Medieval Women Weren't Tradwives

0:00 [Music] No, medieval women were not thread wipes by medieval mindset. Uh, it's all medieval. It's too much medieval stuff. Uh, so don't forget to like, comment, and subscribe. Let's >> If you've been on the internet at all in the past year, you're probably familiar with the term trad. It's this popular lifestyle trend you'll see on Tik Tok or Instagram reels, and it consists of women who got married and had children at a young age and now have created this distinct aesthetic. Okay, this this thing it's kind of so unreal for me. I have to be honest. Like I'm sorry, motorcycle here. Um like uh there is this there is this Oh my god, I forgot because the [ __ ] motorcycle uh Oh god, what I was saying again?

0:47 Yeah, try drive all the the beginning of my [ __ ] video like [ __ ] motorcycle very noisy. Oh god, how how how you not become pissed off with this, huh? How you not like in the beginning of it? Jesus. But yeah, uh try wives for me is the total opposite of feminist, you know, like like and and in in some sense they are the same as well. Like it it it looks like so unreal and so fake. I I don't know. I don't know what to say. Okay. I don't know. I'm a [ __ ] Gen Z. I I I am not an old hack that lived like decades ago. So I I having no [ __ ] idea. But uh at least the the the

1:35 what they are trying to like resurrect nowadays about dread wives, it just looks so surreal. Like it looks so unreal. Like it it does. And I don't know how to explain why, but it it looks like artificial. Way too much artificial. I think this is the word, but I I'm sorry. I It's just a a feeling that I have. I I don't know how to describe, but I think it's the new scan. It's the new It's the new scan of the of the 2025, you know? It's the new scan. Like, it's not even that new. Like, uh this is kind of been resurrected like for quite some time ago already now that feminism is like falling apart. Uh

2:20 people are seems to be trying to resurrect this movement again, but it somehow it doesn't look good. I I don't know. I I see it with bad eyes. I'm sorry. I'm sorry to destroy your guys your guys' dream drinks, but it's traditional lifestyle. They'll do things like make butter from scratch or knit their own clothes as some kind of throwback to a better past when men were drunk and women were quiet. The general idea is that this is how things were for most of human history and people were happy with it. And it's kind of a rejection of more recent social changes and an exhibition of how cool it is to turn back the clock and act like you're a housewife from a bygone era. But was this really how women used to live? Did a woman in, say, the Middle Ages spend her entire day trying to make sure the roast was cooked properly so her husband

3:06 would be satisfied when he came home from a long day at work? The simple answer is no. The tradife trend is an idealization of a past that never existed. If you were to get in a time machine back to medieval Europe, you might be surprised to find that there were no >> It's like I believe it's like the maximum points like it's like uh the the like the surreal the the surreal expectations from that from that time from the average woman. like the average woman where like more or less somehow like well fine cool I guess but uh they have this uh maximized idea the that maximize idealization like some

3:53 kind of of of like what we have from uh what people are calling waifuss nowadays. So it's the same sense of that age. It's some kind of maximized uh uh wife of that age, but uh I don't know if I'm explaining well. It It's not like it was that terrible as well the average on the app on that time. I think uh I think people had other things to get worried about which is more like food, you know, like having food to eat. So yeah uh uh so they or they but even so even

4:39 though they their worries are more more uh about what I going to eat today I have this sense that they were indeed more happy even though uh they had this problems you know and yes they were more conservative and all of this stuff of course they they they were but uh the idealization that have behind uh this imagery that has of uh thread wipes and etc. Of of course that that is a that that is total like wife like behavior that uh exist nowadays >> were chained to the stove all day while their husbands it never happened again is that I'm not trying to start a gender war here or claim that women used to have it better back in the Middle Ages. We obviously know that isn't true.

5:25 I'm simply pointing out that this idea of a traditional wife and a traditional role for women in the home isn't really based in the historical tradition that you think it is. And I know all of this information I'm throwing out is probably blowing your mind right now and destroying this concept of tradition that has been so carefully built up by your online media consumption. So, let's just dive right into the details. Now, you've probably seen commercials from the 1950s, or at least the modern parodies, where the husband rushes off to work and he gives his wife a quick peck on the cheek on his way out the door and then she sits at home for the rest of the day to cook and clean and raise the kids. This vision of domestic bliss might have been somewhat legitimate in the ' 50s. But it really only became the norm in industrialized, urbanized, post-enlightenment societies. And even then, it was really only ever a

6:12 thing with the middle and upper classes. Medieval society was built around household economies, not individual careers. The entire household worked together. And one of the biggest benefits of having children was that once they were old enough, they could help you out with whatever your work consisted of. So, let's think about it for a second. Imagine a medieval surf tied to his lord's land, spending his life sewing and reaping and sewing and reaping and doing his best to survive. Of course, his wife wasn't stuck in the house all day making complicated recipes from scratch and tending to kids who were already old enough to be potty trained. The whole family would be involved in the farming. The man might be the one plowing, but his wife would be sorting supplies or fixing equipment, and his children would be using their tiny little hands to help out wherever possible. And I'm not just making this up. There's an abundance of evidence to support the fact that men and women

