04 January 2025
Medieval Women quiz 2
We are entering the final two months of our fabulous major exhibition, Medieval Women: In Their Own Words. By now, we hope you may have already visited, or that you've booked your tickets, or alternatively that you've laid hands on a copy of the exhibition book. You may have seen Joan of Arc's earliest signature in person, as well as the first Valentine's letter, the oldest autobiography in the English language, Christine de Pizan's Book of the Queen, the lion owned by Margaret d'Anjou, and the manuscripts of Julian of Norwich's Revelations of Divine Love. But how much do you know about the women whose stories are told in the show?
Here is a little quiz to whet your appetites. We'll reveal the answers @BLMedieval on Sunday, 5 January.
- Who wrote (or, more correctly, dictated) the first surviving autobiography in English?
- Which female Welsh author is best known for writing erotic poetry?
- Joan Astley, the wet-nurse of King Henry VI, wrote to the king in 1422 requesting what?
- Which queen of England is commemorated by a series of crosses erected in her name?
- Which lady (shown in the Benefactors Book of St Albans Abbey, above) was sentenced to life imprisonment for seeking to predict the king's death?
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
14 December 2024
An unknown leaf from the Poor Clares of Cologne
The involvement of nuns in creating beautiful medieval manuscripts is often underappreciated. It is very exciting, then, to discover a new example of their work. While searching for items to include in our Medieval Women exhibition, we came across a mysterious illuminated leaf that has a fascinating story to tell.
The mystery leaf
The leaf was once the first page of a gradual, a manuscript containing the chants sung during the Mass throughout the Church year. It features the opening chants for the First Sunday in Advent, which begin ‘Ad te levavi animam meam’ (To you I lift up my soul). The text starts with an impressive historiated initial showing King David lifting up his soul to God, flanked by Sts Catherine of Alexandria and Clare of Assisi.
But the reason it caught our attention was because of a small figure in the lower margin. Not the huntress who is apparently unable to persuade her hawk and hound to chase a rather smug looking hare, but a diminutive nun. She kneels and hold her hands up in the same posture as King David. Immediately above her is an inscription in red ink:
'Sister Isabella of Guelders, who gave 20 marks to complete this book; pray for her and for all those who gave their alms for the writing of this book’
(Soror ysabela de gelria, quae dedit .xx. marcas ad librum istum complendum orate pro ea, et pro omnibus quae elemosinas suas ad hunc librum scribendum dederunt).
We did not have to look far to find out where this leaf came from. Inside the volume that houses the leaf is a reading room slip on which a reading room superintendent has written:
“Folio 11 comes from a gradual written and illuminated for the Convent of St Clare at Cologne. Further leaves are in the Wallraf-Richartz Museum at Cologne, see the exhibition catalogue Rhein und Maas: Kunst und Kultur 800–1400, Köln 1972, pp. 88 and 91, no. VI 6.”
Although the identification is correct, whoever supplied this information apparently did not publish it. This leaf is not mentioned in the existing scholarship on the Poor Clares of Cologne, a convent known for being a major manuscript-producing centre in the 14th century.
The Poor Clares of Cologne
The Order of Poor Clares, initially led by St Clare of Assisi (d. 1253), is the women’s branch of the Franciscan Order, founded by St Francis of Assisi (d. 1226). The Rule of St Clare, authored by St Clare and approved by Pope Innocent IV in 1253, set out instructions for the nuns to live according to the Franciscan ideal of absolute poverty (owning no property). In 1263, however, Pope Urban IV sanctioned a milder version of the Rule that made allowances for communal property and incomes. Convents that followed the 1263 Rule are known as ‘Urbanist’ Poor Clares, or sometimes ‘Rich Clares’.
The convent of Poor Clares in Cologne, founded in 1304, was an Urbanist house. The nuns came from wealthy families of the urban elite and aristocracy, bringing with them generous dowries and powerful connections. It grew rapidly, and by 1340 housed almost sixty nuns.
With expansion came an increasing need for books. The nuns formed their own scriptorium, active between the 1320s and 1360s, producing beautifully illuminated liturgical manuscripts (containing texts and music for church services). Fifteen manuscripts and around forty decorated leaves survive from the convent, suggesting an impressive scale of output. We know the names of several of the nun-scribes and artists, the most celebrated of whom was Loppa vom Spiegel who was active around 1350.
One of the characteristic features of manuscripts produced by the Poor Clares of Cologne are the depictions of small nuns kneeling in the margins, often inscribed with their names and prayer requests. In some cases at least, they represent the women who contributed to the manuscript’s production. As well as commemorating the sisters and encouraging prayers for their souls, these portraits were probably intended to foster a sense of community and shared identity among the nuns.
