Did women act in medieval times?

Answer 1

This is rather like asking how women were treated in the history of post Columbian North America. The Middle Ages lasted 1000 years and covered a continent. There was no one way women were treated. But we can make some generalizations.

Equality was not a concept that people thought about much in those days. There were groups that had the idea that women were the equals of men, the Cathar movement being notable in this respect, but it was suppressed (for reasons having little to do with how women were treated). But in general, men and women were considered to be different in nearly all ways, including physical strength, intelligence, and rights. Women had rights and abilities, to be sure, but not the equal of men's.

Probably the biggest disadvantage that women suffered was that they could not inherit property or titles if they had living brothers, a situation that was nearly universal. In most places, they could own land and titles if it did come to them. This changed with time, but not necessarily for the better. In England, women's property was their own until the 13th century, and after that was their husbands'.

There were countries where women were allowed to be the monarchs, and there were other countries where they were not. England and Scotland both allowed ruling queens, and while both came close to crowning women as rulers, it did not happen in either in the Middle Ages. Most of the Spanish kingdoms had ruling queens, as did a number of Slavic countries. Denmark did not legally allow a queen to rule, but that did not stop it from happening, and Queen Margaret I was one of the most successful monarchs in the country's history. The Byzantine Empire had several ruling empresses. France did not allow women to rule the country, but women could own and rule smaller areas, including duchies. The Holy Roman Empire was similar in not allowing women to rule.

Women worked at many jobs, including stone mason, carpenter, physician, weaver, troubadour, and just about anything else you can imagine. There were women who fought in battles, and there were women who were knighted.

Women worked with their husbands in much of the Middle Ages, and always had to be ready to take over business, whatever that was. Usually it meant plowing the fields, but if the husband was baker, merchant, or architect, there was a strong likelihood that the wife was quite able to take over. In much of the Middle Ages this was assumed, and many guilds made provision for a transfer of business to a woman if the husband died or was incapacitated.

In the High Middle Ages, the concept of Chivalry became important. This elevated women to a point of putting them on a pedestal. It was an improvement in some ways, and not in others. Later on in the Middle Ages, the condition of women was degraded. I suspect the reasons for this were very complex. As mentioned above, women were less able to own property. But guilds, for example, stopped allowing women to be members, possibly because they had built trust funds to provide allowances for widows instead of requiring them to work.

There are links to related questions below, and most of these have further links to resources.

Answer 2

There were medieval women in court. There were places where medieval women were not only in court, they ran the court.

There is a link below to a list of female monarchs. Those who were in Europe or countries that were European and Asian, and who reigned between 476 and 1492 are considered medieval.

Answer 3

Rarely if none at all. Women were not trained to be fighters in the medieval age because it was deemed to costly as they would be uneffective fighters against men. Religious reasons, social expectations on women, and other things also contributed to this.