From the accounts, given by Tertullian and other writers about the life
of the early Christians, it appears that their conceptions in regard to
women gave promise for a better future. But during the Middle Ages,
which extend from the downfall of Rome to the discovery of America,
Christianity unfortunately failed to realize these promises.
First of all the ancient Oriental prejudice against women again took
hold of the minds of many Christian leaders. Instead of making
themselves champions of women’s rights and interests, they curtailed
women’s influence in order to subject them to the dominion of their
husbands. In these efforts the “Christian Fathers” complied with those
commands that Paul the Apostle had given in several of his epistles to
the Corinthians, Philippians, and to Timothy. They read as follows:
“The head of every man is Christ, and the head of every woman is the
man, and the head of Christ is God. For the man is not of the woman but
the woman of the man. Neither was the man created for the woman but the
woman for the man.”—
“Let your women keep silence in the churches, for it is not permitted
unto them to speak but they are commanded to be under obedience. And if
they would learn anything let them ask their husbands at home.”
“Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection. But I suffer not a
woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in
silence.”—
These narrow views destroyed the beneficial influence of woman in
Christian lands and retarded her emancipation for more than eighteen
hundred years. Approving of Paul’s commands, Ambrose, one of the eminent
lights of the Church in the Fourth Century, said, to demonstrate the
inferiority of woman: “Remember that God took a rib out of Adam’s body,
not a part of his soul, to make her!” Another of these leaders made the
name “Eve” synonymous with “deceiver,” accusing woman of having been the
cause of men’s expulsion from Paradise. St. John Chrysostom wrote:
“Woman is the source of evil, the author of sin, the gate of the tomb,
the entrance to hell, the cause of all our misfortunes.” And St. John of
Damascus told the world, that “woman is an evil animal, a hideous worm
which makes its home in the heart of man.” Other teachers agreed with
Paul that woman must veil her head because she is not, as is man, in
God’s image!
In face of such vicious promulgations we must not be surprised that
among the discussions of the early “Fathers” none was more important
than that, “has woman a soul?” This question was argued in the Sixth
Century at the Council of Macon. It is also recorded that a few of these
pious leaders entertained the opinion that because of the great power
and goodness of the Almighty “women may possibly be permitted to rise as
men at the resurrection.” And the Council of Auxerre, held in the Sixth
Century, decided that women should wear gloves before they touched the
holy sacrament.
As at the same time ascetic thinkers impressed the minds of the
Christians with an inordinate estimate of the virtue of celibacy,
conceptions of matrimony also changed considerably. While marriage was
not condemned, it was, however, regarded as an inferior state, and it
was held, that persons who had not married, but remained pure, were
nobler and more exalted beings than those who had married. With the
advance of such ascetic ideas a large family came to be regarded almost
as a disgrace, as a proof of lasciviousness.—
All these doctrines of woman’s inferiority in time corroded the ideas of
the Christian nations about woman to such a degree that her position in
the religious service as well as in law and in all the customs of the
early Middle Ages sank to a very low level.
Another reason for the failure of Christianity in regard to woman’s
emancipation was that the minds of the leaders of the Church became
occupied by aims which to realize seemed to them of far greater value
and importance.
The early Christian communities had been simple associations of
believers in a common faith. They had no settled form of doctrine or
rules of discipline. They even had no body of magistrates. But the
moment these associations began to advance and became a corporation,
they started to mould a form of doctrine. At the same time the elders,
who taught and preached, and morally governed the congregation, became
priests, while those, who did service as overseers or inspectors, became
bishops.
Among the latter the bishops of Rome adopted not only the title of
Pontiff or High-Priest, but also assumed dictatorship over the bishops
of all other dioceses. Professing to be of divine appointment and the
representative of Christ they claimed in his name authority over all
things, both temporal and spiritual. Accordingly they made the
propagation of the Christian faith throughout the world their chief
mission and organized for this purpose an army of clerical dignitaries,
who held themselves responsible to no other authority but the Pontiff or
Pope, to whom they were bound by the strongest vows. Also numerous
orders of monks and nuns were established, who assisted greatly in the
extension and strengthening of the Church.
The influence on human progress and culture of these vast religious
armies has always been greatly overrated. No doubt, under the management
of the monasteries and nunneries large tracts of virgin soil and forests
were cultivated, and that architecture and art, as long as they served
the interests of the Church, were patronized. But it is equally true
that the Church tried to prevent its followers from thinking
independently, that great masses of people, particularly those of the
rural districts, were held in strict servitude and mental bondage, and
that education and science were grossly neglected. Any attempts to
question the authority of the Church or the truth of the Scriptures,
were cursed as heresy and punished with death.