The convent was dissolved in 1802 and demolished in 1840. Around this time, its manuscripts were dispersed. Many were cut up and their decorated leaves were sold off separately. Today, they are housed in collections around the world.
The gradual reconstructed
Other illuminated leaves extracted from the same manuscript as the British Library leaf are now housed in the Wallraf-Richartz-Museum in Cologne. Each leaf introduces one of the major feast days in the Church year, and features a diminutive picture of a named nun.
Sabine Benecke grouped together the other leaves from this gradual and suggested the order in which they were originally arranged. She was not aware of the British Library leaf, however, which was the first in the manuscript. All together, the surviving leaves probably appeared as follows:
Item reference | Feast Day | Nun’s inscription |
British Library, Add MS 35069, f. 11r | First Sunday in Advent | ‘Soror Ysabela de Gelria...’ |
Wallraf-Richartz-Museum, Graphische Sammlung, inv. Nr. M 1 | Christmas | ‘Soror Margareta de Yota orate pro me’ |
Wallraf-Richartz-Museum, Graphische Sammlung, inv. Nr. M 22 | Feast of St John the Evangelist | ‘Soror Heylwigis orate pro me’ |
Wallraf-Richartz-Museum, Graphische Sammlung, inv. Nr. M 2 | Epiphany | ‘Soror Jutta orate pro me’ |
Wallraf-Richartz-Museum, Graphische Sammlung, inv. Nr. M 8 | Ascension | ‘Soror Christina de Porta orate pro me’ |
Wallraf-Richartz-Museum, Graphische Sammlung, inv. Nr. M 5 | Feast of St Andrew | ‘Soror Bela de Nusia orate pro me’ |
Wallraf-Richartz-Museum, Graphische Sammlung, inv. Nr. M 15 | Feast of St Mary Magdalene | ‘Soror Agnes Eese’ |
Wallraf-Richartz-Museum, Graphische Sammlung, inv. Nr. M 17 | Feast of St Clare | ‘Soror Clara de Valkensteyn orate pro me’ |
Wallraf-Richartz-Museum, Graphische Sammlung, inv. Nr. M 12 | Death of the Virgin | ‘Soror Agnes de Aldenhoven orate pro me’ |
Wallraf-Richartz-Museum, Graphische Sammlung, inv. Nr. M 10 | Nativity of the Virgin | ‘Soror Margareta de Valkenburg orate pro me’ |
The British Library leaf adds considerably to our knowledge of this manuscript because it gives valuable evidence about its patronage. While the other leaves are inscribed only with the names of the nuns and requests for prayers, the British Library leaf tells us that Isabella of Guelders, a major figure in the history of the convent, paid for it.
Isabella of Guelders
Beginning in the 1330s, the Poor Clares of Cologne received special patronage from two sisters, Isabella and Philippa of Guelders, daughters of Reginald I and Margaret of Flanders, count and countess of Guelders. In time, both sisters joined the convent and Isabella served as abbess from 1340 to 1343. They are associated with various projects, including rebuilding the convent church in 1336 and possibly commissioning the Altar of the Poor Clares now in Cologne Cathedral.
Additionally, a two-volume bible, now housed in the Archbishop’s Diocesan and Cathedral Library, Cologne, contains an inscription stating that Isabella of Guelders bought the manuscript for the convent of Poor Clares using the proceeds from selling jewellery that she had worn before entering the convent.
Isabella died in 1354 and was buried with her sister Philippa in a grand tomb in the choir of the Poor Clares’ church. The newly discovered leaf adds to her legacy as a major supporter of cultural projects within the convent.
The British Library’s leaf from the Poor Clares of Cologne is on display in the exhibition Medieval Women: In Their Own Words, from 25 October 2024 to 2 March 2025. You can purchase your tickets online now.
Eleanor Jackson
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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.
Further Reading
Sabine Benecke, Randgestaltung und Religiosität: Die Handschriften aus dem Kölner Kloster St. Klara (Ammersbek bei Hamburg, 1995).
Harald Horst and Karen Straub (eds), Von Frauenhand: Mittelalterliche Handschriften Aus Kölner Sammlungen (Cologne, 2021).
