Femina A new history of the Middle Ages, through the women written out of it

Historian Ramirez (Julian of Norwich) spotlights in this vibrant and accessible account remarkable medieval women including polymath Hildegard of Bingen and Margery Kempe, author of the first autobiography written in English. Diligently sifting through monastic, legal, and diplomatic materials, Ramirez unearths intriguing clues about the power medieval women held and the way they lived, despite contemporaneous efforts to remove them from the historical record. In 10th-century England, for example, Æthelflæd, Lady of the Mercians, ruled the kingdom of Mercia after her husband's death and excelled as a military strategist against the Vikings, but is not remembered as well as her male relatives, largely because her brother "suppressed her reputation in order to bolster his position as king of Wessex." The chapter beginnings, which recount relevant archaeological discoveries or scholarly reexaminations of primary sources, often link modern women with their medieval predecessors; in one noteworthy instance, Ramirez details how medieval scholar Margarete Kühn, with the help of Caroline Walsh, the wife of a high-ranking U.S. military official, spirited the famed Reisencodex containing the collected writing of 12th-century nun Hildegard of Bingen out of Soviet-occupied East Germany in 1948. Throughout, Ramirez's adept scene-setting segues gracefully into deeper considerations of these women's lives and work. This feminist history fascinates. (Feb.)

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 high-light 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. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.