Power Power Women held both power and authority in different areas and at different times in the medieval period. The distinction between power and authority is important. Power is the probability that one actor within a social relationship will be in a position to carry out his own will despite resistance. Power rests on the notion that an individual has the "right" to impose his will, and when it is exercised within a hierarchy of roles, it is defined as authority. Thus a Merovingian queen might have the power, in terms of forcefulness of character and personal access to treasure, to order assassins to attack her rivals, or to seize and torture Parisian housewives. Later, Carolingian queens had authority over the running of the palace. Setting the level of taxes on agricultural products was seen as part of the domestic arrangements, and the queen would oversee the royal treasury, freeing the king to concentrate on military activity. Influence must not be discounted either when considering the relations of medieval women to power. Influence means to bring about a decision on another's part to act in a certain way, because it is felt to be good for the other person. The activities of the king's mistress are often analyzed in these terms. The medieval period saw a decline of women's rights of power. As ever, birth or marriage into a powerful family bestowed informal power; possession of land and money before the marriage and during widowhood conferred legal rights which disappeared on marriage. Participation in public affairs had become a near-impossibility for women of all classes, except where influence might be effected behind the scenes, in the role of royal wife, mistress, or as a queen mother. Under any other circumstances a woman could not speak or act in the public domain, unless she had authority derived from God. So, for medieval women, power was possible, but for the most part, unknowable.
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