The British Library's Medieval Women: In Their Own Words exhibition has received rave reviews, has smashed its visitor target, and, most significantly, has given public recognition to dozens of women who lived in Europe centuries ago. We are thrilled that the exhibition has been such a great success, which is a tribute to the dedication of our colleagues and collaborators.

In the early planning stages, the curators and Exhibitions team focused on how we could bring these stories to life. We commissioned Su Koh to work on the 3D design, with the remit of making our gallery feel welcoming and spacious, in using its height to full advantage, and in creating sightlines throughout the space. Here are some of Su's reflections on how she approached the gallery design.

Silhouettes

From the start of the project, we wanted to give the featured women in the exhibition a physical presence. The challenge was not knowing what most of these women looked like, so we created shadowy silhouettes and overlaid them with details from brass rubbings of the tombs of medieval women. We left out any facial features, letting the visitors' imagination fill in the gaps. The silhouettes were printed life-size on 6m long banners suspended from the ceiling, accompanied by printed quotes and audio of their own words.

Façades

To support the silhouettes, we created a series of translucent façades, as scenography for the story to unfold. Entering the exhibition, the façades form a ‘town square’ for the Introduction. A replica of the statue of Queen Eleanor of Castile from Waltham Cross sits in the middle of the ‘town square’ along with three introductory objects for each of the main narrative sections (Private Lives, Public Lives, Spiritual Lives). Each façade is inspired by a surviving medieval building, namely a manor house (Chalfield Manor), a guildhall (Bury St Edmunds) and an ecclesiastical building (Elstow Abbey).

Both the silhouettes and the façades have a translucent quality. The silhouettes were printed on translucent white fabric, and the facades made from aluminium frame and stretch translucent fabric, giving the whole exhibition a light and ethereal quality. We've enabled our visitors to view through them into the spaces beyond, and we also created windows and doorways in the façades to enhance the sightlines and to give a sense of movement as visitors move around the gallery.

Colours

The colours used in the exhibition have been inspired by the objects on display. We studied the illuminated manuscripts and paired them with three main colours. Ultramarine blue references lapis lazuli, and has been used for the large totem in the Introduction, for the graphics, and in the back panels of the showcases. Gold has been used in the exhibition titles, in the highlight panels in the showcases, and in the labels for the featured ‘spotlight’ women. A teal fabric has been used for the façades, matching the verdigris used in manuscripts. Together these colours give the whole exhibition a paired back but impactful colour scheme.

Gateways 

At the start of each main section of the exhibition is a window with an evocative projection introducing the expectations and attitudes of the day. The window motifs reference the façade windows. Gobo lighting has been used to project light and shadow, giving the illusion of light passing through the windows onto the floor. As visitors enter the Spiritual Lives section of the exhibition, the coloured light of a stained glass window fills the floor. These zones have also allowed school groups to congregate and have provided a contemplative space for our visitors. 

Multi-sensory experiences

We collaborated with Tasha Marks, a scent designer from AVM Curiosities, to create two multi-sensory moments within the exhibition. First, we recreated two scents from a medieval cosmetic recipe collection known as De ornatu mulierum. Displayed on a dressing table are 3D printed ultramarine vessels, from which visitors have been able to smell a medieval breath freshener and a hair perfume, giving a rare insight to the past.  

Our second sensory moment is based on interpretations of Heaven and Hell as inspired by the visionaries Margery Kempe and Julian Norwich. Contained within a large medieval window, visitors have opened two doors to experience the sweet floral scent of Heaven, as described by Julian of Norwich, or the ashy fire and brimstone of Hell, as witnessed in her visions by Margery Kempe.

Individual objects 

Sometimes an object informed the physical shape of the exhibition layout. One example is a double-sided artwork containing scenes from the life of John the Baptist, painted in the 12th century by nuns from Hohenburg Abbey in Germany. As we wanted this item to be viewed from both sides, we created an opening in the wall leading to the Conclusion and mounted the object so that it floats in the middle. This arrangement gives our visitors a glimpse into the concluding space from Spiritual Lives and vice versa. 

 

Medieval Women: In Their Own Words is on show at the British Library from 25 October 2024 to 2 March 2025.

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

 

It’s the final week of our major exhibition Medieval Women: In Their Own Words and we have some fantastic news! Several important items from our Medieval and Renaissance Women digitisation project are now available to consult online, including handwritten volumes, charters, and rolls. All these manuscripts have been on display in the exhibition and can be explored in their entirety.

