Hartman Chapters 4 and 5

The problems that the societies of Montaillou and Salem faced seemed to be related to marriage and family and the power that the men wanted to contain. In Montaillou, it was important for the men to keep control of their ostal and to be able to pass it onto an heir one day. Most of the women seemed to keep with the Catholic faith, which placed more importance on the roles of wives and mothers. Hartman tells us that the population was increasing and that because of poor weather conditions they didn’t have the food supplies to support everyone. For the men to be able to be able to contain control of their ostal, it makes sense that they would break away from the Catholic teachings so that they weren’t forced to follow rules that could lead them to lose all that they were working for. They could then incorporate new ways to live their life that allowed them to maintain their ostals and allowed them to maintain the power that they had.

In Salem, most of the accusers were women, so at first you might not think that men were struggling to keep control in society. Hartman makes the argument that even though the women were making most of the accusations, they were doing it on behalf of the men in Salem to protect them. Hartman uses evidence from Karlsen to support this idea. Karlsen notes that the majority of people who were accused of being witches were women. Most of the women that were accused were older, had no male heir, and were either single or widowed. The circumstances that these women were in gave them more power in society compared to the other women, which could lead to the men feeling that they were losing some of the power that they once had. After reading about how the societies were set up, I think that Hartman was able to successfully prove her point and showed how men wanted to be able to maintain their power.

Women in the Catholic Reformation: Patricia Ranft and Teresa of Avila

As I read “A Key to the Counter Reformation Women,” I loved how Ranft took another author’s thesis and, while giving credit to the author, built upon it. I thought this was a perfect example of what we are trying to do—to build upon the current historiography and join in the conversation of European Women’s History. The author adds to the argument by claiming that women gained power because of their relationship to the patriarchal society of Catholicism. She explains that Women sought spiritual direction and appealed to their confessors, both actions were accomplished through “The Confessor-Spiritual Director.” In explaining the structure of the patriarchal society contained within the Catholic Church, Ranft shows the ability of such a society to flex and allow power over religious matters to be controlled by each individual woman, while still maintaining the power of the patriarchal society.

In reading the excerpts of the biography of Teresa of Avila, I found them to be rather intriguing. One selection in particular I found appealing was Chapter 10. In this chapter, Saint Teresa explains the ways in which she has found mercy in the Lord and the power of prayer. She also states her view of being a woman, as it pertains to the context of religion and her function within the church’s structure. She states “the very thought that I am a woman is enough to make my wings droop -- how much more, then, the thought that I am such a wicked one! ... it is seen that on so foul and malodorous a dunghill He [the Lord] has planted a garden of sweet flowers.” This statement bothered me when I read it, and still does. Though she was a very pious and wonderful saint, because she was a woman she felt as if she was worthless and could not achieve, except in the Lord. Though perhaps she is proclaiming her humility, I wonder at her thoughts concerning women’s role in religion and if their religious experiences were valid and useful enough to impart to others.

I chose to classify these sources under the themes of Religion and Gender because they both address the roles, or views, of women in Catholic society contrasted with that of men.

Wiesner-Hanks and Karant-Nunn: One Wise(ner) Lady, and Another Wise Lady Who Isn't A Nun

Here’s the question of the day: is a revolution really a revolution if conditions stay the same or worsen for half the population? Is an intellectual movement a movement if the wives of the Great Thinkers don’t actually move? The two articles that deal with this question fall under this general theme: finding a place for women within traditionally masculine categories and periods of history. Merry Wisner-Hanks’ article addresses the concerns first raised by Kelly’s article “Did Women Have A Renaissance?” in the 1970s. She acknowledges some of the concerns of this article and of surrounding scholarship, scholars who maintain that broad historical and chronological categories first established by male scholars and that have primarily studied male actors are not applicable to the field of women’s history. This argument seems important to acknowledge: it’s a bit like writing that United States a country where men have the right to life and liberty while ignoring the slaves harvesting the crops that sustain that life.
The term “early modern” also might imply “modern Europe against a yet-to-be-modernized non-Europe” (543). This is a problem for all western scholars – why should we pretend that it isn’t? Our categories of analysis have long rested upon cultural assumptions, and these assumptions are important to know and to understand before we can rid ourselves of them. Ultimately, Wiesner-Hanks’ argument becomes one that refutes essentialism and decides to be creative, looking at new historical areas of study which have taken on the idea of women in history. “Change outweighs continuity across the medieval/modern divide” (545). Her most convincing arguments are her articulations of these new fields of study, including the vast impact of female household members on religious revolutions and movements, the newly-recognized “camp followers” in military history, as well as the effects of Ottoman slavery on mothers and sisters who were left behind. It seems like we might just be missing the scholars who will acknowledge these facts and study them at length.
Susan C. Karant-Nunn, is an example of a scholar who follows this line of thinking. She outlines a detailed analysis of the women who were involved in or affected by the events of the Reformation – a sweeping category that, as she shows, that can be used for effectively analyzing the lives of women at the time and changes that impacted their lives specifically. She details the lives of women in religious sects who were forced out of convents and brothels, and how this shift contributed to an overall focus toward women in the home. These changes, she believes, may have led to a decline in religious and social choices, as well as rights for women. The doctrines of the Protestant faith that led the Reformation established an entirely new role for women: an elevated status as wives and homemakers, and an accompanying strengthening of the power of the state to intervene in these relationships through the state marriage court (184). Counter-Reformation movements also changed the lives of women in significant ways, most significantly through increased religious scholarship and fervor by all Catholics, including women (188).
Both Karant-Nunn and Wiesner-Hanks base their scholarship on the concern that throwing out all categories altogether might depict women’s lives as “motionless,” a constant that isn’t a part of history scholarship and therefore shouldn’t be bothered with it (543). I argue that women do, in fact, need a Renaissance, because their contributions and involvement in the period are impossible to ignore for those who decide that it’s valid to look for them. Rejecting the systems by which we have been analyzing history sets the historical conversation back by too much, and in too many ways.