6:58 worked together instead of the man working while the woman exclusively tended to the household. There are illustrations in the Latrell, for example, which was published in England around 1330. The little pictures in the margins, which are meant to depict real life, show men and women working side by side at harvest time with the men reaping while the women gather and bind sheavves. According to the British Library's official commentary on the psalter, these farming scenes deliberately include both genders to showcase that during harvest time all available labor was required. Let's also take a look at the doomsday survey of England by William the Conqueror. like having numbers at that age like at those years like made difference. That's why people uh couples were expected to have like lots of children because they

7:44 were a labor force you know uh you uh the strongest uh uh the more kids you have the more strong your family would be like you it's not like it's a 100% guarantee but it uh uh it of course it would probably like uh raise your chances of like growth and have a better life together with your family to build a a strong family, everyone together. Like imagine like having 10 kids. Uh a couple having like 10 kids. And these kids of course things will be very very hard on the first like in the first five or six years old until their kids grow enough to on that on that uh on that

8:30 time to start to some kind of labor inside inside inside home or etc to help the family uh somehow. Uh but even so like after all of these kids have like some some age uh better uh after like 40 15 that they already like have like more like adult bodies to uh to make more uh more strong labor you know more hard labor uh than kids. Then uh that family just like uh became some some sort of of a small corpo you know with uh all these labors inside like it it was totally

9:17 different. It wasn't so expensive to to feed uh your t your children your kids mouths you know and provide the basics for them to you know uh it was totally different than than it is nowadays. It's it's so [ __ ] busty. >> Not long after the Norman invasion in the 11th century, the book is chalk full of references to women in all kinds of occupations within the feudal system, like brewers and bakers and dairy maids. In fact, women are engaged in all the same village industries as men with the only exception being blacksmithing simply because of the physical strength required to swing the hammer. Just like men, women combined regular household farming duties with contributions to the various medieval cottage industries, which would contribute to the manor's economic health. I can hear all the people in the comments already. But

10:02 John, you're just talking about England. But John, just because something was recorded and written down somewhere, it doesn't mean it was true everywhere. But John, not everybody in the Middle Ages lived in rural villages. What about cities? What about other parts of Europe? Well, I'm about to smack you in the face with a veiny, pulsating truth tube. There are plenty of surviving medieval guild records, tax roles, and city statutes that prove unequivocally that women, whether they were wives or widows or even independent artisans, participated actively in urban economies, too. There's a book of trades which was compiled by the French Provos Etien Bolu in 1268 that documents the regulations of Parisian. >> It doesn't actually matter if they participated uh uh on the on the active economic labors or not. I think is at that time at least like of course

10:50 nowadays it's like it's not like the same but of course like everything on that on the age everyone who could was literally work with something or else you wouldn't survive. It's simple as that. You you you uh you needed to uh to eat food, you know, you need to uh supply your basic stuff to live and uh you hadn't like support for from from government and etc like uh nowadays to support people to stay home, stay safe, you know, and all of this [ __ ] that we have nowadays. So yeah, so you gota work and and it doesn't matter if you got to work at

11:35 home uh like in in is in a small farm or whatever build uh helping your family as a as a wife uh like with with uh with like um oh my god I forgot the name. Whatever. Or if you got to like work with uh um actually as as some kind of labor and producing some to society like it it doesn't matter. It it really doesn't I don't think that makes difference. But of course the numbers were it's undeniable that the numbers are were way different than we have nowadays. Way way way much difference.

12:20 Of course, we always had women working in in some degree on society, but like we have now, this is just absolutely >> out of the roughly 100 craft professions that are listed in Paris. Five of them are headed by women and in most of the other 95, women worked alongside men. For example, there was the guild of writing tablet makers, which allowed both male and female artisans as a matter of policy. And then there were also certain industries, a lot of which were in the textile and fashion sector, that tended to be dominated by women. Silk winding, ribbon making, linen embroidery, spinning. All of these are trades that are clearly listed as employing almost exclusively women in medieval Paris. So far, I've mentioned wives working alongside their husbands in rural agricultural settings and women working alongside men in more urban settings. But what about women striking out on their own? Did that ever happen in medieval society? You bet it did.