11 December 2024
The arrest of Eleanor Rykener
Exactly 630 years ago today, a woman called Eleanor Rykener found herself in trouble. On the night of 11 December 1394, on Soper’s Lane off Cheapside, she had agreed to go into a stall with a client named John Britby, having first demanded an unspecified amount of money for her services. Medieval London’s anti-prostitution laws made this a hazardous venture, but Eleanor was an experienced sex worker, and must have concluded that Britby’s money was worth the risk. Unfortunately, they were discovered by city officials while engaging in ‘that detestable, unmentionable, and ignominious vice’, and were hauled up before the Mayor of London for questioning. It was during the questioning that Eleanor, still wearing the dress she had been arrested in, was revealed to have been born John Rykener. We might describe her, in modern terms, as a transgender woman. Eleanor’s remarkable story is preserved in a single document: the record of her questioning held in the London Archives, currently on display in our exhibition Medieval Women: In Their Own Words.
‘Calling [herself] Eleanor’; the account of Eleanor Rykener and her arrest; London, 1395: The London Archives, Plea and Memoranda Roll A34, Membrane 2.
The manuscript and its account are not immediately eye-catching—a dense block of unadorned, bureaucratic text written on a parchment roll, bookended by many other accounts—and, indeed, it went almost entirely unnoticed for several centuries. This is partially due to deliberate censorship: a 1932 summary of the Plea and Memoranda Rolls completely obscured Eleanor’s gender-nonconformity, describing the case as an ‘examination of two men charged with immorality’. The truth of the case was eventually uncovered by Ruth Mazo Karras and David Lorenzo Boyd in 1995. Since then, it has generated a huge amount of scholarship and popular interest, pivoting around fascinating and complex questions: what does it mean to describe a fourteenth-century individual as ‘trans’? Was Eleanor’s supposed ‘crime’ sodomy, sex work, gender nonconformity, or something else entirely? And—perhaps the most conspicuous gap in the record—what happened to her after this one recorded moment of her questioning?
It’s not possible to answer all those questions today, but we can focus on what we do know of Eleanor’s story, as recorded by a court clerk. Even though her narrative was doubtless filtered through the preconceptions and prejudices of the court that sought to judge her, it remains one of the most detailed accounts we have of a medieval sex worker in something close to her own words.
Eleanor’s early life—the period in which she was, presumably, still known as ‘John’—is completely obscure to us. Her story in the record begins at some unspecified point in time before her arrest with Britby, when a woman named Anna, also a sex worker, ‘taught’ Eleanor how to have sex ‘in the manner of a woman’. It is worth noting that, while the courtroom must have been dominated by men, Eleanor begins her account with a moment of intimacy, knowledge-sharing, and perhaps even friendship between herself and another woman. This theme of feminine community continues when Rykener describes herself being ‘dressed in women’s clothing’ and employed in sex work by a certain bawd called Elizabeth Brouderer (‘Embroiderer’).
Joan of Arc chases away a group of sex workers from her army camp, from Martial d’Auvergne’s Vigiles de Charles VII: Bibliothèque nationale de France, fr. 5054, f. 60v
Eleanor practiced more than just sex work with Elizabeth. It may well have been in her house that she picked up the embroidery skills she put to work while she was living in Oxford. Eleanor’s employment history—she worked for stints as an embroideress and barmaid alongside sex work—indicates that her feminine self-presentation was not confined to sexual role-playing. She positioned herself, and was apparently read, as a woman in almost all aspects of her daily life, including in the courtroom, where she insistently ‘call[ed herself] Eleanor’ and retained her feminine attire. This cannot have been easy. Existing as a woman—let alone a trans woman—in the world of medieval England was often a gruelling business. The fact that Eleanor chose to do so suggests that there were reasons, known only to her, because of which she felt more comfortable as a woman. A trans identification, or something like it, is one plausible explanation for the shape of Eleanor’s life.
The Assyrian king Sardanapalus dressed in women’s clothing spinning silk with a group of noble women, from a 15th-century copy of Valerius Maximus’ Facta et Dicta Memorabilia: Harley MS 4375/3, f. 179r
There are still more complexities to Eleanor’s story. While she had sex ‘as a woman’ with several named and unnamed male clients (she preferred taking on priests, she explains, because they tended to pay better), she also had sex ‘as a man’ with ‘many nuns’ and ‘many women both married and unmarried’: too many, apparently, for Eleanor to keep count. Several aspects of this part of the story are unclear. Were the women also clients, or did Eleanor have sex with them without financial motive? Did she genuinely desire these women—was she possibly, to use more modern terms, bisexual or queer?
We can never know the answer to these, and countless other, questions about Eleanor. As mentioned above, this is the only known surviving record of her life, and will remain so, barring another remarkable discovery in the archives. We don’t even know if she was found guilty of any crime or faced punishment. What we do have is a glimpse into the life of an exceptional, resourceful woman making her way in the medieval world, one of many on display in our exhibition Medieval Women: In Their Own Words.