A full list of the items, with links to their digitised images and summary catalogue information, can be consulted on the British Library website. We will be adding more manuscripts from the project over the coming weeks. The Medieval and Renaissance Women project was made possible through the generous support of Joanna and Graham Barker.

Here are a few highlights from the items now available:

Christine de Pizan, Livre des faits d'armes et de chevalerie; London, England, 1434: Harley MS 4605, f. 3r

Refoundation charter of Bordesley Abbey; Devizes, England, 1141-1142: Add Ch 75724, Seal obverse

Cicero, De senectute, written by Ippolita Maria Sforza, Milan, Italy, 1458: Add MS 21984, f. 3r

Hildegard von Bingen’s Liber divinorum operum; England, Late 15th century: Add MS 15418, f. 7r

Breviary; Northern Germany, 2nd half of the 15th century: Harley MS 2975, f. 73v

The will of Margaret Paston; England, 1482: Add Roll 17253, Membrane 1

Middle Dutch prayer-book; Southern Netherlands, c. 1440-c. 1500: Harley MS 3828, f. 27v

Collection of medical treatises in Middle English; England, 2nd quarter of the 15th century: Sloane MS 6, f. 177r

The Martyrology of Syon Abbey; England, 2nd half of the 15th century: Add MS 22285, Upper cover

Indenture between Margaret Beaufort, Countess of Richmond, and John Islip, Abbot of Westminster Abbey; London, England, 1506: Lansdowne MS 441, f. 3r

Aldobrandino of Siena, Le Régime du corps; England, 4th quarter of the 15th century: Sloane MS 2401, f. 36v

Medieval Women: In Their Own Words is on show at the British Library from 25 October 2024 to 2 March 2025.

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

Among the items in our major exhibition, Medieval Women: In Their Own Words, a handful of volumes bear witness to women’s contributions to early printing. By studying the documentary evidence these women left behind, we can learn more about the types of books they produced, and the nature of their lives and experiences. Today’s blogpost explores the stories of three Jewish women living and working in Europe in the 15th century – Estellina Conat, Teresa de Lucena and Doña Reyna Mendes – highlighting books from the British Library’s Hebrew incunabula (15th-century printed books) and 16th-century printed collections.

Jedaiah ben Araham Bedersi, Behinat ha-’Olam, printed by Estellina Conat; Mantua, c. 1476: C. 50. a. 5. 

Printing with Hebrew moveable type developed approximately fifteen years after the introduction of printing with moveable type in the Latin script thanks to Johannes Gutenberg. The first Hebrew books were probably printed in Rome in the late 1460s and the earliest book with a date was printed in the city of Reggia di Calabria, in 1475. A few years later, an edition of Jedaiah ben Araham Bedersi’s early 14th-century didactic poem Behinat ha-’Olam (The Examination of the World) was published by the printer Estellina Conat in Mantua, Italy around 1476. The volume (C. 50. a. 5) is considered the earliest book made by a named woman and is on display in the exhibition. As is the case for most named 15th-century printers, all of what we know about Estellina is contained in her colophon, a short statement of responsibility found at the book’s conclusion. It usually provides the printer’s name, place and date of publication. Here Estellina’s colophon reads:

I, Estellina, the wife of my lord and husband, the honourable teacher master Abraham Conat (may he see offsprings and length of days, amen) wrote this Epistle on the Examination of the World with the assistance of the young man Jacob Levi from Tarascon in Provence, long may he live, amen.

Estellina is using the word ‘write’ here to describe her involvement in the book’s production because Hebrew did not yet have a word to refer to the emerging technology of printing with moveable type. Estellina and her husband, Abraham, who signs off the later books printed by the Conats, had set up their workshop shortly before the publication of the book. The technology was so new that Estellina’s book was the first edition of the Behinat ha-’Olam to be printed (the other two known 15th-century editions were printed in 1484 and 1499 respectively) and researchers believe it was one of the earliest books printed in the city of Mantua.

The colophon added by Estellina Conat: C. 50. a. 5. 

In 1795, G. B. De Rossi, a Catholic priest and Hebraist, dated the book to c. 1476 arguing that Abraham might have ‘left the glory of publishing the first sample of their wares to his wife’. De Rossi then proceeded to disparage the quality of Estellina’s work:

For in this little book, which is to be sure in Conat’s types, but printed by his wife, or at least issued in her name, the lines and pages are so unequal – now shorter, now longer – as to suggest either the first trial of a beginner or the effort of a woman attempting something beyond her powers.

