Against the Grain: Deconstructing the Feminist Erasure of Female Medieval Agency

Modern feminist historiography, while claiming to resurrect women's voices from historical silence, has paradoxically contributed to a new kind of erasure: the ideological negation or distortion of female agency in premodern societies. This fifth and final treatise challenges the dominant narrative that the medieval world was universally oppressive to women and governed by an all-encompassing “patriarchal” order. Rather than illuminate the past, such a framework often obscures the complex roles, powers, and responsibilities that women held—both publicly and privately—across different cultures and religious systems.

Contrary to the reductionist vision of history as a linear liberation from “patriarchal oppression,” the medieval world reveals a tapestry of social orders, religious traditions, and customary laws where women could wield influence, gain respect, and exercise various forms of authority. Their agency was not necessarily defined by rebellion, nor was it always oppositional. It was often embedded, relational, symbolic, and institutional—yet no less real or impactful.

The feminist portrayal of medieval women as universally oppressed, voiceless, and powerless reflects not the past itself but the ideological lenses of modern theorists—particularly those rooted in second-wave and post-structuralist feminism. This projection leads to a flattening of historical nuance and silences the actual diversity of women's lived experiences. It replaces one kind of erasure—the historical neglect of women—with another: the erasure of women’s embedded and accepted forms of power simply because they do not align with contemporary ideals of emancipation.

One prominent example of this ideological erasure is the tendency to dismiss female religious authority. Abbesses, anchorites, mystics, and saints often held revered positions that granted them institutional legitimacy and spiritual leadership. These roles are sometimes patronizingly reinterpreted as either exceptions to a patriarchal norm or as forms of false consciousness, thus stripping them of their legitimacy and depth.

Economic and legal agency, too, has been neglected or reframed through feminist skepticism. Medieval women engaged in trade, property management, legal proceedings, and even diplomacy—often independently. Rather than recognizing this as a sign of real-world competence and responsibility, many feminist scholars reinterpret it as tokenistic or merely situational, failing to challenge the core dogma that medieval women were structurally excluded from power.

Ultimately, the greatest historiographical injustice lies in the epistemological imperialism of feminist theory itself: the insistence that women’s history must be read through modern categories of liberation, autonomy, and resistance. But these categories are not universal; they reflect the ideological commitments of the present, not the truths of the past.

To reconstruct a more accurate view of medieval women’s lives, we must discard the totalizing myth of patriarchy and reject the monoculture of modern feminist historiography. This allows us to see women not as passive victims or heroic subversives, but as full actors embedded in coherent and meaningful cultural systems—systems in which they often thrived, influenced, negotiated, and led.

Deconstructing the feminist erasure of female medieval agency is, therefore, not just a historiographical correction—it is an intellectual act of liberation from the ideological colonization of the past. By recovering the real women of history—not feminist symbols or straw figures—we reclaim a more truthful and complex vision of human experience.

In conclusion, the feminist erasure of female medieval agency is a historiographical phenomenon that must itself be critically deconstructed. By doing so, we can recover a richer, more nuanced understanding of women's roles in the past—an understanding that recognizes their capacity for action, influence, and meaning-making, even within constraints. This recovery is not merely about correcting the historical record; it is about challenging the ideological filters that continue to shape what kinds of female power are seen, remembered, and valued.

Selected Readings

1. Martha Howell – The Problem of Women’s Agency in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe

Howell explores the limitations of modern feminist theories when applied to historical female agency.

2. Eleanor Janega – The Once and Future Sex: Going Medieval on Women's Roles in Society

Janega reexamines medieval gender roles and critiques modern projections onto the past.

3. Judith M. Bennett & Amy M. Froide (Eds.) – Singlewomen in the European Past, 1250–1800

This edited volume highlights the diverse roles of unmarried women across centuries and regions.

4. Christine de Pizan – The Book of the City of Ladies

An allegorical defense of women’s intellect and virtue.

5. Judith M. Bennett – Women in the Medieval English Countryside: Gender and Household in Brigstock before the Plague

An in-depth study of women’s economic participation and domestic authority.

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Primary Sources & Case Studies:

– The Book of Margery Kempe

A spiritual autobiography illustrating a woman’s religious journey and social negotiation.

– The Writings of Hildegard of Bingen

Works by the abbess, composer, and visionary showing institutional religious power.

– Medieval Court Rolls & Legal Charters

Legal documents from various archives that show women engaging in contracts, lawsuits, and property exchanges.