History Women Medieval

Valkyries: the female supernatural beings that choose who dies and who lives on the battlefield. They protect some, but guide spears, arrows, and sword blades into the bodies of others. Viking myths about valkyries attempt to elevate the banality of war - to make the pain and suffering, the lost limbs and deformities, the piles of lifeless bodies of young men, glorious and worthwhile. Rather than their death being futile, it is their destiny and good fortune, determined by divine beings.

Between the 12th and 15th centuries in Europe, not all women fit the stereotype of passive housewife and mother. Many led bold and dynamic lives. In this collection of historical portraits, Maria Teresa Brolis tells the fascinating tales of fashion icons, art clients, businesswomen, saints, healers, lovers, and pilgrims - both famous and little known - who challenge conventional understandings of the medieval female experience. Drawing on evidence from literary works and archival documents, Brolis pieces together an intricate overview of 16 women's lives.

Did you know that there are more penises than women in the Bayeux Tapestry? That the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381 was started and propelled by women who were protesting a tax on women? Or that Charles Darwin believed not just that women were naturally inferior to men, but that they’d evolve to become ever more inferior? These are just a few of the startling findings you will learn from listening to Philippa Gregory’s Normal Women. In this ambitious book, she tells the story of England over 900 years, for the very first time placing women—some fifty per cent of the population—center stage.

The Plantagenet queens of England played a role in some of the most dramatic events in our history. Crusading queens, queens in rebellion against their king, queen seductresses, learned queens, queens in battle, queens who enlivened England with the romantic culture of southern Europe - these determined women often broke through medieval constraints to exercise power and influence, for good and sometimes for ill.

A life of Matilda - empress, skilled military leader, and one of the greatest figures of the English Middle Ages.

Virginal, chaste, humble, patiently waiting for rescue by brave knights and handsome princes: this idealized—and largely mythical—notion of the medieval noblewoman still lingers. Yet the reality was very different, as Kelcey Wilson-Lee shows in this vibrant account of the five daughters of Edward I, often known as Longshanks. The lives of these sisters—Eleanora, Joanna, Margaret, Mary, and Elizabeth—ran the gamut of experiences open to royal women in the Middle Ages.

What have a deaf nun, the mother of the first baby born to Europeans in North America, and a condemned heretic to do with one another? They are among the virtuous virgins, marvelous maidens, and fierce feminists of the Middle Ages who trail-blazed paths for women today. Focusing on women from Western Europe between c. 300 and 1500 CE in the medieval period and richly carpeted with detail, A Medieval Woman’s Companion offers a wealth of information about real medieval women who are now considered vital for understanding the Middle Ages in a full and nuanced way.

Helen Castor tells afresh the gripping story of the peasant girl from Domremy who hears voices from God, leads the French army to victory, is burned at the stake for heresy, and eventually becomes a saint. But unlike the traditional narrative, a story already shaped by the knowledge of what Joan would become and told in hindsight, Castor's Joan of Arc: A History takes us back to 15th century France and tells the story forwards.

In The Once and Future Sex, Janega unravels the restricting expectations on medieval women and the ones on women today. She boldly questions why, if our ideas of women have changed drastically over time, we cannot reimagine them now to create a more equitable future.

Set against the backdrop of the turbulent 13th century, a time of chivalry and crusades, poetry, knights, and monarchs, comes the story of the four beautiful daughters of the count of Provence, whose brilliant marriages made them the queens of France, England, Germany, and Sicily.

In 2017, DNA tests revealed to the collective shock of many scholars that a Viking warrior in a high-status grave in Birka, Sweden was actually a woman. The Real Valkyrie weaves together archaeology, history, and literature to imagine her life and times, showing that Viking women had more power and agency than historians have imagined.

This is the story of Joan de Geneville, wife to one of England's most infamous traitors: Roger Mortimer. After the death of her father in 1292, Joan becomes one of the greatest English heiresses of her generation. In a time when women are subservient, she is raised by her mother to command. Educated by her tutors, she becomes a formidable woman in her own right. When Joan is married her husband's lust for power knows no bounds. She is forced to choose between her duty to her King and her loyalty to her husband.

In the early 1800s, on a Hebridean beach in Scotland, the sea exposed an ancient treasure cache: 93 chessmen carved from walrus ivory. Norse netsuke, each face individual, each full of quirks, the Lewis Chessmen are probably the most famous chess pieces in the world. Harry played Wizard's Chess with them in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. Housed at the British Museum, they are among its most visited and beloved objects.

Cast out of the royal court by Eleanor of Aquitaine, deemed too coarse and rough-hewn for marriage or courtly life, seventeen-year-old Marie de France is sent to England to be the new prioress of an impoverished abbey, its nuns on the brink of starvation and beset by disease. At first taken aback by the severity of her new life, Marie finds focus and love in collective life with her singular and mercurial sisters. In this crucible, Marie steadily supplants her desire for family, for her homeland, for the passions of her youth with something new to her.

Brunhild was a foreign princess, raised to be married off for the sake of alliance-building. Her sister-in-law Fredegund started out as a lowly palace slave. And yet - in sixth-century Merovingian France, where women were excluded from noble succession and royal politics was a blood sport - these two iron-willed strategists reigned over vast realms, changing the face of Europe.

The Middle Ages are seen as a bloodthirsty time of Vikings, saints and kings; a patriarchal society that oppressed and excluded women. But when we dig a little deeper into the truth, we can see that the “Dark” Ages were anything but.

The Mongol queens of the thirteenth century ruled the greatest empire the world has ever known. Yet sometime near the end of the century, censors cut a section from The Secret History of the Mongols, leaving a single tantalizing quote from Genghis Khan: “Let us reward our female offspring.”

Brienna desires only two things: to master her passion and to be chosen by a patron. Growing up in Valenia at the renowned Magnalia House should have prepared her. While some are born with a talent for one of the five passions - art, music, dramatics, wit, and knowledge - Brienna struggled to find hers until she chose knowledge. However, Brienna's greatest fear comes true - she is left without a patron. But months later, her life takes an unexpected turn when a disgraced lord offers her patronage.

Separate countries to rule. One heart to share. Will duty or love prevail? ◆ FIRST PLACE WINNER - 2022 CHAUCER Book Awards for Pre-1750s Historical Fiction ◆ WINNER of the Highly Recommended award from The Historical Fiction Company ◆ Royalty ◆ Power ◆ Politics ◆ Love ◆ Struggle The year is 1508. Louis XII, King of France, wants to stamp France’s footprint upon Italy. Anne of Brittany, Queen of France, and ruler of neighboring realm Brittany, wants to produce a son and heir for Louis and to save the independence of Brittany from France. Louise of Savoy, the mother of the ...

In her essay on Jacquetta, Philippa Gregory uses original documents, archaeology and histories of myth and witchcraft to create the first-ever biography of the young duchess who was to survive two reigns and two wars to become the first lady at two rival courts. David Baldwin, established author on the Wars of the Roses, tells the story of Elizabeth Woodville, the first commoner to marry a king of England for love, and Michael Jones, fellow of the Royal Historical Society, writes of Margaret Beaufort, the almost-unknown matriarch of the House of Tudor. The Women of the Cousins’ War will appeal to all.