It’s not only this kind of sexist commentary in some early printing scholarship, which has hidden the legacy of women’s contribution to early book production. The stories of Jewish female printers cannot be told without reference to the antisemitic persecution and violence Jews experienced all around Europe in the 15th century. In Spain, the Inquisition’s actions destroyed many traces of Hebrew book production, leaving us with only limited evidence of its existence. The Alhambra decree in 1492, which forbade any practicing Jews to live in Spain, led to mass forced conversion and the expulsion of up to 100,000 Jews from Spain and Portugal.

The Sister Haggadah includes illustrations of the observance of Jewish life in Spain in the mid-14th century, the practice of which would be repressed by the Inquisition by the end of the medieval period: Or 2884, f. 18r.

One story that survives in records left by the Inquisition is that of the printer Juan de Lucena and his daughter Teresa de Lucena. Although no surviving books can be clearly attributed to the press, it is believed that Juan de Lucena started his printing workshops in Puebla de Montalban and Toledo around the mid-1470s. The de Lucena family were Conversos: Jews who had been (forcibly) converted to Christianity following the massacre of 1391. In the context of antisemitic persecution, Juan de Lucena fled Spain to go to Portugal in 1481, later continuing to Italy. His daughters remained in Spain, where they continued to experience repression. The Inquisition reports on Teresa de Lucena give us a comprehensive view into the Inquisition’s effect on all aspects of Jewish life, including the printing press. Following a call by the Inquisition in Toledo for Conversos to come forward to denounce themselves for secretly practicing Judaism, the 17-year-old Teresa and her sister Leonor made a voluntary confession. Following this, Leonor escaped to Portugal, but Teresa remained behind in Toledo.

In 1530, Teresa was arrested again and this time put on trial for heresy. The inquisitors forced her to expand the limited testimony she had given as a young girl. This included having to provide information about observing Jewish practices and communicating with known heretics (i.e. her own family.) It also included information about her father’s printing press, which she hadn’t mentioned in 1485. Now in her early 60s, she recalled how her father had to flee when she was around 10 or 11. Asked why he fled, she answered, ‘I think it was because he was selling the books he printed in Hebrew’. The inquisitors did not pursue this line of questioning to determine her or her sister’s role in the printing workshop. Both BMC X and BMC XIII (Catalogue of Books Printed in the XVth Century Now Held at the British Library) suggest that Teresa and her sister Juana assisted in the presswork after their father’s escape. In any case, it is only thanks to Teresa’s testimony, given under duress, that we know that her family was probably running a Hebrew printing press at all.

The expulsion of Jews from Spain as well as persecution across Europe meant that many moved to North Africa and the Eastern Mediterranean, taking their knowledge of the emerging printing technology with them. Hebrew printing proliferated in the 16th century with both Jewish and Christian printing houses relying on the expertise of Jewish printers. One woman stands out. Doña Reyna Mendes is the only Jewish woman from this period known to have founded and owned her own printing press. Reyna was the daughter of Doña Gracia, patron of literature and one of the wealthiest women in Early Modern Europe. As Conversos (or Anusim Jews), the family had fled Spain after 1492 to live in Lisbon up to the establishment of the Portuguese Inquisition in 1536. Doña Gracia and her infant daughter Reyna then moved to Antwerp, Venice and Ferrera, before ultimately fleeing to the Ottoman Empire in 1553 amidst family turmoil and the effects of the Catholic Reformation.

In the late 15th century, Sultan Bayezid II had welcome many Sephardic Jews after the downfall of the Nasrid Kingdom of Granada and the Alhambra decree. Many Jewish communities developed a thriving cultural life in the Ottoman empire. The first printing press was founded as early as 1493 by two brothers, David and Samuel Ibn Nahmias, two Spanish refugees. Hailing from great wealth and power, Doña Reyna Mendes was afforded opportunities most other women in the printing and printers in general, especially in earlier generations, did not have.

After her husband Joseph Nasi, advisor to the Sultan and one of the most important men in the Ottoman Empire, died, most of her money was confiscated by the authorities. She then used the rest to found her own printing press in Belvedere, just outside of Constantinople (and later a second one in Kuruçeşme), producing at least 15 editions up until her death in 1599. The British Library holds one edition printed by Doña Reyna Mendes (C.50*.a.5). As a founder and owner of a printing press, Reyna was able to take on an extraordinary position for women at the time. The confident tone of an inscription on the title page of one of her books speaks to this:

Printed in the house and with the type of the noble lady of noble lineage Reyna (may she be blessed among women), widow of the Duke, Prince and Noble in Israel, Don Joseph Nasi of blessed memory … near Constantinople, the great city, which is under the rule of the great and mighty Sultan Mohammed.

