05 February 2025
The first sultana of Egypt and Syria
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
21 January 2025
Black Agnes and the siege of Dunbar
Overlooking the harbour town of Dunbar in East Lothian, Scotland, stands a ruin. The corner of a tower, a broken courtyard, and the walls of a blockhouse: these stone fragments and the barest of foundations are all that remain of one of the most important fortresses in medieval Scotland. Dunbar Castle’s location and prominence against the surrounding coastal landscape meant that it was often the target of enemy lords and across the centuries, it sustained many sieges. One particular siege would take on an almost legendary status in Scottish history thanks to the actions of a single woman. In 1338, Agnes Randolph (b. c. 1312, d. 1369), commonly known as ‘Black Agnes’ either because of her dark complexion or her fierce character, led a heroic five-month defence of its fortifications against an invading English army. An account of the siege and Agnes’ bravery is detailed in the Orygynale Cronykil by the 15th-century writer Andrew Wyntoun, currently on display in our exhibition, Medieval Women: In Their Own Words.
Dunbar Castle Ruins by Jennifer Petrie: CC BY-SA 2.0
Agnes was the daughter of Thomas Randolph, Earl of Moray, and later Countess of Dunbar through her marriage to Patrick Dunbar, a prominent Scottish lord during the reigns of Robert the Bruce and David II. In January 1338, Patrick Dunbar was away on an expedition, leaving Agnes to hold the castle. It was then that an invading English army led by William Montagu, 1st Earl of Salisbury, took the opportunity to cross the Scottish border, the latest in a series of military campaigns ordered by Edward III to seize Scotland. They surrounded the fortress and laid siege to it. The defenders were made up of Agnes, her household and only a handful of soldiers, but despite the odds against her, Agnes refused to give up the castle.
A 15th-century map of Scotland, including a depiction of Dunbar Castle (bottom left), from John Hardyng's Chronicle: Lansdowne MS 204, ff. 226v-227r
During the siege, