La donna nell'età di Santa Margherita della Metola

This article aims to outline the theological, cultural and social aspects of women’s condition in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, with a particular focus on the Saint Margaret of Metola’s epoch. According to the medieval mindset, man - and man only, independently of the feminine universe of the time - was considered the image of God. Women were subordinate to men, and, according to medieval culture, were relegated to the role of childbearing vessels. The androcentric vision of the social was predominant, and authority, family, feudal and ecclesial powers were moulded on a male model. Women, therefore, interacted with a masculine society that tended to exclude them from the social, political and cultural life of the time. Nevertheless, women strove to actively participate, by making themselves the interpreter - like Saint Margaret - of new sensibilities, new practices of piety and religious sentiments, capable of satisfying the concrete needs of the Church, during a crucial period of its history such as the High and the Late Middle Ages were.