Lesson video

Hello, I'm Mr. Marchant, and thank you for joining me for today's history lesson.

I'll be guiding you through all of our resources today, and my top priority is to make sure that by the end of our lesson, you are able to successfully meet our learning objective.

Welcome to today's lesson, which is part of our unit on local medieval history.

Now we've been thinking about the lives of people in medieval Norwich, and in today's lesson we're gonna be building on that work by explaining the different experiences women had in medieval Norwich.

When thinking about the experience of women in today's lesson, we're gonna touch upon different areas of life, such as women and the church, women and education, women and work.

And throughout we'll be keeping in our mind how do these experiences of women appear to have compared to those of other groups in medieval Norwich.

There are two key words which are gonna help us to navigate today's lesson.

Those are nun and literate.

A nun is a woman who has withdrawn from normal life to dedicate her life to God.

And if you are literate, then you are able to read and write.

Today's lesson will be split into three parts, and we are going to begin by thinking about women and work.

Women in medieval Norwich we're expected to perform a lot of housework, organize and cook all meals, and raise all of the children.

For example, it was often women who were responsible for purchasing food for their families.

However, women in medieval Norwich were also able to work in their own trades.

Although the production and sale of beer was mostly a male industry, there were a number of women involved in it too.

For example, in the year 1380, Alice Pouchmaker is recorded as transporting 12 barrels of beer to Norwich in order to be sold.

Women in medieval Norwich were involved in other industries as well.

In her will from 1458, Helen Moundeforde described herself as a glass worker.

Many other women became involved in Norwich's successful textile industry, usually as weavers.

Some women were so successful in their work that they were able to join medieval Norwich's Elite by becoming Freeman.

Records of medieval Freemen record the names of several women as being Freeman from as early as the 14th century, including Petronilla de Bokenham in 1366, and Isabella Dowestin in 1367.

Elizabeth Baret, who worked as a weaver of worsted textiles, became a freeman of Norwich in 1445.

So let's just check our understanding, go.

Similar information we've heard so far about women and work.

What job did Helen de Moundeforde say she had in her will?

Did she record herself as a glasswork, a mother, or a nun?

Pause the video here and press play when you're ready to see the correct answer.

Okay, well done to everybody who said the correct answer was A, Helen Moundeforde recorded herself as a glasswork in her will.

Although a lot of women did work as mothers, they had a lot of domestic responsibilities in medieval Norwich.

They were also able to get their own trades as Helen Moundeforde's example shows .

Now we have a statement on the screen and it says, "women could not become freemen in medieval Norwich.

" Is that statement true or false?

Pause the video here and press play when you're ready to see the correct answer.

Okay, well done to everybody who said that, that statement was false, but we need to be able to justify our answers.

So two justifications have appeared on the screen.

The first says some women pretended to be male to join the freemen, and the other says, some women were able to join because they were successful in industry.

Which one of those two justifications shows that our original statement was correct?

Pause the video here and press play when you're ready to see the right answer.

Okay, well done to everybody who said that B was the correct justification.

Women did not have to pretend to be men in order to become a freeman in medieval Norwich.

In fact, a few such as Elizabeth Barrett were able to become freeman because they were successful in industry.

So now we are ready to put our knowledge of women and work in medieval Norwich into practice.

We have a statement on the screen and it says, medieval women only did housework.

Based on what we've learned about women and work in Norwich so far, is this statement accurate?

I want you to explain your answer.

So you might use the following sentence status to help you.

The statement is or is not accurate.

I can tell this because.

So pause the video here and press play when you're ready to reflect on your response.

Okay, well done for all of your hard work on that task.

So we had the statement that says, medieval women only did housework, and I asked if that seemed to be accurate based on what we've learned about Norwich so far?

Your answer may have included.

The statement is not accurate.

I can tell this because women such as Alice Pouchmaker worked in the beer industry whilst others such as Elizabeth Baret, who was a weaver, was successful enough to become freemen of Norwich.

So really well done if your answer look something like that model which we've just gone through.

What's really important for us to remember is that women were able to and did often work in a range of trades in medieval Norwich.

So now we're ready to move on to the second part of our lesson for today where we are gonna focus on women and education.

Carrow Abbey was one of the many churches in medieval Norwich.

It was founded in the 12th century and was run by a group of 12 nuns.

