Helen J. Nicholson wrote “‘“La Damoisele del chastel”: women's role in the defense and functioning of castles in medieval writing from the twelfth to the fourteenth centuries’” on the 14th of November, 2010. She discusses the importance of women in the maintenance of castles. The breaking down of healthy portrayals of women in the media of the time and the stereotypical portrayals of the women of the medieval age. Reviewing this article will explore Nicholson's ideas and examples and how they explore her ideas of women being underappreciated and illustrate women's contributions, all while eliminating harmful stereotypes. The medieval era is responsible for many portrayals of humans and their groups; it was an era of media boom. So things like …show more content…
Nicholson uses “Histoire des ducs de Normandie et les rois d’Italie,” a text from 1220 by an anonymous author that depicts the Lady of Bramber, Matilda de Braose, throwing cheese at attackers. Which portrays women as incapable of proper defense and too inept to wield something like a sword. If it were the inverse, most males were shown as glorious, courageous, etc. This makes women seem unserious and incapable of anything outside of the realm of food. This is a good example, but this is no isolated incident. Nicholson also provided the text “Margaret of Beverley,” which is a text that depicts a woman fighting but using kitchen utensils to fight during the invasion of Jerusalem. Nicholson states typically women in text wouldn't fight at all unless “when their men folk were absent, incapacitated, or outnumbered.” Reinforcing the stereotype of women's reliance on men, these are some good examples of Nicholson's argument that they were …show more content…
Nicholson has helped us, the reader, understand misogynistic tropes and dismantle them by using actual historical events to prove harmful ideas about women in castles. Nicholson’s last sentence is “but a single woman was expected to marry and get herself a man to do the fighting for her,” reiterating the limiting factors for women at the time and that though they were capable of battle, they had to have a male counterpart to fight on behalf of. Which implies that women cannot fight on behalf of themselves, which is a sad reality and a good realization to come to at the end of the