INVESTIGATION OF GENDER ATTITUDES OF THE RULING ELITE IN THE MIDDLE AGES AND EARLY MODERN AGE IN MODERN HISTORIOGRAPHY: MAIN STAGES AND DIRECTIONS OF RESEARCH

Abstract

The paper provides a characteristic of the stages and directions of scientific research on gender attitudes of the ruling elite of Germany and France in the Middle Ages and the first part of the Early Modern Age (10th – first half of the 16th centuries) on the basis of the analysis of German, French and Russian works. It refers to the publications of the second half of the 20th – early 21st centuries where the matrimonial practice of the ruling elite and the political role of women-governesses are under consideration. The study involved several research works of German and French historians, working in the field of female and gender history; and also supporters of the traditional approach who are actively addressing the questions of gender interrelations. The author concludes that the investigation of the ―history of women‖ from the ruling elite in the 10th – 15th in foreign and Russian science developed in the late 1970s – 1980s and it was then when plots connected with womengovernesses began to be actively discussed in general research of political and social history. In the 1990s the questions of the female history became the part of Court phenomenon research. At the same time scientists began to address to the later period – the first half of the 16th century, drawing their attention to the general problematics, as well as to the ―history of women‖ itself. It was the period when the first publications on gender history appeared.