Nuns from Carrow Abbey often worked at St.

Paul's Hospital, which had been set up by the monks at Norwich Cathedral.

Unlike many women at the time, the nuns at Carrow Abbey were literate, and it's possible that they may have taught some girls in the city as well.

Historians aren't 100 certain on this because there's no clear records to say that this was something which was definitely happening at the time.

So let's just check our understanding of that first bit of information we've heard about women and education.

I want you to write the missing word in the following sentence.

The blank at Carrow Abbey provided both hospital care for the sick and teaching for young girls.

So pause the video here, write the missing word and press play when you're ready to see if you got the correct answer.

Okay, well done to everybody who said the missing word was nuns.

The nuns at Carrow Abbey provided both hospital care for the sick and teaching for young girls.

So a little bit like the monks at Norwich Cathedral, who provided a range of services for the population of medieval Norwich.

We can see that nuns were also important for providing a range of services in the medieval city.

If you were to visit Norwich Cathedral today at the front entrance of the church, one of two large statues, which you would see on either side of the doorway, is shown on the screen.

And what might surprise some visitors to the cathedral is that the statue on the left-hand side of the door is of a woman specifically of Julian of Norwich.

So it helps for us to think about who was Julian of Norwich?

Julian of Norwich lived during the 14th century.

After suffering from an illness in 1373, Julian experienced a vision of God's love.

This was the first of 17 visions Julian would experience during her life.

Historians know about this because Julian herself wrote about her experiences.

Her writings now known as Revelations of Divine Love, are the earliest surviving English language works by a woman.

Clearly, Julian was literate.

After all, she was able to write the book recording her visions, and it is possible that she was taught by the nuns at Carrow Abbey.

Julian's writings led many others to consider her an important religious leader, and she was visited by others for advice.

It is clear that other women in medieval Norwich were also well educated.

For example, over 100 letters written by Margaret Paston still survive today.

Margaret, who was the mother of a wealthy family, wrote many of her letters to her husband.

Not only do our letters show that Margaret had been educated, but they also reveal that she took on many responsibilities herself, often managing business on her husband's behalf during his frequent periods away from Norwich.

Okay, so now that we thought a little bit more about women and education, we're gonna check our understanding once again.

So how do historians know that Margaret Paston was literate?

Is it because she made impressive speeches, because she was very wealthy or because she wrote many letters?

Pause the video here and press play when you're ready to see the correct answer.

Well done to everybody who said the correct answer was C.

Historians know that Margaret Paston was literate because she wrote many letters, in fact, over 100 letters written by her survive from the 15th century.

And they give historians a very good impression that women could be literate in medieval Norwich and some of the things that might have happened in their lives.

So let's try another question.

We've got a statement on the screen that says, "Julian of Norwich was well known but was not literate.

" Is that statement true or false?

Pause the video here and press play when you're ready to see the correct answer.

Okay, well then to everybody who said that, that statement is false, but as always, we want to be able to justify our answer.

So we have two justifications that are now visible on the screen.

The first says, Julian rewrote the works of monks about God's love.

And the second says, Julian wrote about her visions of God's love.

So which one of those two justifications is accurate?

Pause the video here and press play when you're ready to see the right answer.

Okay, well then to everybody who said the correct justification was B.

Julian wrote about her visions of God's love in her book, "Revelations of Divine Love.

" And that book is really important for historians because it's the first surviving English language work, which we know to have been written by a woman.

So now that we've checked our understanding, we are ready to put our knowledge about women and education into practice.

There are two sentences on the screen and I want you to complete both of them.

So our partial sentences say, historians know some women in medieval Norwich were well educated because, for example.

So you need to complete both of those two sentences.

Pause the video here and press play when you are ready to check your answers.

Okay, well done for all of your hard work on that task.

So I asked you to complete the following sentences, and your answers may have included "historians know some women in medieval Norwich were well educated because they were literate.

For example, Julian of Norwich became well known for writing Revelations of Divine Love, which recorded her visions of God's love.

He may alternatively have talked about other examples, perhaps like Margaret Paston's letters.

In any case, what's really important for us to remember is that we have seen that some women in medieval Norwich were quite well educated.

So now we are ready to move on to the third and final part of today's lesson where we are going to discuss barriers for women.

Although some women managed to become very important in medieval Norwich, this was not a very common experience.

