At a time when women’s work was often undervalued, one woman petitioned for a raise in her salary. Her name was Joan Astley and she was nurse to Henry VI (r. 1422-1461, 1470-1471), who became King of England at only eight months old. She made her petition to the king and his council on 14 January 1424, when Henry had just turned two, asking for her annual salary to be doubled from £20 to £40, equivalent to around £35,000 in modern currency. The petition, written in Middle French, now survives on a single leaf in the British Library’s collections (Stowe Ch 643), and is currently on display in our exhibition, Medieval Women: In Their Own Words.

The petition of Joan Astley to Henry VI, asking for a pay increase; 14 January 1424: Stowe Ch 643

Joan came from a well-connected family. Her father, Sir Thomas Gresley (d. 1455) was a Lancastrian nobleman and landowner in Derbyshire who had fought in recent military campaigns in France. Meanwhile, her husband, Sir Thomas Astley (d. by 1432) was a relative of Richard Beauchamp (d. 1439), Earl of Warwick, a figure at the very heart of the English government. Upon her appointment in 1422, Joan entered a household that was principally based at Windsor and almost wholly composed of women. It included two additional nurses, Elizabeth Ryman and Matilda Fosbroke, a chamberwoman by the name of Agnes Jakeman, a laundress named Margaret Brotherman and at least two other female attendants.

As the king’s nurse, Joan had an essential role to play. The high infant mortality rate during the period meant that, even with the wealth and privilege that befitted his status, the king needed to receive the best care if he was to survive to adulthood. Joan would have been expected not only to breastfeed the young Henry, but also take responsibility for his general health and well-being, his daily life, and his education in his formative years.

A mother chooses a potential wet nurse, from Aldobrandino of Siena’s Regime du Corps: Sloane MS 2435, f. 28v

Joan’s role was even more significant considering the sudden death of Henry VI’s father, Henry V (r. 1413-1422), in 1422. Henry VI was the sole surviving heir from his father’s marriage to the French princess Catherine of Valois (d. 1437). When the infant king ascended to the throne, England had to be ruled by a regency council until he came of age. If Joan had failed in her care and Henry had not survived into adolescence, the whole country could have been plunged into a major succession crisis.

The birth of Henry VI, showing Catherine of Valois with her nurses and attendants, from the ‘Pageants of Richard Beauchamp’: Cotton MS Julius E IV/3, f. 22v

When Joan submitted her petition to the king and his council in January 1424, the two-year-old king was too young to answer her request. Yet the council evidently felt that Joan had done her job well because an inscription on the back of the document indicates that the increase in her salary was not only granted but given to her for life, a fact corroborated by the pipe rolls (a collection of financial records maintained by the English Exchequer). The same year, the composition of the royal household began to change. In April 1424, a governess called Alice Butler was appointed to teach Henry courtesy, manners and discipline. A few years later, at the age of seven, the young king had all but transitioned away from the community of women who had looked after him, spending most of his time under the care of the Earl of Warwick and with other boys from noble and royal families. He no longer had any need for a nurse and Joan’s time in the household ended altogether.

However, this was not the end of her story. After her husband died in the early 1430s, Joan remained in the king’s favour. Further grants and annuities were awarded to her in the following years, probably as a reward for her service. Most notably in 1446, she was one of three founders given a royal license to establish a fraternity and chantry for St Botolph’s without Aldersgate, a parish church in the Smithfield area of London. Joan lived nearby, one of a number of widows who rented properties within the lands owned by St Bartholomew’s Hospital during this period. A rental for the hospital, compiled in 1456 by Brother John Cok (and now known as SBHB/HC/2/1) lists her as the resident of a tenement above the Smithfield Gate and tenant of a small garden in the vicinity. She probably remained there until her death (sometime after 1463), when she was said to have been buried in St Botolph’s Church. Though Joan’s home no longer exists, in 1907 a plaque was installed to commemorate the site, serving as the foundation stone for a new building in the complex of the hospital.  

A plaque marking the site of Joan Astley’s home in the grounds of St Bartholomew’s Hospital

You can see the petition of Joan Astley in person by visiting our major exhibition Medieval Women: In Their Own Words, which runs from 25 October 2024 until 2 March 2025, at St Pancras in London. Tickets are available to order now!

This exhibition is made possible with support from Joanna and Graham Barker, Unwin Charitable Trust, and Cockayne – Grants for the Arts: a donor advised fund held at the London Community Foundation.

Calum Cockburn

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A monumental manuscript is on display in our Medieval Women exhibition. Harley MS 612 measures 54.5 x 38 cm, weighs over 15kg, and usually requires at least two British Library staff members to place it back onto its shelf. It is a compilation of Latin material by and about Birgitta of Sweden (d. 1373), copied in the mid-15th century for the Birgittine brothers of Syon Abbey. With its gorgeous, illuminated initials, wide margins, and elegant script full of decorative flourishes—courtesy of Thomas Colyngbourn, the manuscript’s scribe—one can easily imagine the awe of the Syon brothers on seeing it lying open on a lectern to be read aloud during the evening meal.  

A monumental copy of the works of Birgitta of Sweden, made for the brothers of Syon Abbey: Harley MS 612, ff. 164v-165r 

The text begins with a Latin translation of Birgitta’s Revelations, her visions and teachings originally written down in Swedish, but Birgitta’s voice peters out over the course of the manuscript. Considerable space is devoted to defences of Birgitta by male ecclesiastical authorities, posthumous accounts of her miracles, and even lives of other saints. As you move through the volume, it becomes more of a ‘Birgittine book’ than it is ‘Birgitta’s book’: less a document of the Swedish saint’s mysticism, and more of a grand testament to the cementing of her cult in England—and to the wealth of the community whose order bore her name.  

