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

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Sommige hoofdstukken boeiden me ook meer dan anderen, bvb dat over het tapijt van Bayeux of Hildegard von Bingen. Zo zijn er nog wel een paar. Dat komt omdat ik hier al een kapstok van kennis had waar ik dan de gelezen gegevens gemakkelijk kon aanhangen en driftig ging googelen. The book’s thesis is that (some) women in the medieval world had more agency, influence, and power than the traditional historical narrative has led us to believe. It cites numerous examples of women (and groups of women) who prove this thesis - they held some kind of influential role in medieval society. In Femina: A New History of the Middle Ages, Through the Women Written Out of It , Janina Ramirez reappraises the status of women in the Middle Ages by presenting the lives of several notable women who have been omitted from or underrepresented in histories of the period. Through her engaging storytelling about an eclectic assemblage of women, Ramirez persuades readers to rethink received ideas of women in the Middle Ages as disempowered, insignificant figures, writes Meaghan Allen .

Feminist approach: From the beginning I loved Ramírez' aim of telling the story of the middle ages through the notable women of the time. Once you start digging, you'll find that there are many more than you originally thought. As a medieval historian specialised in queenship, I'll admit that there were few of the women that I was not already familiar with. But even so, I still absolutely loved this book. I loved the originality of the approach. And I loved how Ramírez didn't try to write out the men from the narrative. And that is a truly feminist approach, where both sexes are allowed to coexist. In de kijker staan een aantal vrouwen, en 1 keer een ding, waar telkens een hoofdstuk aan gewijd is. Jammer genoeg is de vertaling van dit boek ondermaats en hangt het vertelde aaneen van “wellichts” en “waarschijnlijks”. There are currently four categories: Prix Femina, Prix Femina essai, Prix Femina étranger (foreign novels), and Prix Femina des lycéens.US author wins top French literary prize". France24. 6 November 2013. Archived from the original on 9 November 2013 . Retrieved 8 November 2013. 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. Instead the book reads like a collection of case studies with which to make the argument that the role of historically significant medieval women has been downplayed when histories of the medieval period were being being written in the eighteenth to twentieth centuries. This is “topped and tailed” with essays outlining Ramirez’s argument, that the histories of the medieval period need to be expanded to reflect the simplification and distortion of women’s roles, and this book provides some examples of historically significant medieval women. Within that Ramirez does a very impressive job of both standing on the shoulders of giants from the last century, and also utilising all of the technology that archaeology and other forms of scientific analysis can give her. This is in the way of a summary - certainly the archaeological findings from the Birka Warrior Woman sits differently from the detailed writings of Margery Kemp or the near mythological status of Jadwiga of Poland (a proper woman king). Books like this are vital to start to set the record straight, but there is a question around how that plays to someone who is already on board with the project (and is critical of Great Anyone Theory). Similarly, in 1920 Lady Northcliffe, wife of Alfred Harmsworth, proposed to create a prize for French writers called the Northcliffe prize. Among the winners were Joseph Kessel in 1924, Julien Green in 1928, and Jean Giono in 1931. The last meeting of the jury for this prize was held on 10 April 1940, before the Nazis occupied France during World War II. This book has done more for women’s history than almost any other. Rather than continuing to fetishise the murderer, Hallie presents the victims’ stories. By immersing readers in the social conditions the women experienced, the five have contexts other than being written off as “prostitutes”. This book has also affected the true crime genre, where more writers are focusing on victims rather than perpetrators.

