The Life of a Medieval Princess

The Life of a Medieval Princess

Medieval princesses are commonly portrayed as beautiful young women basking in eternal wealth while patiently waiting for her prince to valiantly rescue her. This portrayal is on toys, games, movies, television shows. It’s everywhere. While this portrayal is extremely prolific in modern media, it couldn’t be further from the truth. In medieval Europe, all power was held by men and women were just used pawns to shape society. Medieval princesses had no freedom whatsoever. From an early age, noble girls were taught by their mother how to manage the home, politics, and history. All this education was to ensure the girl would make a good wife to whomever they would be married to in the future.

One common trope associated with the modern portrayal of princesses it the idea of true love. In reality, the medieval princess most likely did not have a concept of true love due to the fact that all royal marriages were arranged for political reasons. Young noble girls’ fathers would often send their daughters to marry men in other kingdoms in order to establish alliances or other relations. A princess’s fate was often determined by the men in her life. After getting married a princesses’ duty was to serve her husband well, and to provide him with male heirs, and after that, her duty was to raise her sons.

The medieval princess had very little freedom in her life. It was a far cry from the spoiled rotten idea of modern princesses; there was no love, no freedom, and much more responsibility.

Sources:
http://www.medievalchronicles.com/medieval-people/medieval-royalty/medieval-princess/
http://www.thefinertimes.com/Middle-Ages/princesses-in-the-middle-ages.html