Doña Reyna Mendes’ printing press highlights the liminal and often precarious status of women in this occupation. Often dictated by familial relationships and the reality of antisemitic persecution, the historical evidence offers only glimpses into the contributions, wives and daughters and many other unnamed women made to early Hebrew book production. While few of their books now survive and the nature of their contributions has been contested in scholarship over the centuries, nonetheless Estellina, Teresa, and Reyna have left important and moving evidence of the brave and defiant efforts to spread Jewish learning through printing in the face of antisemitic persecution.

To see Estellina Conat's printed book in person,  visit our exhibition Medieval Women: In Their Own Words, 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. 

Alyssa Steiner

References

Catalogue of Books Printed in the XVth Century Now Held at the British Library. XIII Hebraica, 2004.

Catalogue of Books Printed in the XVth Century Now Held at the British Library. X Spain-Portugal, 1971.

Kanner, Ellen, 'Teresa de Lucena, 1467–1545' in: The Shalvi/Hyman Encyclopedia of Jewish Women. URL: https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/de-lucena-teresa#pid-20444

Offenberg, Adri K., 'The Chronology of Hebrew Printing at Mantua in the Fifteenth Century: A Re-examination', The Library, 16/4 (1994), 298-315.

The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization, Volume 5. The Early Modern Era, 1500-1750, ed by Yosef Kaplan, 2023.

University of Pennsylvania Guide to Hebrew Printing. URL: https://guides.library.upenn.edu/earlyprintedhebrewbook/intro

In February 1477, at the village of Topcroft in Norfolk, Margery Brews dictated a letter to her suitor John Paston III, calling him her ‘right well-beloved valentine’ and expressing the depth of her love. While John’s reply to Margery does not survive, her words form the oldest known Valentine’s letter in English. The letter (Add MS 43490, f. 23r) is currently on display in our major exhibition, Medieval Women: In Their Own Words, which runs till 2 March 2025. 

The earliest Valentine’s letter, by Margery Brews to John Paston III; February, 1477: Add MS 43490, f. 23r

Margery’s letter expresses great affection for John at a turbulent time for the couple, when it was by no means guaranteed their marriage would proceed. She asks after his welfare and prays to God to keep him safe. She confesses that she is not in good health ‘of body, nor of heart’ and nor will she be until she hears from him. She begs John not to leave her and promises in turn that she will not forsake him. Fascinatingly, Margery also asks him to keep the letter private, and not to show it to ‘any other earthly creature’, perhaps wary of the influence of other members of his family.

The letter includes several lines of Middle English poetry composed by Margery to express her commitment to him:

And yf ye commande me to keep me true where-ever I go,
Iwyse I wil do all my might yowe to love and neur no mo.
And yf my freendys say that I do amys,
Their schal not me let so for to do,
My herte me byddys euer more to love yowe
Truly ouer all erthley thing.
And yf thei be neuer so wroth,
I tryst it schall be bettur in tyme commyng.

And if you command me to keep me true wherever I go,
Of course, I will use all my might to love you and never no more.
And if my friends say that I do amiss,
They shall not let me so for to do,
My heart bids me ever more to love you,
Truly over all earthly things,
And if they be never so wroth,
I trust it shall be better in time coming.

At the root of Margery’s anxiety was a complex set of marital negotiations between their families. The Paston family, up-and-coming members of the Norfolk aristocracy, felt that Margery’s dowry was too small, while her father, Sir Thomas Brews, a landowner in his own right, was not inclined to increase the payment and evidently felt that there were better matches for his daughter. In a letter sent later the same month (Add MS 43490, f. 24r), Margery suggests that negotiations were breaking down completely, stating plainly to John that she has done all she can in the matter and that her father ‘will no more money parte with all in that behalfe but an hundred and fifty marke, whech is ryght far fro the accomplyshment of yowr desyre'. John was asking for at least 400 marks and a loan of £120 from Margery's father. 

A subsequent letter sent by Margery to John Paston the same month; Add MS 43490, f. 24r

If not for the efforts of Margery’s mother, Elizabeth Brews, the marriage may never have happened. Elizabeth seems to have actively encouraged the relationship and acted as a go-between for the families. According to Margery, Elizabeth ‘laboured the matter to my father full diligently’, and eventually suggested in a letter of her own to John that he stay with the family on St Valentine’s Day to thrash out the details in person, reminding him that the feast day was a propitious time for lovers. Her strategy was successful. The families reached an agreement and the pair were married two months later.