13:07 Town charters and legal records refer to the fem soul or single woman status in English law, which allowed an unmarried or widowed woman to trade and sue in court on her own. Versions of this existed elsewhere as well, like in the Italian citystates of Florence and Venice. It was pretty common for widows to take over the banking and trading ventures of their dead husbands. There was Dona Andrea dinari of Trevy, for example, who in the 15th century took over her late husband's cloth business and is mentioned in notorial contracts from 1428 as a merkete or a female merchant who operates independently. Now, I won't sit here and say this was a super common thing, but cases like Andreas show that even outside of family enterprises, urban medieval women could have their own path towards economic agency. If we want to talk about what was the more common situation in urban contexts, it would be women contributing

13:52 their labor or expertise in things like brewing, retail, crafts, or textile production within a family workshop with their husband and children, which made it a joint venture. We've already learned that women were active in the traditional medieval workforce, but what about religious life? It's important to remember the supremacy of Christianity, not only when you're thinking about medieval religious observance, but also when you're trying to examine any aspect of medieval life. Monasticism was wildly popular in the high and late middle ages. And it wasn't just men who participated. Medieval nuns ran and lived in their own convents, which also operated as estates, workshops, and houses of trade. Convents usually held extensive lands and feudal rights like Mauling Abbey and Kent, England, which was a Benedicting nunnery that was also a significant owner of land. The Royal Charter Rolls Record from 11:05 records that Henry the First granted the abbis of

14:37 >> I can't stop. I I just can't stop looking at this thing on on the background. I can't take my eyes off you. He's looking back at me. Like when you look at Abs and Abbas look back at you, it's just the same. He He doesn't stop watching me, guys. What do I do? >> Calling and her convent the right to hold a weekly market every Saturday. A privilege that was reconfirmed later by Edward III in 1347. This might not seem that significant to us today, but the charter essentially made the abbus the lord of a local market town. And it even allowed the nuns to collect tolls and rents from the stallholders in generated income for the convent. Speaking of convents generating income, a lot of them did so through the manufacturer of various goods, many of which were luxury items or the kinds of things that took a high level of skill to produce. Textile production was a big one for medieval

15:23 nuns. In fact, they were widely renowned for their fantastic embroidery, weaving, and book production skills, which they would provide to patrons in exchange for donations. When they weren't producing these luxury items for the more wellto-do members of medieval society, nuns also usually sold off the surplus agricultural produce that they had gathered from their land, like butter or cheese or wool. There were even convents that had breweries and sold ale to thirsty pilgrims. And the nuns would do all of the brewing, serving, and bookkeeping for the always popular ale house business. When you look at all these things together, you start to get a picture of a form of female financial independence that existed in the Middle Ages where these nuns were engaging with local markets and craftsmen and essentially turning their convents into economic hubs that were entirely run by women. But we've said a lot here, so let's try and bring it all together and see if medieval women were really trades

16:11 in the way that we understand this chronically online term. Sure, medieval women baked bread and they did cook recipes from scratch and they raised children and performed domestic tasks. Nobody is arguing this, least of all me. What I am arguing, and I've tried to show evidence for with this video, is that the idea of a trad wife that is being sold to you on your TikTok feed, is actually purely a fabrication, a vague throwback to an era that you weren't alive for and which you are looking at with rose tinted glasses. Medieval women worked with their husbands and treated their households as a cohesive economic unit, not a place for them to clean while their husbands were away at work. Work was local in the Middle Ages and unless your husband was off fighting in some armed conflict in a farway land, you would spend your entire day and entire life together under one roof doing the same kind of work and

16:56 raising your family together. What do you think of wifey? Is it something that should be promoted on social media or is it based on a fundamental misunderstanding of history? >> I know like it's not but the way he put this just now like evil mindset. Be sure to like and subscribe and tune in next time for more of my long-winded rants on medieval history. [Music] Before we go any further, I want to take this brief moment here to thanks all of you, my patrons that support my work here on YouTube and especially my five-etail fox tire member Zalast and my three-etail fox members Hitler Fenu and well for the incredible support to my

17:41 work. Thank you very very much. You guys are amazing. Also, thanks to everyone who donated to me through TR and to all of my YouTube members. You can support this channel life and growth with just $5 a month and gain access to many perks. This is less than a burrito. Check out my Patreon link is in the description below. Yeah. Um, that's it. Um, what what do we say? Like, of course, like it was already expected. I don't see like anything revolutionary in what he said. Um, of course, some things were uh more or less surprising but not that much. And uh I know that somehow a lot of people still believe on this idea,

18:28 but I don't. Uh so this wasn't like I I don't know. I I I know a lot of men like would like this to believe that this existed, but uh I it just like it just not possible. I I always saw this like like a note a note version of what it is a waifu today. It's what I think of you guys considering why for today. Yeah, that's it. Um, thank you for watching. Don't forget to like, comment, subscribe, check the links below. Pat squads go high and strong. Consider supporting me so I can get the [ __ ] of the [ __ ] out of here. Someone said that find this phrase fun. But yes, I I try to say this with very much energy

19:14 because I just put a little of my hate on this race to be honest because that's that's how much I hate this [ __ ] culture. Okay, so help me out here. Uh I have this meta of reaching like $500 every month. Uh I think if I reach that uh in like one one year or uh one year and a half or two years I will have uh enough to uh get out of here safely. Or of course if things get real bad here I will get out uh before having that and like and try to do the best with what I have. But this is just in the worst case scenario. Uh, thank for watching. Uh, and I see you all in the

19:59 next one.