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

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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 it does become repetitive and underlines the discontinuity of the essays. A modern angle: Also at the beginning of each chapter Ramírez gave us a modern "version" of the medieval story, she was about to take us through. 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. Fascinating look at the Middle Ages through the stories of women who were significant in their time but whose reputations were later obscured, rewritten or lost. These women fought battles, made political decisions, created works of art, even ruled as King (Jadwiga of Poland) and examining their lives sheds light on sometimes neglected aspects of life in the Medieval Period. The amount of male figures who simply wouldn't, or even didn't, accomplish what they've been credited without a woman's intervention for was ridiculous. It seems absurd that these powerful icons could just be forgotten. The Prix Femina [1] is a French literary prize created in 1904 by 22 writers for the magazine La Vie heureuse (today known as Femina). The prize is decided each year by an exclusively female jury. They reward French-language works written in prose or verse, by both women and men. The winner is announced on the first Wednesday of November each year.

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”. 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. Surviving law codes show that Viking women could own property, run their own estates and divorce their husbands if improperly treated. At Birka, the weights and scales of traders were found in more female graves than male. The incredibly preserved Oseberg ship, one of two now displayed at the Viking Ship Museum in Oslo, was found in the burial mound of two high-status women. The Vikings even venerated women as gods: their second most important deity was Freyja, goddess of no less than love, death, sex, beauty and war. Given what we now know of women’s place in Viking society, “the grave at Birka suddenly seems less of an anomaly”, writes the BBC broadcaster and Oxford academic Janina Ramirez in Femina, an interdisciplinary, revisionist history of the women of the Middle Ages.

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I am not a fan of essays. The reading of them is perceived by me as being fragmentary. This is my only real complaint. The preface and introduction were too long. The Prix Femina is sometimes spelled Prix Fémina, but it is officially spelled without an accent, even in French. Femina brings together what we know and how we know it about key (mainly western European) women from the Medieval period. It's aimed at a general audience - pitched at the level of a BBC4/PBS documentary. As I've watched a lot of these, not least those presented by Ramirez herself, many of the stories were familiar and I did find myself skimming in places. Femina: A New History of the Middle Ages, Through the Women Written Out of It. Janina Ramirez. Penguin. 2023

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. Some women who are described in this book are quite popular in their native countries and countless scholarly research is already written about them. For example, Jadwiga who married Jagiełło in the Union of Krevo that established the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth is widely celebrated in Poland, especially during the era of the partition of Poland by the neighbouring Russia, Austria and Prussia in the 19th century, as she was seen as a symbol of Poland’s enduring history. Yet Janina’s research adds more values to Jadwiga’s role in Poland, particularly when compared with her husband Jagiełło in terms of their contribution in negotiating Poland’s position in the medieval Europe and the establishment of the first university in Poland, i.e. Jagiellonian University in Kraków, which was named after Jagiełło even though it was established by Jadwiga.Setting the stage: At the beginning of each chapter, Ramírez employed a rather ingenious writing technique. She set the stage. Painted us a picture of the time and place. Such a thing is usually mainly done in fiction, but I found it very engaging and enlightening. I loved those little insights in the world and the time.

Revelatory... Ramirez shows again and again that dark age Europe was a far more various place than we like to believe Kathryn Hughes, The Guardian 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 consists of a series of essays. An assortment of early, middle and late medieval women are presented. Examples are a female Viking warrior, the embroiderers who created the Bayeux Tapestry, the female monarchial King Jadwiga of Poland, the musician and composer Hildegard of Bingen and a woman who travelled and saw to it that her own life history was written. Through her we see an ordinary woman like you and me. The variety of the women we meet is wide. That which is made evident is that the women of the Middle Ages have many similarities with women of our own time. You are in for some surprises!

Jean Birnbaum (5 November 2018). "Le prix Femina pour Philippe Lançon et son livre " Le Lambeau " ". Le Monde . Retrieved 13 February 2019. Femina examines case studies of women from throughout the early ages by analysing artifacts, providing contextual information and interspersing the text with vivid descriptions to bring the ancient women to life. In 9 chapters, Ramírez expertedly weaves an astounding narrative firmly explaining how, if not wrong, but distorted modern history truly is. Dupuy, Éric (7 November 2022). "Claudie Hunzinger, Rachel Cusk et Annette Wieviorka primées au Femina 2022". Livres Hebdo (in French) . Retrieved 8 November 2022. A wonderful storyteller, Ramirez’s enthusiasm is contagious throughout Femina. Aside from the individuals discussed above, Ramirez also visits well-known extraordinary women like Hildegard of Bingen (1098—1179), the renowned twelfth-century abbess, scholar, composer, philosopher, mystic, visionary, and medical scientist, and the ever-eccentric Christian mystic Margery Kempe (1373—c. 1438). For a non-medievalist audience, Femina is eye-opening and thrilling, a testament to women’s significance throughout history. But to anyone familiar with the Middle Ages, some of Ramirez’s strategies feel a touch cliché or expected. There is an irking sense that these prominent women overshadow the over-written or simply forgotten women that make Femina so wonderful. Regardless, it is a well-researched and accessible (if at times clunky) labour of love. To endeavour writing a history about those who have been silenced is admirable, and maybe it is impossible to ignore those who somehow managed to have a presence and voice in their own times. But hopefully, someday, a silent or secret history can be written completely with unknown or erased figures, a possibility FEMINA has enticingly introduced.The women of the Middle Ages, so often silent and inconspicuous in our histories, find voice, agency and justice in this brilliant book Alice Roberts, bestselling author of Ancestors:A prehistory of Britain in seven burials The really wide variety of evidence cited - historical, material, archaeological, written, artistic, architectural 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.