Change over Time essay
Western Europe was under the rule of the Roman Empire until the empire collapsed in 500 CE. During the recovery time of 500 CE to 900 CE, Western Europe was developed by the impact and spread of Christianity. As Christianity spread throughout the world from 200 CE to 1300 CE, the impact of the religion changed the gender relations, economic structure and political institution of Western Europe. During the Roman Empire reign over Western Europe, the women in the upper class families had great influence and power within a household although men still had control (Stearns 87). Many women were active in business and controlled a small portion of all urban property as well as vital economic functions particularly in farming and artisan families (Stearns 87). After the Roman Empire collapsed, during the Middle Ages in Western Europe, the women’s work remained vital in house hold but they were granted more respect when Christianity spread in. “The veneration of Mary and other female religious figures gave women real cultural prestige,” even during the continued male-dominated society of Western Europe (Stearns 232). In Western Europe the women were said to have “had higher status than their sisters under Islam,” for they were less confined to the household then during the time of the Roman Empire (Stearns 232). Due to the monastic way of Christianity, women were also give an alternative to marriage from the time of the Roman Empire to the Middle Ages. Upper class women were also granted to have “important roles in local commerce and even operated some craft guilds,” in Western Europe during the Middle Ages (Stearns 232). However in some ways during the Middle Ages in Western Europe, there were new limitations on the role of women as they became “assistants and comforters to men, listing supplemental household tasks and docile virtues as women’s distinctive sphere” (Stearns 232). Christianity “emphasis on the equality of all souls,” the faith did not reject any class or