The roll bearing the account of Eleanor’s case on display
To see Eleanor Rykener’s account 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.
Rowan Wilson
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03 December 2024
From countess to convent
Our exhibition Medieval Women: In Their Own Words tells the story of the lives and experiences of medieval women not just through manuscripts, documents and printed books, but also works of art, paintings, jewellery, coins and sculpture. One of these precious artefacts is an ivory cross that once belonged to Sibylla of Anjou (b. c. 1112, d. 1165), Countess of Flanders, who for a time served as regent in her husband’s place and ultimately embarked on a journey to the Holy Land, where her life would change forever. We are delighted that the cross is on loan to the exhibition from the Musée du Louvre in Paris.
The ivory Cross of Sibylla of Flanders: Musée du Louvre, OA 2593
Sibylla was a noblewoman, the daughter of Fulk V of Anjou (d. 1143) and Ermengarde of Maine (d. 1126), and later the stepdaughter of Melisende (d. 1161), Queen of Jerusalem, a significant royal woman in her own right who also appears prominently in our exhibition. In 1134, Sibylla married Thierry of Alsace (d. 1168) and became Countess of Flanders. It was her second marriage, after her first to William Clito (d. 1127), Thierry’s predecessor as count, had been annulled by the Pope in 1124. Throughout much of their relationship, Thierry was away fighting on crusade, leaving her in Europe to rule as regent in his stead. Sibylla was clearly a formidable figure, able to take charge of the administration of Flanders effectively on her own. Notably, during one of her husband’s absences in 1148, the region was attacked by a rival lord, Baldwin IV, Count of Hainault, who intended to annex the territory for himself. Sibylla led her force in a counterattack that not only repelled the invasion, but also devastated Hainault and ultimately led to the negotiation of a truce between the two sides.
Sibylla’s father, Fulk V of Anjou, and stepmother, Melisende of Jerusalem, from William of Tyre’s Histoire d’Outremer: Yates Thompson MS 12, f. 82v
In 1157, Thierry embarked on his third journey to the Holy Land and this time Sibylla went with him. However, when they finally arrived, Sibylla decided to leave her husband altogether to enter the Convent of Sts Mary and Martha in Bethany, one of the wealthiest abbeys in the kingdom, situated less than two miles outside Jerusalem. The convent had an important familial connection for Sibylla, as it had been founded by her father Fulk and stepmother Melisende in 1138, and its abbess Ioveta of Bethany (b. c. 1102, d. 1178) was also her step-aunt, though the two were actually very similar in age. Despite initial opposition from both her husband and the Patriarch of Jerusalem (its leading bishop), Sibylla was successful in taking her vows and ultimately remained in the convent until her death in 1165. There she was able to work together with Ioveta to support Melisende in her ruling of the kingdom, particularly through their combined influence over appointments to positions in the Latin Church.
An itinerary map of the Holy Land, showing the city of Jerusalem, made by the Benedictine monk and artist Matthew Paris: Royal MS 14 C VII, f. 5r
The cross is one of only a small number of surviving objects and documents with any known connection to Sibylla. It is made from walrus ivory and was crafted in the Meuse Valley region, probably a few years after her marriage to Thierry. A small, veiled female figure appears lying flat at the foot of the cross’s base before the crucified Christ, who appears between allegorical representations of the Sun and Moon. An accompanying inscription in Latin asks for pardon and identifies the figure as Sibylla herself:
NATE. MARIS. STELLE. VENIAM. C[on]CEDE. SIBILLE.
You who were born of the Star of the Sea grant forgiveness to Sibylla.
Here, Sibylla addresses Christ, but references the Virgin Mary using her ancient title, the Stella Maris (or Star of the Sea). It is an interesting choice, one perhaps made with her journey across the sea to the Holy Land in mind. The cross probably formed part of the decorative cover of a book, though it is unclear what happened to its original manuscript or if it even came with Sibylla on her journey. Nonetheless, its devotional symbolism remains a testament to a noble and politically influential figure, who ultimately found the greatest strength and happiness in the religious life and the community of women it provided her.
Sibylla kneeling at the base of the ivory cross, with an accompanying inscription in Latin: Musée du Louvre, OA 2593
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.
Calum Cockburn
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30 November 2024
Don't try this at home
Imagine you’re a medieval woman with a stomach-ache. Oh, and you’ve got jaundice. And gout. And you’re trying to have a baby. And you’ve recently been bitten by a rabid dog. And, to top things off, you’ve recently been thrown out of a moving vehicle. What’s a girl to do? Well, according to the Tractatus de herbis, a medieval herbal treatise, all these problems could be solved by differing preparations of the herb betony.
