Chapter 4 - Women: Sometimes Strangers in Their Cities

Summary

In Chapter 4 we see how Europe’s women were central to urban life: within their families, as workers in production and retail, and as members of parishes. Yet their opportunities were also curtailed, as they were denied the full enjoyment of civic life. The contours of such denial differed across Europe: in the north, women often enjoyed a sort of diminished citizenship, and in the south of France they were more visible in the courts of law. Yet, like Jews and others, they were a group apart in many ways, deemed unsuitable for the exercise of public authority, for their voices to be heard, or for their claims to be made in person in urban courts. Their agency is palpable within neighbourhoods, in the running of workshops, and in the support of family businesses, especially in widowhood. They were creative in forging religious lifestyles even against parental choices and social conventions. But, like ‘strangers’, they were vulnerable too, forced to be dependent in many ways. Like all social interactions, theirs varied by class and age, but it is useful nonetheless to recognise that strangerhood can be experienced even within the town of one’s birth, the place called home.