Misogyny, Patriarchy and Female Labour in the Medieval Household
Channel: Recording Archaeology
Date: 2021-01-17

Medieval people were well aware of the power of materials in shaping ideas of selfhood and negotiating otherness. However, archaeologists engagement with medieval material have traditionally focussed around representational ideas of identity; at their best these approaches explore the implication of objects in identity work but at their worst they lead to objects standing for static and homogenising categories. Here I focus on a specific set of material engagements, the processing of grain and textiles, which were fundamental to economic development in medieval England. These tasks, typically organised at the domestic scale, have often been classed as female work and situated within a gendered dichotomy in which women occupy indoor, domestic spaces and their layout is termed ‘by-work’, a term which is intrinsically misogynistic in belittling the economic contribution of women. The paper draws on a range of historical and archaeological evidence from non-elite medieval households gathered through the Living Standards and Material Culture in English Rural Households (1300-1600) project. This evidence is read through the writing of Rosins Braidotti, Donna Harraway and Jane Bennet in particular, to consider household matter more generally, to re-cast these material engagements not as representative of a marginalised category of female, but to explore how complex forms of womanhood emerged from its implication in assemblages of domestic production. My purpose in doing so is not to deny the patriarchal character of medieval society but rather to consider how a more-than-representational approach to medieval objects can offer an alternative to male focussed, teleological perspectives of medieval economic and social development.


Ben Jervis, Cardiff University