Betony (betonica): Egerton MS 747, f.14r
The treatise appears in a late 13th-century Italian manuscript (Egerton MS 747) currently on display in our Medieval Women exhibition. It's full of just such marvellous cures, many of them relating to gynaecological ailments and problems facing pregnant women and nursing mothers. For example, if you need to treat ‘suffocation of the womb’, a condition attributed to the womb’s wandering about the body and compressing the heart and lungs, you might turn to clove, ambergris or laudanum. To stimulate lactation, the herbal recommends asafoetida, aniseed, hemp, mint or chickpeas. Meanwhile, a staggering number of different herbs are prescribed for what the text vaguely calls ‘cleansing the womb’.
Laudanum: Egerton MS 747, f. 51r
Is there any evidence that these cures actually worked? We are used to imagining that medieval people were ignorant of the medical knowledge required to properly treat diseases. Certainly, some of the cures listed might have harmed more than they helped. ‘Monkshood’, recommended as a treatment for afflictions including intestinal worms and pains of the womb, is extremely toxic, as is ‘lords-and-ladies’, recommended for scrofula, haemorrhoids, and ‘cleansing’ and ‘refining’ the face. At least when the text lists white lead as a cosmetic for women, it also includes a warning that those who make it often suffer from epilepsy, paralysis and arthritis, suggesting that the author was aware of lead's toxicity, but the herbal seems to conclude that white lead’s potency in ‘wiping away impurities’ is worth the risk.
Monkshood (anthora): Egerton MS 747, f. 11r
However, with popular interest in sustainable alternative medicines on the rise, it's worth noting that at least some of the treatise’s cures are not quite as bogus as our preconceptions about medieval medicine might lead us to believe. Camphor, which the text suggests can induce sneezing, is still used as a decongestant in products like Vicks VapoRub. Many of the text’s recommended uses for aloe—such as strengthening digestion and promoting wound healing—have been affirmed in recent scientific research. And both the medieval herbal and modern researchers agree that garlic is good for more than just aioli. It also has anti-inflammatory, antioxidant and antifungal properties—though today’s scientists are less confident than their medieval counterparts in recommending garlic as a sure-fire treatment for venomous animal bites.
Garlic (allium): Egerton MS 747, f. 5r
Like many other pre-modern herbals, our manuscript uses covert language to identify plants that could be used to induce abortions. Arabian balsam tree, centaury, yellow gentian, madder and rue, for example, are all described as effective in ‘inducing menstruation’ and ‘bringing about the abortion of a dead foetus’. Some of these—like yellow gentian—are still warned against for pregnant people due to risk of unwanted abortion. Given the insistence of medieval canon law on the sanctity of life, herbal writers couldn’t afford to be explicit about identifying plants as a means of bringing about the end of a pregnancy by choice. Medieval women must have been capable of reading between the lines to seek out the help they needed.
Madder (rubea): Egerton MS 747, f. 84v
Mugwort (artemisia): Egerton MS 747, f. 7v
However baffling the advice of herbals may sometimes seem (did you know that if you anoint yourself with marigold juice at night, you will find yourself transported somewhere else in the morning?), it is clear that they still have a great deal to say to medics and patients today. Whether in providing healthy eating tips—celery is indeed as good for you as the treatise suggests—or informing us about the history of women’s medicine, they make for fascinating reading. Still, though, we have to warn you: the British Library cannot advise that you follow our herbal’s advice and include gold, bitumen, opium or cuttlefish bone in your morning herbal tea!
Cuttlefish bone (os sepie): Egerton MS 747, f. 71r
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
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24 November 2024
Medieval Women at the British Library shop
There are many reasons to visit our major exhibition, Medieval Women: In Their Own Words. There are the hundreds of fascinating women whose stories you'll encounter, from Eleanor of Castile and Hildegard of Bingen, to Margaret Paston and Birgitta of Sweden. There's the collection of unique items you’ll find on display, including The Book of Margery Kempe, the Melisende Psalter, an original medieval birthing girdle and a signed letter by Joan of Arc. There’s the opportunity to play interactive quizzes to check if you’re a witch or if you’d be entitled to a divorce. You can even smell what medieval fragrances might have been like, with our recreation of an original cosmetics recipe from the 14th century.
But, all those aside, one of the main reasons to see our exhibition is the absolutely incredible line-up of medieval women-themed gift available from the British Library Shop, including one of our favourite items we’ve ever made (we’ll leave you to guess which one that is…)
Here are just a few of our top picks from the range, also available to purchase online.
