Women and Power

Ruling Families' Strategies for the Success in the City of Cologne in the Late Middle Ages

Abstract

The discussion about women and political power in the Middle Ages is generally restricted to women of the nobility, especially those who have served as regents for their minor children or as queens. But when the analysis focuses on non-noble women, even this ephemeral political participation disappears: one of the rare cases of consensus among medievalists is that in cities the direct political participation of women was not allowed. On this subject Le Goff considers that the situation of the townswoman - in terms of independence, mobility, prestige and power - was considerably worse than that of its contemporaries of the nobility or the clergy. While not disproving this dominant interpretation, I think that - based on the data available to women of the ruling elite in the city of Cologne - can be rethink, incorporating women's participation in trade and crafts as part of the social division of labor that allowed that the men of this elite - husbands, sons, brothers - to devote themselves to their political careers, a prestigious but unpaid activity.