FEMINA

A well-documented study of several significant women of the medieval era.

Using archaeological discoveries and the objects and literature connected to these women, Ramirez, a BBC presenter and Oxford lecturer, seeks to comprehend their spheres of influence and expand their stories. Queens and abbesses, tradeswomen and artisans, monastics and mystics: The author demonstrates to a modern audience that, contrary to many traditional historical accounts, women in the Middle Ages had power, influence, and agency. “This book has focused on a handful of women who high­light specific themes—diplomacy, artistic production, warfare, literacy and leadership—at particular moments throughout the medieval period,” she writes. “Every woman is a complex web of characteristics….It wasn’t just rich and powerful men who built the modern world. Women have always been a part of it, as has the full range of human diversity, but we are only now beginning to see what has been hidden in plain sight.” Ramirez presents an impressive array of evidence, including art, jewelry, coinage, needlework, and manuscripts. She begins each chapter with a “discovery,” which run the gamut from the minuscule (discerning a new figure for King Harold on the Bayeux Tapestry) to the dramatic (stealing the “priceless” Riesencodex, by Hildegard of Bingen, from the Soviets in the aftermath of World War II). Among other interesting characters, the author introduces us to Jadwiga, crowned “king” of Poland in 1384 and now a Roman Catholic saint; and an unknown woman of African origin who was found in a Black Plague mass burial ground and whose bones, like others found nearby, “show evidence of health issues caused by living in a densely populated urban environment.” Ramirez also highlights new breakthroughs in archaeology and anthropological study that have allowed researchers to uncover these hidden stories. Extensive, well-researched, and readable, this book invites us to reassess the historical record.

A great choice for any history buff.