Medieval Women: Voices and Visions, ed. by Eleanor Jackson and Julian Harrison
A beautifully illustrated, large format volume, accompanying the exhibition, which seeks to recover women's voices, visions and experiences in Britain and Europe from around 1100 to 1500. It includes a selection of detailed expert essays and some 40 spotlight studies, revealing the rich and complex world of the women of the Middle Ages, full of colourful characters and intriguing stories from personalities both famous and lesser known, including Christine de Pizan, Joan of Arc and Julian of Norwich.
Medieval jewellery
A range of gorgeous pieces, including this stunning necklace, created by Tatty Devine and inspired by the artistry of original brass rubbings and manuscript depictions of medieval women.
Medieval Women 2025 Calendar
Our calendar showcases twelve full-colour illustrations of women from the Middle Ages, drawn from the British Library’s extensive collections. You’ll see women from all walks of life, from queens, teachers and saints, to nuns and writers, each accompanied by a brief biography.
Christine de Pizan’s cushion cover
A wonderful addition to any living room sofa: a cushion cover with the famous portrait of the French author Christine de Pizan, taken from the ‘Book of the Queen’. It shows her sitting writing at her desk in her study, with her ever-faithful dog at her side.
Medieval Women Christmas jumper
Perfect for the festive season, our Christmas jumper brings iconic women from history to life with a brass-rubbing inspired design. It features figures such as Joan of Arc, Christine de Pizan, Hildegard of Bingen, Eleanor of Acquitaine and Julian of Norwich, each adorned with subtle details hinting at their legacy.
To see all these items and more, 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.
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21 November 2024
Nunning amok
Many of the manuscripts on display in our exhibition Medieval Women: In Their Own Words portray medieval nuns as holy creatures, devoting themselves to prayer, contemplation and good works. Ancrene Wisse, a 13th-century guide for female anchoresses sets out rigorous expectations for those women who chose lives of permanent enclosure and isolation in cells attached to churches. Notably, anchoresses must ‘never [be] idle’, ‘think about God all the time’, commit to a vegetarian diet, and ‘be as little fond of your windows as possible’, avoiding distraction from the outside world. The fact that the author of Ancrene Wisse felt obliged to write out these strict guidelines suggests that religious women did not always act in ways befitting their holy houses. It raises the question: where are the badly behaved nuns in the Middle Ages?
Anchoresses are warned not to keep any animal ‘bute cat ane’ (except one cat): Cotton MS Cleopatra C VI, f. 193r
We find plenty of them in the art and literature of the period. Then, as now, the ‘naughty nun’ seems to have been a popular trope. In William Langland’s Piers Plowman, ‘Wrath’ speaks about the behaviour of the nuns at his aunt’s abbey:
And dame Pernele a preestes fyle,
Prioresse worth she nevere,
For she hadde child in chirie-tyme,
Al our chapitre it wiste.
Dame Parnel, a priest’s mistress
she'll never be a prioress
For she had a child in cherry-time:
all our chapter knows it!
In the 15th-century satirical poem ‘Why I Can’t Be a Nun’ (Cotton Vespasian MS D IX), a would-be bride of Christ is aghast to discover that many convents are ‘not well governed’, but are instead populated by figures like ‘Dame Disobedient’, ‘Dame Hypocrite’, ‘Dame Lust’ and ‘Dame Wanton’. And who can forget the infamous image of a penis-harvesting nun from a 14th-century copy of the Roman de la Rose, illuminated by the Parisian artist Jeanne de Montbaston (active c. 1325–1353)?
A penis-harvesting nun from a 14th-century copy of the Roman de la Rose: Bibliotheque nationale de France, ms fr. 25526, f.106v
While these examples owe more to lewd fantasy than to historical reality, other evidence suggests that their portraits of convents in chaos contain a grain of truth. Medieval bishops regularly surveyed monasteries and nunneries in their dioceses, and many kept detailed records of their visitations. Eudes Rigaud, archbishop of Rouen, visited several convents between 1249 and 1265, and was not pleased with what he found. He wrote up nuns for faults ranging from ‘singing the hours with too much haste’, wearing costly pelisses of ‘the furs of rabbits, hares and foxes’, to drunkenness and sex with priests and chaplains.
