St. Valentine's Day Post

How about a post on the Medieval Spanish debate about the role and status of women? The terms of the debate among modern scholars are kind of strange:

There are also a number of studies on the sources and traditions informing two superficially differentiated currents. The first is defined by a somewhat misogynistic approach, generally described as medievalising and with its roots in the Old Testament. The second is a more progressive one which has been perceived, not without unhealthy doses of presentism and anachronism, as protofeminist, in defence of women and usually linked to an incipient lay and humanist philosophy.

Calling the reference to the ancient Old Testament "medievalizing" demonstrates some unwarranted assumptions about the Middle Ages, especially since the "humanizing" argument was a product of the Medievals in reaction to the ancients and their defenders. We still have defenders of the ancient view in the Modern age, but nobody would call them "modernizing."

In any case, you might enjoy reading about the poem, in this article on "Hugo de Urriés and Egalitarian Married Life." (H/t: Medievalists.net.)