Femina: The instant Sunday Times bestseller – A New History of the Middle Ages, Through the Women Written Out of It

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It dispels the myth that all women were worse off in the past and shows that the dark ages were not as dark as we've been led to believe. Ramirez’s essay style of an introduction to each chapter’s subject by reference to a relatively contemporary event (for example the 1997 canonisation of the fourteenth century Jadwiga, “King” of the Poles in chapter 7), followed by an imaginative verbal recreation of an event in the individual’s life and then an exploration of their wider historical significance is a good approach. But apart from that, Janina does not only talk about women but also about the ‘now and then’ situation. Diese patriarchale Sicht auf die mittelalterliche Welt stammt aus der Feder von Historikern, sie wurde Jahrhundertelang in unsere Geschichtsbücher so aufgenommen.

The delicate object humanises Jadwiga by sharing her taste in fashion and design, her Christian devotion to the poor, and her elevated status. A compelling and breathtaking account of the women whose stories have been lost, ignored, or silenced in history. 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. The East Smithfield skeleton is an exciting example of science merging with history to literally unearth the buried reality of migration and diversity during the Middle Ages. Perhaps because Ramirez jumps between the lives of the women, imagined vignettes and stories around the sources, but others have done this effectively (eg in Kindred, Rebecca Wragg Sykes makes the lives of Neanderthals feel immediate and real).Also, after introducing her eminent women in the early chapters, Ramirez can appear to go off on a tangent due to the lack of records, but skilfully brings the narrative back to her chosen exemplar of a worthy woman in the period, providing relevant context for their significance.

You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie preferences, as described in the Cookie notice. My overall impression is of the book trying to make a larger argument (thesis) from a collection of engaging essays about medieval women who were influential in their time. I do think the topic of women written out of history is a big one, and the author, therefore, has to skim it a little as she wants to show a range of cases, but for me this felt a little bit too surface-level and I really didn't get a huge amount from the book in terms of detail.

As a medieval historian specialised in queenship, I'll admit that there were few of the women that I was not already familiar with. The author is a television presenter and you can really, really tell—she spends a long time setting the scene in each chapter, including multi-page “imagine yourself in 7th century Loftus. There were instances where I questioned the conclusions that Ramirez draws even though they are logical and well-argued. If societies at the time could give women autonomy to leave such relationships, why do we get it so wrong today?

I definitely had some interesting moments listening to the stories of the women, and I liked the little 'intro' sections which the author gives as a kind of background/set-up to what we might be interested in, but I didn't feel that I really got deeply into any one woman and her life, I felt as if each one was a kind of summary and could have been delved much further into. The introduction tricks you up talking about suffragettes and medical women, so you think "wow this is so new and interesting!She discusses ways in which medieval women’s stories have been overlooked, rewritten, or even deliberately silenced because of stereotypes and biases. Ramirez’s excellent introductory essay concludes identifying the book’s purpose more honestly: “We need a new relationship with the past, one which we can all feel a part of. By telling us of the archeologists, who uncovered the gender of the Birka warrioress or when the writings of Margery Kemp were found, Ramírez gives us an insight into the invaluable work of those people, who first brought the women's stories to life and gives credit were credit is (over)due. to Jawiga, the now sainted and the once and only female “king” of Poland and Margery Kempe, whose dictated autobiography (believed to be the first in the English language) offers a unique look at life in the late 14th and early 15th century.

I'm also a huge fan of Janina Ramirez' TV work, having been introduced to it via a documentary about Sutton Hoo, which my youngest was obsessed with watching, so I began reading this book with a high level of expectation. An ambitious project, Ramirez orients each chapter around a particular theme and figure placing the past and present beside one another using modern scientific discoveries and cultural artefacts to provide contextual information for the subject she is discussing.The book is a series of essays about various medieval women, but I found it dissatisfying overall, since other than relating to medieval women, the essays are otherwise disconnected.