A dancing nun in the margin of the Maastricht Hours: Stowe MS 17, f. 38r
English visitation records give examples of whole convents in disarray. At Cannington in 1351, in addition to poor leadership from a cash-hungry prioress and a lazy, Matins-shirking sub-prioress, a nun called Joan Trimelet was found pregnant—‘but not indeed by the Holy Ghost’, as the bishop’s commissioners wryly remarked. Joan Trimelet’s pregnancy was not unique. The convent of Amesbury was dissolved in 1189, following reports that the abbess had given birth three times, and that many of the sisters were living in ‘infamy’.
The misbehaviour of individual nuns could put a strain on their entire community. Bishop Alnwick’s 1442 report of Catesby Priory gives an insight into the disorder that could arise in a poorly governed convent. Through Alnwick’s documentation of the nuns’ voices, we find hints of a quarrel between the prioress Margaret Wavere and sister Isabel Benet, who accused each other of sexual misconduct with local knights. While other nuns commented on Benet and Wavere’s impropriety—one accuses Benet of having ‘passed the night with the Austin Friars at Northampton... dancing and playing the lute with them... until midnight’—they seem more upset by the prioress’s poor management of convent finances, and her tendency to ‘sow discord among the sisters’. Under such conditions, it is understandable that some nuns could not keep to the high standards of behaviour set out in their monastic rules. Most medieval convents were small and poor in comparison to equivalent men’s houses. It is no wonder that underfed, underfunded nuns living together in close quarters didn’t always abide in holy harmony.
A flirtatious nun with a male companion from the margins of the Maastricht Hours: Stowe MS 17, f.226r
Is it a surprise that some nuns wanted to call it quits entirely? Medieval ecclesiastical records give several examples of nuns on the run, attempting to leave their orders for reasons ranging from trying to reclaim an inheritance, running away with a lover, to simply having had enough of convent life. Sometimes convents would see flights of multiple nuns at once: in 1300, Isabella Clouvil, Matilda de Thychemers and Ermentrude de Newark all fled Delapré Abbey in Northampton, much to their bishop’s disappointment.
Church authorities often exerted considerable force to haul such nuns back to their houses. In the 14th century, Agnes de Flixthorpe, a nun of St Michael’s in Stamford, ran away from her Order at least three times, once dressed in a man’s gilt embroidered robe. She claimed that she had never been legitimately professed as a nun and was legally married to a man she refused to name. Bishop Dalderby of Lincoln responded by branding Agnes an apostate, sending secular authorities to imprison her, and eventually excommunicating her. The last reference to her case is in 1314, when Agnes was still at liberty, and we don’t know whether Dalderby’s forces managed to catch her again.
The greatest escape artist of all was surely Joan of Leeds, a nun of St Clement’s by York. In 1318, Joan slipped the convent’s net by ‘simulating a bodily illness’ and then faking her own death. She made a dummy ‘in likeness of her body’, which was buried in ‘sacred space’, leaving Joan free to ‘wander at large to the notorious peril to her soul and to the scandal of all her order’, as Archbishop Melton of York put it. Exactly what motivated her to leave is unclear. In 2020, researchers at the University of York discovered another 1318 letter from Melton, in which he reports that Joan had come to another priest, ‘Brother John’, ‘with great sorrow in her heart’. She apparently described how ‘as a girl and being under the age of personal discretion she was forced to enter the Order... by her father and mother... she both never consented to this and continually protested and also never uttered any vow of profession’.
A specific mention of ‘Johana de Ledes’ in Melton’s Register. Archbishop of York’s register, 9A f. 326v, entry 2
Joan’s story is not just one of ingenuity and bravery, but also reflects a harsh reality of medieval monastic life. Many nuns were professed at a young age, compelled to the religious life not by a legitimate calling, but by their parents’ desire to keep them out of trouble, be rid of an inconvenient second or third daughter, or even deprive them of an inheritance. Convent life was a rich tapestry, in which nuns of various levels of commitment lived and worked together: as the author of ‘Why I Can’t Be a Nun’ writes, ‘some are devout, holy and obliging’, while ‘some are feeble, lewd and forward’.
The procession of nuns to the mass: Yates Thompson MS 11, f. 6v
For more stories of complicated, daring medieval women, visit our exhibition Medieval Women: In Their Own Words, which runs until 2 March 2025. 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.
Rowan Wilson
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15 November 2024
Educating Ippolita
On 8 July 1458, Ippolita Maria Sforza (b. 1445, d. 1488) completed work on a manuscript, a handwritten copy of Cicero’s Latin treatise De senectute (On Old Age), which she made for her tutor, the Renaissance humanist Baldo Martorelli (d. 1475). At the time, Ippolita was only 14 years old and living in her childhood home of Milan. The small volume (Add MS 21984) is currently on display as part of our major exhibition, Medieval Women: In Their Own Words, running between 25 October 2024 and 2 March 2025.
