6.8 The Means of Accomplishing part 8

After the victory at Hastings (1066) William King of England vowed to retain the laws of King Edward. “See that Remigius the Bishop does not demand new customs within the Isle of Ely. For I am unwilling that he shall have there anything except what his predecessor had in the time of King Edward.”

William’s lineage came from Scandinavia, which shared Anglo-Saxon values. However, his great-great-grandfather, Rollo, was granted Lower Normandy in northwestern France. William grew up under the French laws and values. Further, William had the Pope Alexander II’s support to invade and rule, seeing William as the means to impose doctrinal Christianity on Anglo-Saxon England. One doctrinal goal was to drive women out of positions of Religious authority. Increasingly blaming women for mankind’s fall from grace was a useful justification. By 1072 William’s commitment to existing laws, especially those preserving women’s autonomy, gave way to increasingly arbitrary and misogynous declarations. Together French law and Christian doctrine stripped women’s presence and importance from public life. The rejection of women’s Anglo-Saxon rights were the foundation of coverture in English and American law.

Two Norman changes, French feudalism and primogeniture, were directly responsible for the subjugation of Anglo-Saxon women’s autonomy. The consequences of feudalism’s masculine militarism are obvious. The consequences of primogeniture are more impactful although less visible.

Norman Feudalism

French feudalism was a misogynistic world. William seized vast sections of Britain’s land for his private forests and to give to the barons whose soldiers fought for him. Rather than generosity those bribes eased the Barons’ threat of rebellion. That negotiation of fealty was repeated by subsequent kings, leading eventually to the Magna Carta.

Feudalism relied on noble warriors’ loyalty. In exchange for titles and land the nobles provided military forces and paid taxes to the king. The loss of the “common” and increasingly oppressive taxes were heavy burdens on freemen. This early Norman period was the time, by English legend, of Saxon Robin Hood who fought against Norman abuses.

The duties of fealty, the feudal bond between lord and vassal, demanded enlisting soldiers. The French feudal tradition ignored the history of Saxon women’s leadership such as Queen Aethelfaed, believing only men could assemble and lead armies. Similarly, managing estates, which were the foundation of taxes was considered beyond women’s abilities despite the success of widows with sufficient means. Despite those exceptions the principle continued claiming that since women couldn’t handle estate finances while living, they certainly couldn’t dispose them in death.

Primogeniture

By definition, primogeniture is the first born child’s right to succession. To keep estates whole, the first born got everything: the entire estate and title if there was one. Siblings lived at the mercy of the eldest male. Parents could not transfer land ownership to daughters. Where there was no son, a daughter was a place holder until a husband gained control the the estate. Generally widows were quickly married off, with the new husband gaining full control of the estate. Widows might be able to retain control of their estates by paying a fee to the king. But they could not dispose of the estate (alienate the land). Absent a son, the oldest daughter was a steward holding the land until she married.

Lords quickly married off landed widows and daughters in alliances that benefited themselves. Those arranged marriages often ignored the Church requirement of women’s consent. An extreme, but not exceptional, example is the four-year-old married to a nobleman who died after two years. She was remarried at six. When he died she was married again at eleven. There was no meaningful consent in her marriages.

These marriages were sales for profit or rewards to buy warrior loyalty. The Woman’s status as child or widow was irrelevant. Women could be forced to marry men of lower rank than Anglo-Saxon women would ever been forced to accept. Some women were beaten until they consented. Once married women could not make a will distributing whatever private assets they might have gained without their husbands’ approval.

Despite Church doctrine, women had little choice over whom they married. Where Anglo-Saxon peaceweaver marriages were arranged to build intertribal relations benefiting both families, Norman marriages focused on profit and status. Under primogeniture women’s primary function was to produce the next heir to her husband’s property. A mask of courtly demonstration of holding women in high esteem, they were reduced to breeding stock, Virginity, proof of primogeniture legitimacy, became a premium value, inspiring various traditions of escorting the newlyweds to the bedroom to observe the consummations.

This subjugation of women reflected a “wardship of the body” that included children as well. Under primogeniture the children belonged to the husband. The first born son in particular was his heir. Typically only the first born son was brought into active wardship. If he died wardship slipped to the next son. If a husband died the children (and woman) became wards of the feudal lord who could sell them individually of collectively. In practice, “women were often allowed to keep custody of a very young child for a ‘period of nurture’ usually until the child’s marriage or betrothal around age six or seven.”

Women were criticized for lacking intelligence while being increasingly denied education. Life in an abbey still provided some opportunity for education but it was more limited than during Anglo-Saxon times. Among the occupation available to women were brewing, cloth making, and cheesemaking.

Consistent with the Church dismissal of women from religious authority, women disappeared from political leadership. Women lost their legal identity. There were the responsibility of their fathers or husbands in the tradition of Republican Rome. Unmarried women were under their fathers, wives under their husbands. Only widowed women could bring litigations or plead in court. They lost that right if they remarried. Similarly only widows could make valid wills, but with no right of transfer land.

Next: coverture and the American experience.

1  Doris M. Stenton, English Justice Between the Norman Conquest and the Great Charter 17-18 (1964)

 2 Attempts to argue that William simply followed the values of his time fails. He had to deliberately destroy, or allow the destruction of, the Anglo-Saxon laws.

3 From Life of St. Hugh of Lincoln Angela M. Lucus Women in the Middle Ages – Religion, Marriage, and Letters 83 (1983) p89-90

 4 These ranged from escorting them to the door, partying in the room while closing drapes around the bed, to watching and cheering the man on.

 5 Christine G. Clark Women’s Rights in Early England, 1995 BYU L. Rev. 207 )1995). P 230 https://digitalcommons.law.byu.edu/lawreview/vol1995/iss1/4