middle Ages were a period where gender roles were strongly rigid and limiting to women, and even though during this time period women were venerated, adored and held in high esteem the social assumptions about proper relations between men and women always placed men in a dominant position. While there were some women who were able to rise above the limitations placed on them by society, they were still subordinate to man. . The illustrations in Books of Hours such as those at the Loras College library reflect social attitudes and can help illuminate the ways those attitudes were dramatized in material culture.