There is much less evidence about women's lives in the Middle Ages than about men's, but this does not mean that women actually did very little. Most history was written by men, who decided what should be recorded and what should be left out.

However we can tell quite a lot about women's lives from documents and pictures which, although they may not be specifically about women, give important clues as to how they lived their daily lives. As with the men, women's position in society had a great effect on what they were expected to do, what rights they had and what might be expected of them.