The opening of Cicero’s De senectute (On old age), written by Ippolita Maria Sforza at the age 14: Add MS 21984, f. 3r
Ippolita Maria was born into the influential Sforza family, then rulers of the duchy of Milan. At the age of 20, she married Alfonso II (d. 1495), Duke of Calabria, who would go on to become King of Naples. Like many members of the nobility at this time, Ippolita was the beneficiary of a privileged education. From an early age, she showed an aptitude for learning and letter-writing, pursuits actively encouraged by her father, Francesco I (d. 1466). She studied Latin and Greek alongside her older brother Galeazzo, the pair having at least three tutors in addition to Baldo, who wrote a Latin grammar for them to study. She also learned to read the works of some of the most famous classical authors, as well as compose her own Latin orations, one of which she delivered to Pope Pius II at the Diet of Mantua in 1459.
A reproduction of the bust of a young woman, believed to be Ippolita Maria Sforza: Victoria & Albert Museum, Repro 1889-94
Ippolita’s handwritten copy of De senectute was probably the result of a homework exercise, in which she was instructed to copy out famous works of Classical poetry and rhetoric. The volume is finely illuminated. Its opening page features a beautiful decorated border which encloses her emblem (a palm tree and a pair of silver scales) and an abbreviated form of her name (‘HIP, MA’), written in chrysography, or gold lettering. Her Latin motto runs alongside these illuminations, an extract from Psalm 91:13: ‘Iustus ut palma florebit et sicut cedrus libani multiplicabitur’ (The just will flourish like a palm tree and multiply like the cedar of Lebanon’).
Ippolita’s abbreviated name (‘HIP, MA’), Latin motto and emblem, painted into the border of her handwritten copy of Cicero’s De senectute: Add MS 21984, f. 3r
We know that Ippolita wrote the manuscript herself, because of a Latin colophon inscribed at the very end of the text. It reads:
Hippolyta Maria Vicecomes filia Illustrimi principis Francisci Sforciae ducis Mediolani exscripsi mea manu hunc libellum sub tempus pueritiae meae et sub Baldo praeceptore anno a natali christiani MCCCCLVIII octavo idus julius'
I, Ippolita Maria Visconti, daughter of the most illustrious prince Francesco Sforza, Duke of Milan, wrote this little book in my own hand around the time of my childhood and under my tutor Baldo, 8 July 1458.
Ippolita’s Latin colophon in which she states that she wrote the manuscript herself: Add MS 21984, ff. 71r-v
The manuscript is a window into Ippolita’s learning at such an early age, as well as the close relationship she had with her tutor. Throughout the volume, pointers (known as manicules) have been added in the margins to indicate important maxims or meaningful passages to remember. On this page, for example, a manicule has been added next to a Latin sentence, emphasising the importance of thought and reflection as a means of achieving great deeds:
Non viribus aut velocitate aut celeritate corporum res magnae geruntur, sed consolio auctoritate sententia
It is not by strength, speed, or physical dexterity that great things are achieved but by reflection, force of character, and judgement.
A manicule drawn into the margin to indicate a memorable passage in the text: Add MS 21984, f. 16v
Baldo’s hand appears in several places as well, where he made discreet corrections to her work, either adding a marginal comment alongside the text, inserting a letter in a word she had missed out during the copying, or to indicate a mistaken spelling.
Corrections made to Ippolita’s work, including a missing ‘u’ in the Latin ‘uiuendi’ and ‘gati’ in the word ‘defatigationem’: Add MS 21984, f. 71r
Ippolita’s love of learning persisted throughout her later life when she became Duchess of Calabria and left Milan for Naples, following her betrothal to Alfonso in 1465. In a letter to her mother, Bianca Maria Visconti (d. 1468), written on 6 January 1466, only four months into the marriage, Ippolita reported that she had built a study in her new Neapolitan home, the Castel Capuano, a place for her to read and write in private contemplation. In a particularly moving section of the letter, she asked to be sent portraits of her mother, father, and all her brothers and sisters, so she could hang them around the room to provide her ‘with constant comfort and pleasure’. The study seems to have been a room of her own in a place that was still alien to her, a space dedicated to the pastimes and people that mattered most in her life.
Portraits of Ippolita’s parents, Francesco I Sforza and Bianca Maria Visconti, painted by the Italian artist Bonifacio Bembo: Milan, Pinacoteca di Brera
To learn more about women’s education during the medieval period and see Ippolita’s manuscript and bust in person, visit 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.
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