Women faced many barriers to their success.

One issue was male jealousy.

Many men did not want to compete with women for success, especially not when it came to work.

In 1511, the male weavers of the city rioted against women who they thought were taking their work.

Another issue for women was restricted opportunities.

Whilst there were free church-run schools for boys in medieval Norwich, there was just one for girls.

This meant that medieval women had less of a chance to receive an education than men.

Those women who could read and write in the city such as Margaret Paston were often from very wealthy families who could afford to pay private teachers.

Poorer women were far less likely to receive any education at all.

Women's opportunity to join the city's elite were also restricted.

Although women could become freemen, they were not allowed to become mayor or join the city's ruling council.

This made it hard for women to gain power in medieval Norwich.

So now that we've heard about some of the barriers for women, we just wanna make sure we securely understand them.

So which example shows most clearly that men were jealous of women's work?

Is it that boys could attend more schools than girls?

That male weavers rioted over female competition, that men could become mayor but not women, or that men worked most of the jobs in the beer industry?

Pause the video here and press play when you're ready to see the right answer.

Okay, well done to everybody who said the correct answer was B.

We can tell that men were jealous of women's work in medieval Norwich at times because in 1511, male weavers rioted over female competition.

This shows just how angry some men were at the idea of women doing similar things to them.

So let's try another question.

I want you to write the missing word in the following sentence.

The shortage of schools for girls meant that most educated women were from blank families.

So pause a video here, write the missing word and press play when you're ready to check your answer.

Okay, so to fill in our missing gap, you might have said that the shortage of schools for girls meant that most educated women were from wealthy or rich families because there was only one church from school for girls at Carrow Abbey, most women who wanted to get an education would've had to pay private teachers for it.

The only people who would've been able to afford a private teacher were those from wealthy or rich families.

And let's try one more question.

We have a statement on the screen that says women were not able to lead Norwich's elite.

Is that statement true or false?

Pause the video here and press play when you're ready to check your answer.

Okay, well done to everybody who said that, that statement was true, but we want to be able to justify our answer.

We have two that are now visible.

The first says they could not become freeman and the second says they could not become mayor.

Which one of those two justifications is correct?

Pause the video here and press play when you're ready to see the right answer.

Okay, welcome to everybody who said the correct answer was B.

We can tell that women were not able to lead Norwich's elite because although they could become a freeman, they could not become mayor.

They also couldn't join the ruling council.

So there was a clear limit on the amount of power which women were allowed to gain in medieval Norwich.

So now we are ready to put all of our knowledge and all of our understanding into practice.

I want you to explain one reason why it was difficult for women to succeed in medieval Norwich.

Your answer must give a clear reason and support it with a detailed historical example.

So pause the video here and press play when you're ready to reflect on your response.

Okay, lots for you to think about when answering that question.

So really well done for all of your hard work there.

I asked you to explain one reason why it was difficult for women to succeed in medieval Norwich.

Your answer may have included.

"One reason why it was difficult for women to succeed in medieval Norwich was because they had restricted opportunities.

For example, although women could become freemen, they were not allowed to become mayor.

This made it hard for women to gain power.

So we can see that that model includes really specific detail to back up the original point and even offers a little bit of extra explanation to say why that detail was such a problem for women.

Alternatively, you may have written a paragraph that looked like this.

"One reason why it was difficult for women to succeed in medieval Norwich was because of social class.

For example, there was only one school for girls in Norwich.

So most women who received an education had to pay privately.

This was too expensive for women from poor backgrounds, so they were far less likely to receive an education than women from elite backgrounds.

" So really well done if your own response look something similar to one of those models that we've just gone through.

And so now we've reached the end of our lesson, which means we're in a good position to summarize our learning from today.

We've seen that women in medieval Norwich worked in many different industries, including weaving and glass making.

Women also joined religious communities.

Some women were well educated and literate, such as Julian of Norwich, who gained fame as a Christian writer.

Women's opportunity to gain an education and power in medieval Norwich were restricted compared to those for men.

And women from wealthy backgrounds were more likely to be literate than those from poorer backgrounds.

So thank you for joining me for today's lesson.

You worked so hard to investigate the experiences of women in medieval Norwich, and I look forward to joining you in future where we'll think further about what different medieval lives in Norwich were like.