including the supposed right of feudal lords to spend their wedding night with their vassals' wives.
The Middle Ages have suffered many insidious accusations due to sheer ignorance—and many others due to bad faith, the accusation of misogyny being one of the most unfair. I have always thought that a society capable of producing such sublime figures as the polymath Hildegard of Bingen, the powerful Eleanor of Aquitaine, the charismatic Catherine of Siena, the mystic Bridget of Sweden, the warrior Joan of Arc, or the intellectual Christine de Pizan cannot be misogynistic. It is possible that medieval society condemned women to a subordinate role to men, as was the case until very recently.
It is also certain that they suffered many abuses, as they have throughout history. But in the Middle Ages, we do not find an attitude of systematic contempt toward women, much less systematic discrimination, which is more evident in later modern centuries and which, unfortunately, is still experienced in so many places around the world.
