Why Feminists Should Celebrate Middle Ages & Catholic Church

It is hard not to shake one’s head when hearing feminist activists describe misogynistic speech and other attacks on women’s dignity as “medieval” — especially for those who have taken the trouble to read the great medievalists such as Régine Pernoud (1909-1998). Indeed, it is this 20th-century French historian and archivist whose prolific work has done the most to dispel the particularly tenacious myths and prejudices of our time with regard to the Middle Ages, a period that spans a millennium (from the years 500 to 1400 approximately) and is considered to have witnessed the pinnacle of the Catholic Church in the West. In this multifaceted universe, she devoted a large part of her work to the question of the status of women, a question that was not without cultural and political stakes in a 20th century that saw the emergence of the most radical feminist movements (which spawned some of the “woke” movements we know today), against a backdrop of massive de-Christianization.