Today I am delighted to welcome Anne O'Brien along on the publication day of
The Shadow Queen,
to discuss her
Top Six Medieval Women with Style...
1340. Joan, the Fair Maid of Kent, learns that she is to marry William Montagu, heir to the
Earldom of Salisbury, an alliance that will redeem their family after her father’s execution for
treason. But Joan cannot marry her childhood friend Will. At just 12 years old, she has fallen in
love with, and secretly married Sir Thomas Holland, a humble knight who is currently fighting in
France with the King. Furious, her mother and the Montagu family convince Joan to marry Will,
despite her feelings of guilt.
But when Sir Thomas returns, he is determined to win back his wife, no matter what. Joan must
quickly learn to navigate the dangerous and seductive world of the royal court, with its treachery,
subterfuge, and power-hungry families…
A tale of betrayal and ambition, and of love and loyalty, The Shadow Queen is the untold story
of the beautiful, quick-witted and scandalous Joan of Kent, who would ultimately go on to
mastermind the reign of the Child King, her son Richard II.
Six Medieval Women with Style
Here are six medieval women who put pen to parchment, which is
interesting in itself, but who also wrote with such elegance and forthright use
of words. Their letters and books shine with
clarity and conviction, opening for us a window into the lives of these women
who expressed themselves with confidence on all manner of subjects. Love, sexual desire, education and the role
of women in government at the side of their husband, nothing is outside their
scope of interest and experience. It is
all here for our delight.
Christine de Pisan
Widowed at an early age, Christine, living in
France, turned to the pen as a way to support her children, writing both prose
and poetry which was well received in the highest circles in an age when women
had relatively no voice. Christine
worked to refute the negative ideas that scholars were spreading about the
education and role of women, showing the elite women of her time how they could
navigate most successfully through what was a man's world. Her main work, The Book of the City of Ladies, stood as a testimony to the
greatness and accomplishments of women, putting them on the same level as men.
Women
particularly should concern themselves with peace because men by nature are
more foolhardy and headstrong, and their overwhelming desire to avenge
themselves prevents them from foreseeing the resulting dangers and terrors of
war. But woman by nature is more gentle and circumspect. Therefore, if she has
sufficient will and wisdom she can provide the best possible means to pacify
man.
Heloise
Famous for her scandalous
relationship with Peter Abelard, Heloise celebrated their forbidden love with a
series of love letters. A tragic story,
Abelard and Heloise were cruelly separated, Abelard becoming a monk and Heloise
a nun. How firm and finely judged were Heloise's
words to her lover whom she never met again, how full of conviction when the
world was set against them. Her words
uplift the down-trodden spirit.
I think you are not unaware, my sweet
light, that ashes placed on a sleeping fire never put it out ... and so not for
any reason will external events be able to wipe out the thought of you, which
is bound to my heart with a chain of gold
Julian of Norwich
This famous anchoress, closed off from the world in her simple cell,
wrote an account of her visions and her understanding of God's love and
compassion for humanity. In a world that
portrayed God as the One who judged and punished, this was a very personal
interpretation of an all-gracious God in whom there was no anger. Julian is responsible for perhaps the most
famous of all medieval quotations. So
simple and so encouraging in a dangerous world.
All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of
thing shall be well.
Margaret Paston
Margaret was
a superb letter-writer. Wife of John
Paston, a London solicitor, she was left to manage the estates in Norfolk while
he pursued land claims. The letters are
detailed, entertaining and informative: family fall-outs, marriage alliances, parental
nagging, clashes with the aristocracy and parties thrown while parents were
away from home. Further afield she
writes of local gossip, the problems of cash-flow, the local wool trade and the
shortage of good servants. Margaret has
an engaging style, and sometimes, delightfully, touches on the personal, as in
this letter to her absent husband.
I pray that you will wear the ring with
the image of St Margaret that I sent you for a remembrance till you come
home. You have left me such a remembrance
that makes me to think upon you both day and night when I would sleep. (a pregnancy!)
Margery Kempe
Written probably in the late 1430s, The Book of Margery Kempe, dictated
quaintly in the third person, is one of the most
astonishing documents of late medieval English life. From the merchant class, Margery was a wife, a
mother and widow, experienced sin and conversion, who conversed intimately with
God and travelled on pilgrimage. Margery
might be considered the first English Mystic, but she was not beyond giving
strong advice, even to Archbishops, and relishing it when dictating it to her
biographer.
Then the archbishop said to her
(Margery!): I am told very bad things
about you. I hear it said that you are a
very wicked woman. And she replied: Sir, I also hear it said that you are a wicked
man. And if you are as wicked as people
say, you will never get to heaven unless you amend while you are here.
Hildegard of Bingen
A German Benedictine Abbess, spending her whole life enclosed as a nun
from the age of seven, Hildegard was a writer, a composer and a philosopher,
writing plays and music as well as books of instruction and discussion of diseases
and their cures. What an astonishing breadth
of education and knowledge and talent she had.
Nor did she neglect the vexed subject of human sexuality, and so
powerfully, challenging the received medical opinion that women were more
lustful (and thus more sinful) than men.
A man's love is a blazing heat, like a
fire on a blazing mountain, which can hardly be quenched, while hers is more
like a wood-fire that is easy to quench; but a woman's love is in comparison with
a man's is like a sweet warmth coming from the sun which brings forth fruit.
What a multi-faceted view these writings allow us of the lives of these
women who felt free to express themselves in such diverse ways. Their ideas and thoughts have lasted though
time to bring these medieval woman to life today.
The
Shadow Queen by Anne O’Brien is published by HQ on 4th May (£12.99
hardback)
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
ANNE O’BRIEN was born in the West Riding of Yorkshire. After gaining a
BA Honours degree in History at Manchester University and a Master’s in
Education at Hull, she lived in the East Riding for many years where she
taught History.
Leaving teaching – but not her love of history – Anne turned to novel
writing and her passion for giving voice to the oft forgotten women of the
medieval era was born. Today Anne lives in an eighteenth-century cottage
in Herefordshire, an area steeped in history and full of inspiration for her
work.
Anne Tweets here @Anne_Obrien
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