Sinner Woman: Female Vices in "Le Mesnagier de Paris" (1393)

Abstract

During the Middle Ages there was a widespread belief that woman is the daughter of Eve. Women are thus the archetypal sinner. For this reason, the female becomes the focus in many books whose objective is to save society of feminine dangers. A new genre appears: women’s conduct books.The strength of  these books lies in the author: they are not members of religious orders, but laymen. From all these conduct books, we choose the example of the fourteenth-century household book Le Mesnagier de Paris, written by an old man for his teenage wife. The author’s aim is to educate his wife to become a perfect wife in medieval culture. Through the study of this book—in particular the article dedicated to female vice—we extend our knowledge of the negative picture of women during the Middle Ages.