Between Pit and Pedestal: Women in the Middle Ages

Between Pit and Pedestal does an admirable job describing the life of real women in the Middle Ages as they live between the 'pit of hell' characeterized by the fall of Eve and the saintly pedestal of the Virgin Mary. The book covers all aspects of medieval life from the home and hearth to sex, religion, land ownership, the legal system and government. The book is readable and is well-suited for the general reader. My only complaint with the book is that at times it reads like a string of factoids strung together and individual stories lacks depth. This fault is somewhat required by the survey nature of the book. Recommended for anyone interested in the Middle Ages or women in history.

"Between Pit and Pedestal" offers a fascinating in-depth look into the daily lives of women during the middle ages. Authors Marty Newman Williams and Anne Echols present a well-rounded overview of what life for women from various stations of life was like during this era (information on rich and poor, religious women, and scholars is provided). The book is divided into well-researched chapters that offer commentaries on every day life, personal relationships and sexual mores, religion, politics and law as it pertained to women, culture, work, and literature and art. No stone is left unturned, and the authors provide many interesting biographies of medieval women whenever possible to reinforce their research.The book is fascinating, and reads easily. Extremely well researched, the book includes helpful notes and citations, an excellent bibliography for further reading and a glossary. You will come away with a clear idea of what life was like for women in the Middle Ages, as well as knowledge regarding politics, community life, morals, and religious thought of the time.

This book is for all women to read and pass down on to their daughters. We never "really" learn or hear about the injustice to women or what they had to go through in our history books. This book shows you both sides of living from the very poor to the very upper class women and how they all struggled to live in a male dominanted society. Even thought today we still don't live in as strict as a society for women, there are still a lot of parrells forn the Middle Ages until now that this book presents. It also has neat tibits of history that you won't ever find in regular history books and are so fascinating that they leave you spellbound, espeically when you know it's all fact.