Book 29 - Janina Ramirez "Femina"
Jul. 13th, 2025 10:18 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jazzy_daveJanina Ramirez "Femina : A New History of the Middle Ages, Through the Women Written Out of It" (W. H Allen)
A book asserting that there are lots of interesting stories to tell about the centrality of women in the Middle Ages, which basically is preaching to the converted as far as I am concerned. It starts however in 1913: Emily Davison, who was trampled to death by the King’s horse when her suffragette protest went wrong at the Derby, was a qualified and enthusiastic medievalist who saw the political empowerment of women as fully consistent with history.
Ramirez goes on to look at the Loftus Princess; Cyneðryð and Æðelflæd of Mercia; the Viking woman from Birka; Hildegard of Bingen; the women who made the Bayeux Tapestry; the women of the Cathars; Jadwiga of Poland; and Margery Kempe. It’s a solid piece of work which simultaneously rides the two horses of “these were remarkable individuals” and “women in general were much more important in the Middle Ages than you have probably been told”.
I didn’t know much about any of these particular cases, and had never heard of some of them – and I’ve read quite a lot of medieval history in my time, since I did an arts degree course back in the eigtie, and I covered the middle ages for my final dissertation. So I felt enlightened and encouraged by the end of the book and would recommend this to any budding historian or curious reader.
A book asserting that there are lots of interesting stories to tell about the centrality of women in the Middle Ages, which basically is preaching to the converted as far as I am concerned. It starts however in 1913: Emily Davison, who was trampled to death by the King’s horse when her suffragette protest went wrong at the Derby, was a qualified and enthusiastic medievalist who saw the political empowerment of women as fully consistent with history.
Ramirez goes on to look at the Loftus Princess; Cyneðryð and Æðelflæd of Mercia; the Viking woman from Birka; Hildegard of Bingen; the women who made the Bayeux Tapestry; the women of the Cathars; Jadwiga of Poland; and Margery Kempe. It’s a solid piece of work which simultaneously rides the two horses of “these were remarkable individuals” and “women in general were much more important in the Middle Ages than you have probably been told”.
I didn’t know much about any of these particular cases, and had never heard of some of them – and I’ve read quite a lot of medieval history in my time, since I did an arts degree course back in the eigtie, and I covered the middle ages for my final dissertation. So I felt enlightened and encouraged by the end of the book and would recommend this to any budding historian or curious reader.
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