So, amid all this institutional grandeur, what’s this doodle doing in the margins?  

A marginal figure marking an addition to the text: Harley MS 612, f. 118r 

Or what about this cheeky little face that peers out from the letter ‘h’ in the Latin word ‘humiliter’?  

Peekaboo: Harley MS 612, f. 138r 

The manuscript is full of these surprises. Marginal images are dotted throughout—some glossing the text, some marking additions, and some of them seemingly just for fun. Where they came from is something of a mystery. The volume’s exemplar (the model from which it was copied) has not been identified, so we can’t tell whether the scribe was copying them out from a manuscript sitting open in front of him, or making them up as he went along. Some patterns of marginal images seem to suggest the scribe was working with a planned programme in mind, such as the concentration of images on ff. 78v-82v, all illustrating bits of text next to which they appear. They include a trussed-up corpse head with a banderole warning about the spiritual death of worldly souls:  

‘For just as they died a bodily death’ (Sicut enim illi morte corporali moriebantur): Harley MS 612, f. 78v  

… and this yapping creature, a fox in a shell, seemingly representing the ‘serpent-born’, devil-suckled beast described in the text as seeking to supplant its superiors:  

‘Tending towards treasons’ (proditiones tendere): Harley MS 612, f. 80v 

But other marginal images seem less integral to the manuscript’s design. Instead, they are like little Easter eggs, visual treats tucked into the pages to delight any reader willing to look closely enough. This tiny critter, buried in the gutter, playfully glosses the Virgin Mary’s words to Birgitta about bad bishops being as flashy and insubstantial as butterflies: 

A butterfly buried in the gutter: Harley MS 612, f. 32v 

On another page, what at first looks like a simple doodle to prop up an overflowing line reveals itself as a clever illustration of the accompanying text, in which Mary tells Birgitta that Christ is like a poor peasant carrying around brushwood:  

A wooden support illustrating an overflowing line of text: Harley MS 612, f. 50r 

My own favourite marginal images play with the manuscript’s physical dimensions, creating trompe-l’œil effects that turn the two-dimensional page into a playground of light, shadow, and depth. You feel as though you could almost step into this tiny door, which represents Christ’s promise to protect all those who enter the Bridgettine order from their enemies:  

Knock, and it shall be opened unto you (Qui in eam intraverunt): Harley MS 612, f. 164v  

Then there’s this addition suspended on a ‘rope’, which, when you turn the page, appears to be driven through the folio and attached on the other side. The scribe was clearly enjoying himself here. 

A real page-turner: Harley MS 612, ff. 232r-v 

Since this manuscript is on display in our Medieval Women exhibition, however, I would be remiss if I didn’t end this tour of the manuscript’s marginalia with what appears to be its only image of Birgitta herself, a small portrait peeking out between two columns of text. 

After all, even though this image appears alongside a male bishop’s words, defending and ‘authorising’ Birgitta’s sanctity, it’s the rich, strange, dizzying images of the divine in Birgitta’s own Revelations that must have inspired the scribe to create his gallery of wonders in the margins. However demure she looks in this portrait, Birgitta was a woman of remarkable force and intellect—just one of many whose stories are represented in our Medieval Women exhibition. 

Holy Birgitta, pray for us: Harley MS 612, f. 207v 

Medieval Women: In Their Own Words is on show at the British Library from 25 October 2024 to 2 March 2025. You can purchase your tickets online now.  

This exhibition is made possible with support from Joanna and Graham Barker, Unwin Charitable Trust, and Cockayne – Grants for the Arts: a donor advised fund held at the London Community Foundation.  

Rowan Wilson   

Follow us @BLMedieval  

It's time to test your knowledge about women from the Middle Ages, as featured in our major new exhibition Medieval Women: In Their Own Words. There are no prizes for getting the answers, just the warm glow of knowing you can tell your Eleanors from your Margarets, and your Isabellas from your Margerys. We'll be setting more quizzes over the coming months, so thinking caps on!

The skull of a Barbary lion on display in the Medieval Women exhibition, kindly loaned by the Natural History Museum

 

1. Which medieval queen owned a pet lion?  Eleanor of Aquitaine/Isabella the She-Wolf/Margaret d'Anjou/Juana of Castile

2. The Trotula is named after which medical practitioner?  Trota of Salerno/Trota of Seville/Trota of Salamanca/Trota of Salisbury

3. Which medieval visionary was fond of hazelnuts?  Birgitta of Sweden/Julian of Norwich/Catherine of Siena/Hildegard of Bingen

4. Where would you wrap a birthing girdle?  Round your ankle/belly/wrist/neck

5. A letter written in 1429 bearing the first-known signature of which famous woman is on display in the UK for the very first time?  Margaret Paston/Margery Kempe/Eleanor Cobham, Duchess of Gloucester/Joan of Arc

 

We will post the answers @BLMedieval on Sunday, 3 November.

Medieval Women: In Their Own Words is on show at the British Library from 25 October 2024 to 2 March 2025. You can book your tickets online.

This exhibition is made possible with support from Joanna and Graham Barker, Unwin Charitable Trust, and Cockayne – Grants for the Arts: a donor advised fund held at the London Community Foundation.

 

Follow us @BLMedieval