Shahar, Shulamith. The Fourth Estate: a History of Women in the Middle Ages

International Social Science Review, Fall-Winter, 2004 by Cheryl Crozier Garcia

Shahar, Shulamith. The Fourth Estate: A History of Women in the Middle Ages. Rev. ed. Translated by Chaya Galai. New York: Routledge, [1983], 2003. 351 pp. Paper, $31.95.

Shahar examines the lives of women in the European Middle Ages, focusing on the early twelfth through the mid-fifteenth centuries. After elucidating the legal status of women during this period, Shahar examines the lives of various female subgroups: nuns, married women, noblewomen, townswomen, peasants, and witches and heretics. Within these subgroups, the author examines women's lives by chronicling their relationships to government, church, morality, and economic development.

The author uses an interesting, unusual, and varied assortment of secondary sources to support her assertions. Personal diaries, legal decisions, church records, and even fiction literature of the period are used to illustrate the role of women in medieval Europe. Shahar's scope is overwhelmingly broad, encompassing the British Isles and Continental Europe over three centuries. The varied geography and longitudinal nature of secondary data allow the reader to draw only general conclusions about women's history during the period.

Though not explicitly stated, the author's hypothesis is identical to those of others on this subject: During the Middle Ages, women were second-class citizens, viewed as the property of their male guardians. The only noted exceptions to this rule were noblewomen acting in the name of absent husbands, and mothers managing the inheritances of their underage sons. Shahar supports her hypothesis effectively across the gamut of the female subgroups she examines.

This book relies upon anecdotal testimony from a number of sources. Personal correspondence between women, between spouses, and between community leaders helps to explain how personal opinions shaped public policy. Case law is examined to show how jurist decision-making in one case shaped conditions for all women and children. Correspondence between spouses and between women friends gives the reader a view of marriage and motherhood not available in published sources from the period.

While this book is an ambitious undertaking, it is rather disappointing. The breadth of the subject matter makes it impossible to delve deeply into the lives of the women to whom the reader is introduced. Moreover, in her presentations of the lives of women and townswomen, Shahar fails to mention exceptions to the "powerless women" model. Specifically, women guild members enjoyed the same rights as their male counterparts, and abbesses of Benedictine female monasteries had the same powers and privileges as abbots of men's communities, enjoying full autonomy over the spiritual and temporal aspects of their houses.

Relative to similar books in the field, this book is difficult to read and comprehend. The lack of a chronological structure within the framework of the book often forces the reader to jump from period to period and between geographical locations. It is certainly not recreational reading, and it is probably not suitable as a university-level text on the subject. Generally, Shahar presents the reader with a "more of the same" approach to the roles played by medieval women.

Cheryl Crozier Garcia, Ph.D.

Chair-M.A. Program in Human Resource Management

Hawai'i Pacific University

Honolulu, Hawai'i