Margery signing off her second letter to John Paston III, 'By your valentine': Add MS 43490, f. 24r

To learn more about the Paston Family and see the earliest Valentine's letter in person, visit our exhibition Medieval Women: In Their Own Words, 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. 

Calum Cockburn

In the mid-13th century, one woman rose from enslavement to become the Mamluk sultana and the female ruler to reign across Egypt and Syria. Her name was Shajar al-Durr (d. 1257) and her story features in our major exhibition Medieval Women: In Their Own Words, which runs till 2 March 2025. While Shajar al-Durr’s reign was only a short one, it was particularly consequential, both for her and the dynasty she left behind. We are delighted to have on loan from the British Museum one of only three known gold dinars (coins) minted for Shajar al-Durr during her reign. The coin is on display in the exhibition alongside a later historical account of her reign by the historian ibn Waṣīf (Add MS 25731).

The golden dinar of Shajar al-Durr on display in the exhibition, Medieval Women: In Their Own Words

Very little is known about Shajar al-Durr’s early life. Even the details of her original name are lost to us (Shajar al-Durr is in fact an epithet or nickname that means ‘tree of pearls’ in Arabic). Most likely of Turkic or Armenian origins, she was sold as a slave as a child to Al-Mustaʿṣim (b. 1213, d. 1258), the last caliph of the Abbasid dynasty, who ruled a vast territory from his capital in Baghdad. By 1239, she had been purchased by Salih Najm al-din Ayyub (b. 1205, d. 1249), the Ayyubid sultan of Egypt and Syria, as a concubine and travelled to Egypt with him. There she quickly became of one of his most trusted wives, giving birth to their son Khalil in 1240.  

Shajar al-Durr’s dramatic ascendancy to the throne came in 1249/50. Sultan Salih died, just as an army under Louis IX of France had invaded Egypt as part of the Seventh Crusade. While the crusaders marched on Cairo, Shajar al-Durr acted as regent in her husband’s place. She took steps to hide the news of her husband’s death from her forces and transported his body away in secret. Unaware of their sultan’s demise, the Ayyubid army were able to defeat the French invaders in a decisive battle at Mansurah. Louis IX was later captured and had to be ransomed back to the French and the Seventh Crusade itself was derailed and came to an end soon after. It was then that Shajar al-Durr became the first Muslim woman to take on the role of sultan, using her status as the mother of Salih’s son and heir, Khalil, who was still too young to ascend the throne and would later die in infancy.  Her rule marked the beginning of the Mamluk dynasty, which would control the region for centuries.

Shajar al-Durr’s story is one of those featured in our new animation, Tales of Medieval Women

Shajar al-Durr’s reign only lasted three months, from May to July 1250, but she was still able to assert her status through the minting of gold and silver dinars from her capital Cairo. Very few of these coins now survive. The golden dinar on display in the exhibition is tiny (measuring only 22mm in diameter). The obverse (or front face) of the coin features an inscription that dates it to the year 1250, enclosing a central panel with lines referring to the Abbasid caliph Musta’sim, Shajar al-Durr’s former owner and a key figure whose recognition she needed if she was to remain on the throne. The reverse meanwhile features Shajar al-Durr’s titles, referring to her as the former slave of al-Mustaʿsim and Salih, the mother to Salih's heir Khalil and glorifying her in uniquely female terms as 'queen of the Muslims' (malikat al-muslimīn).

The front and back face faces of a golden dinar minted for Shajar al-Durr; Cairo, 1250: The British Museum, 1849,1121.294

Despite her efforts to placate Musta’sim, Shajar al-Durr’s rule was not accepted by the Ayyubid caliph and she was soon forced to abdicate, having first married her successor as sultan, Izz al-Din Aybak (d. 1257). Nonetheless, she remained an influential advisor to her new husband, positioned at the very centre of court life and politics, until her assassination by a rival in 1257. In that time, Shajar al-Durr decided to commission two mausoleums, one for herself and another for her former husband, built in the very heart of Cairo. The design of the tomb, which survives to this day, features an elaborate mosaic in the form of a tree of pearls, an allusion to the Arabic epithet that became synonymous with her and subsumed her very name in the annals of history.

The tomb of Shajar al-Durr, as imagined in the animation Tales of Medieval Women

To see Shajar al-Durr’s coin in person, visit our exhibition Medieval Women: In Their Own Words, 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. 

Calum Cockburn