Medieval Women
Medieval women were successful in many professions and crafts. Women during the period between the 10th and 15th centuries were laborious workers in fields ranging from writers to physicians to church leaders to fabric weavers. Women at this time were even sometimes regarded as having taken men’s jobs. There appeared to be a great equality between men and women in medieval Europe. During the medieval times, women were able to move past the household work and venture into professions of their own. This book by Madeleine Cosman portrays women in positions of profession which had begun as professions of men. Madeleine Cosman’s Women at Work in Medieval Europe is a brilliant portrayal of the many professions which women occupied between the 10th and 15th centuries. Cosman explains throughout her work about the misinterpretation of a large amount of data on the professional women. ... Cosman moves past the problem of bad record keeping, and she presents other types of evidence in order to confirm her knowledge of women during this period. Throughout her book, Cosman describes professions ranging from physicians to prostitutes and she conveys her knowledge of women working in these areas by describing specific women and instances in which they were involved. The history of Medieval European women is spread across two time periods.