Women from the Knight, Bourgeois and Peasant Classes in Public Space – in the Piast Principalities During the Period of District Division

Abstract

The aim of this article is to present various manifestations of the presence of women in the public sphere in the principalities ruled by the Piasts in the period of the so-called „disintegration of the districts” in the light of extant sources. In particular, documents were analysed. Also analysed were the lives of saints, friars’ books and monastery obituaries. In the light of the sources analysed, women funded, sold or exchanged their estates, or managed their domains, and therefore appeared in the public sphere, if only to conclude various transactions, or to confirm or initiate legal actions. In contentious situations, they appeared before ducal officials or at ducal rallies. Indeed, it was quite common for women, usually widows, to appear in public spaces when their rights to estates were contested.

Another manifestation of women’s presence in the public sphere can be found in their activity at the court of the duchesses, with women coming from the ranks of the magnates who are described, for example, as persons of trust to the duchess. Public activity was undoubtedly carried out by the superiors of monasteries. Women probably acted in crisis situations, such as the captivity of a family member, often initiating the ransom of a captive. Women are also mentioned in various roles in the lives of saints, such as witnesses testifying before a commission on miracles. More often than in other districts, in Silesia documents were issued by women: wives and daughters not only of knights, but also of burghers.