The secret afterlives of medieval widows(prospectmagazine.co.uk)

prospectmagazine.co.uk

The secret afterlives of medieval widows

https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/arts-and-books/the-secret-afterlives-of-medieval-widows-history-feminism

11 comments

One excellent example I learned of recently was Catherine of Valois. A queen dowager who, among other things, in a later relationship co-founded the Royal house of Tudor with a random Welshman.

By the by, the Wars of the Roses make for an explosive tabbed browsing experience.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catherine_of_Valois

jfengel5년 전

Catherine's is a remarkable story. She wasn't just any queen dowager: she was the widow of Henry V, a practically mythical figure in British history. That made Owen Tudor the step-father to Henry VI, who unfortunately was rather a mess as king (mostly, I suspect, due to the fact that he became king as a baby and everything was messed up before he was even able to talk).

It makes her a rather dubious link in the claim that her grandson made after the York family finally wiped itself out. Henry Richmond had to say a combination of "Grandma was married to the best king ever" and "Besides, I just killed the old king and there's pretty much nobody left, wanna fight about it?"

I'm a bit surprised that more people don't see it as a Great Reset of the British monarchy, but given the way the Tudors petered out themselves (via the Stuarts) and they had to mail-order some new monarchs, first from the Netherlands and then from Germany, it's just one more thing.

Post-Roses-War is also a pretty obsessive Wiki-spelunk.

Beldin5년 전

What I'm missing in this story is how owning land made women wealthy. I can believe that land was expensive, but I'm not sure how owning lands generates income - except by selling it.

Or would this be the type of land that comes with serfs?

bb011001005년 전

Land was a productive asset, made so via farming by the people who lived on the land and did the work. Someone else will be able to point out when serfs stopped being a thing.

shorner5년 전

These comments cover it pretty much, but also relevant was that it was quite rare for women to own land as it would often transfer to the family (ie. husband) on marriage (essentially, heiresses), or to male heirs on death (or only to only-child heiresses if they married).

Widowhood and un-eligable female only-children were one of the main ways women were able to be landowners way back when.

This is regarding England at some point in history - I'm unsure both when in history this stopped, and how similar this was to any other places in Europe or the rest of the world.

ableal5년 전

Simplest thing was to let someone work the land in exchange for a cut of the crops: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenant_farmer

Sharecropping has also been pointed out as the model for things happening on the web: https://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/200x/2003/07/12/WebsThePl... (redux: https://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/200x/2003/07/14/ShareCrop... )

Turing_Machine5년 전

Besides growing crops, there were also mining rights, timber rights, grazing rights, fishing rights, water-powered mills, toll roads, sea ports/river ports... there are any number of income sources that typically have owning the land as a prerequisite.

bandie915년 전

they can rent it and yes generally they owned nearby peasants too, then they can sell the yield to the peasants.

shorner5년 전

There's a column-statue on a hill in rural Wiltshire (England) of a widowed trader named Maud Heath who made a causeway for traders to get to and from their nearest market town. The details of the story vary depending on the source or people you talk to, but wikipedia has most common parts of the bare bones of the history there.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maud_Heath%27s_Causeway

gverrilla5년 전

Is this a website or a collage?

hallarempt5년 전

"Widows in the Middle Ages weren’t always the penniless, powerless figures we’ve made them out to be"

How dumb... "We" have never made them out to be _that_...