Ook is in de loop van de geschiedenis de vrouw naar het achterplan verdwenen, onzichtbaar en ondergeschikt geworden, terwijl enkel de geschiedenis van de machtigen en de heersers werd bewaard. Gripping, incisive, brilliant, Janina Ramirez opens a door into hidden worlds, the secrets of women's lives. She is a detective and guide on this, an eye-opening, wonderful journey into the power, beauty and reality of early women's experiences Kate Williams, author of England's Mistress: The Infamous Life of Emma Hamilton Ramirez shows again and again that dark age Europe was a far more various place than we like to believe Dupuy, Éric (7 November 2022). "Claudie Hunzinger, Rachel Cusk et Annette Wieviorka primées au Femina 2022". Livres Hebdo (in French) . Retrieved 8 November 2022. I am the fiery life of divine substance, I blaze above the beauty of the fields, I shine in the waters, I burn in sun, moon and stars" - Hildegard of Bingen (1098 - 1179)Ramirez makes sure to include individuals not only geographically diverse, but also figures who presented themselves and lived in ways that challenged societal and cultural norms regarding gender, sex, and identity. Femina concludes with the story of Eleanor, a fourteenth-century sex worker arrested for acts of sodomy and prostitution. The case originally reported Yorkshireman John Britby participating in ‘the most nefarious and ignominious vice’ with ‘John Rykener, calling [himself] Eleanor, having been detected in woman’s clothing.’ Although it does not appear Eleanor was prosecuted for either crime, their testimony evinces involvement with members of the clergy, monks, and nuns, suggesting that their arrest was about moral corruption by high-status individuals rather than prostitution or sodomy. Throughout the trial, Eleanor shares how they had sex with men and women, using their job as a barmaid, seamstress, and prostitute to acquire clients. As the only surviving legal document from late-medieval England to document same-sex intercourse, Eleanor’s trial discloses how the scribes struggled to find suitable terms to express the sexual and gendered aspects of the case. The marginal and queer existence of Eleanor, whose testimony radically subverts accepted societal norms, reveals that complex humans who transgress and subvert sexual and/or gender expectations have been around for a long time. Al bij al zijn de stukken over voor mij onbekende geschiedenis te warrig om er enig houvast aan te krijgen, de vertaling te slecht om mij niet af en toe te ergeren. Overall, I did like it, and I did hear about some new-to-me ladies from history, but the context of the women wasn't always the focus, and what I really learned is how much has been suppressed or changed or just not uncovered as yet. I felt as if it was fairly sad that such minimal evidences had been found and smaller effort was going towards the belief in, or discovery of, women in history. I wish there was more specific focus on them and more detail to be uncovered and shared in this book. 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. As the only narrative thread linking these stories is that they are about women, it does not provide the “new history of the Middle Ages” which is the book’s subtitle, and I found any pattern too fragmentary, although the essays are engagingly written and well researched. 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. Finding these extraordinary medieval women is a first step, but there are so many other silenced voices waiting to have their stories heard.” We wouldn’t consider describing what it’s like to be alive today based purely on news stories. We would personalise and fill our account with music, film, food, fashion and more. This is what an interdisciplinary historian tries to do – bring a period to life by combining all types of evidence. Valkyrie includes Old Norse poetry alongside archaeological finds and painted runestones to show how the lived experiences of women in the Viking world were varied and fascinating.

Before her death, Æthelflæd ensured that her crown would go to her daughter, Ælfwynn – the only time rule passed from one woman to another in early medieval England. And yet, the Lady of the Mercians is little known. Ramirez writes that her brother Edward, who succeeded Alfred as king of Wessex, “actively suppressed her reputation” out of fear that her power might rival his, and removed Ælfwynn from the throne she had inherited. Only now, through a careful examination of the artifacts, writings and possessions they left behind, are the influential and multifaceted lives of women emerging. Femina goes beyond the official records to uncover the true impact of women, such as:

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Jean Birnbaum (5 November 2018). "Le prix Femina pour Philippe Lançon et son livre " Le Lambeau " ". Le Monde . Retrieved 13 February 2019. Janina Ramírez is well known for bringing her interdisciplinary approach and boundless enthusiasm to her TV programmes and this book bears the same hallmarks. Ramírez draws her evidence from art and architecture as well as written texts to add context to her narrative, and joyfully gives life to the subjects of her chapters with quirky details. One of my favourite genres is books centering forgotten female stories and figures, and this is exactly what Ramírez has written in Femina. The middle ages are seen as a bloodthirsty time of Vikings, saints and kings: a patriarchal society which oppressed and excluded women. But when we dig a little deeper into the truth, we can see that the 'dark' ages were anything but. Generell war leider nicht viel Quellenkritik zu finden; mir schien es so: wenn die Autorin eine Hypothese fand, die in ihr Narrativ passte, wurde sie wie ein Fakt behandelt und basierend darauf weiter gearbeitet. Vor allem im Kapitel über Hildegard von Bingen ist mir das aufgefallen.

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