Feminism in medieval times

Today, feminism is often associated with political protests of the 1960s or the women's suffrage movement, but Stanford historian Paula Findlen's research reveals that the impetus to champion women started in the late Middle Ages. A scholar of the Italian Renaissance, Findlen collects biographies of medieval women, written in Italy from the 15th to 18th centuries, several centuries after the women lived. These early modern writers were so passionate about medieval women that they sometimes fabricated stories about them.

As Findlen carefully tracked down the claims in these stories, she found they varied from factual to somewhat factual to entirely false.These invented women were often mentioned in regional histories, with imaginary connections to important institutions. They were described as having law degrees or professorships, claims that turned out to be fictitious. Findlen argues that these embellished tales represent what could be described as the origins of a certain kind of feminism.

"Early modern forgers used stories of women to create precedents in support of things they wanted to see in their own time but needed to justify by invoking the past," Findlen said. "While debating the existence of these medieval women, the writers also contributed to the science of history as we know it." Findlen described her foray into conjectural history as "a project about how early modern medievalists invented the Middle Ages, claiming and defining this past. Making up history is a way of ensuring that you get the past you want."

In her forthcoming publication titled "Inventing Medieval Women: History, Memory and Forgery in Early Modern Italy," Findlen pays particular attention to Alessandro Macchiavelli, an 18th-century lawyer from a Bolognese family. Macchiavelli was passionate about finding evidence to support Bologna's reputation as a "paradise for women." He created stories and footnotes about learned medieval women from the region, including writer Christine de Pizan. According to Findlen, "He aggressively made up [biographies of] medieval women and supplied the evidence that was missing for them." More to come....