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

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Soft cover. Condition: Very Good. Later Printing. 5 pp. Light edge and corner wear; no interior markings. Lyrics and sheet music for Evelina from the play by Dan and Lilith James, Bloomer Girl. Size: Folio. Book. 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. 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. 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).

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. The death of suffragette Emily Wilding Davison at the Epsom Derby in 1913 has become familiar. She was a fascinating woman striving for equal rights, yet it was Death in Ten Minutes that really showed me quite how radical the actions of the early suffragettes were. This book reveals the dangerous acts that women performed in desperate attempts to gain the vote. By plundering Kitty’s diaries, Riddell has put this woman at the centre of her own narrative. 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. Spellbinding, passionate, gripping and magnificently fresh in tone, boldly wide in range, elegantly written, deeply researched, Femina is a ground-breaking history of the Middle Ages. It brings the world to life with women at its very heart, centre stage where they belong. What a delight. Simon Sebag Montefiore, author of Jerusalem: The BiographyThis was a truly interesting read from Janina Ramirez. Making me stop to think over the tales of the women almost written out of history, if not for Ramirez, I often found myself reflecting on *how did what they do influence us now* and the answers were sometimes a little more profound than I initially expected. 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 .

Writing: From start to finish this almost didn't feel like non-fiction. Ramírez' prose made it feel like I was being spoon-fed with delightful history, loving every single bite. 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.Forgotten the title or the author of a book? Our BookSleuth is specially designed for you. Visit BookSleuth My only criticism would be that the book is heavily focused on central and western Europe, I think a broader scale would be great. American Album: Rare Photographs Collected by the Editors of American Heritage, Abridged, How We Looked and How We Lived in a Vanished U. S. A.