Among the first who had to suffer the wrath of the Popes, were the
Waldenses, Albigenses, Stedingers, and several other Christian sects,
which during the 9th, 10th and 11th Centuries had formed in various
parts of Europe for no other object than the re-establishment of the
simplicity and sincerity of the early Christian communities. As these
sects were found at variance with the rules of the Church, they were
decried as heretical, and almost extinguished.
Intolerant against all other creeds, the Popes also opened a series of
wars against the Mohammedans, professedly for the purpose of delivering
the “Holy Land” from the dominion of the “Infidels.” Aside from these
“Crusades” a similar war was directed against the most western branch of
the Mohammedans, the Moors, who had occupied a large part of the Iberian
Peninsula. These struggles ended in 1492 with the fall of Granada and
the surrender of the famous fortress Alhambra. While in the treaty of
peace certain stipulated privileges had been granted to the conquered,
one of which provided for free exercise of their religion, this liberty
of worship was treacherously withdrawn in 1499 and the Moors either
killed, expelled, or made Christians by forcible baptism. Those who
survived by intermingling with the Spaniards produced a new race, the
Andalusians, famous for their graceful women. The Spaniards adopted many
of the Moorish manners and institutions, among them certain restrictions
in the intercourse of the two sexes. Writers of the 15th Century state,
that in these times the Spanish women used to sit in Oriental fashion,
with legs crossed, on carpets and cushions, spending their time with
embroideries and gossip, or telling the beads of the rosary. The
husbands seldom sought their company, and even preferred to take their
meals alone. Married ladies were not allowed to receive male visitors,
and if their husbands brought friends along, they hardly dared to lift
their eyes. The only breaks in this monotonous life were occasional
calls by women friends, who were received with the greatest possible
display of dress and jewelry. This unnatural segregation of the sexes
still prevails in Spain to some extent and is chiefly due to the
jealousy of men. Well aware of their own unfaithfulness and great
inclination for love-adventures, they have no confidence in their wives
either, but always watch them with suspicion.
We find similar conditions in many other parts of Southern Europe. But
as restrictions are always apt to breed intrigues we hear everywhere of
plots and love-affairs, such as Boccaccio has related in his
“Decamerone.” The stories of this famous book, which was written between
1344 and 1350, without question are based on actual events, frequently
among the fashionable ladies and gentlemen of the age.
* * * * *
Far higher than in Southern Europe was the status of women in those
countries occupied by nations of Germanic stock.
At the time of Tacitus the Germans had no settlements, but lived in
isolated dwellings on the river banks or clearings in the majestic
forests. With the migration of the nations, however, caused by the
enormous pressure of vast Mongolian hordes upon the tribes of Eastern
and Central Europe, the Germans were compelled to abandon this mode of
life. For security’s sake they gathered together in villages and cities.
These they surrounded with heavy walls and towers, and protected them by
castles, erected on steep cliffs and mountains.
The custody of these strongholds was entrusted to the most efficient
warriors, who in time formed a separate class, the nobility, from which
the heads of the whole nation, the princes, kings and emperors were
chosen. The inhabitants of the cities formed the class of burghers, who
devoted themselves to the trades and handicrafts. There was a third
class, made up of the people remaining in the rural districts, the
peasants.
Of course the positions of the women of these various classes differed
widely. While the women of the peasants and craftsmen were busy with the
functions of their every day’s work, the women-folk of the rich
merchants and the nobility had ample time to cultivate everything that
makes life worth while. With blissful hearts they took part in all
pleasures and festivals. And with the same feeling they accepted the
tokens of respect and admiration, extended to them by the knights as
well as by the many minstrels and troubadours, who travelled throughout
the country to entertain with their songs of love, adventure and heroism
all who liked to listen.
Many songs of the 12th and the 13th Century express the high esteem of
their authors for women. They also prove that the so-called
“Minnedienst” of the German and French knights was to a great extent an
ideal tribute and consisted chiefly in a restrained longing of the
heart, in a pure remembrance of the beloved one.
One of the best known rhymes dates from 1120 and reads as follows:
Du bist min, ih bin din:
des solt du gewis sin.
du bist beslozzen
in minem herzen;
verlorn ist das sluzzelin:
du musst immer darinne sin.
Thou art mine, I am thine!
Pray, what could be just as fine?
Thou art enclosed
Within my heart;
The key is lost, so, as it were—
Thou must now stay forever there.
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