Writing as Resistance

Abstract

Although women writers in the Spanish Middle Ages were few in number, it is notable that the first known female authors in this time period embraced genres that favor a certain level of inferiority, such as lyrical poetry or autobiographical narratives. These first-person narratives reveal the desire to construct a certain image of themselves on the part of the women writers who struggled to solidify their status in a patriarchal society. It is, however, essential, as Ronald Surtz points out, to differentiate between women of different social status since this factor played an important role in determining their relative freedom.¹ Scholars have argued, for example, that women of the highest levels of society enjoyed certain privileges of ownership in Castile during the Middle Ages, though not all high-status women were treated equally.² Just as women did not generally enjoy ownership rights, they were rarely allowed to express publicly their views on certain topics, especially religion or law, and it is naturally those women who enjoyed some level of social privilege in other areas who first gained access to self-expression through writing. Yet even for these women, such privileges were won only in a limited fashion and were often exercised under the threat of male reprobation.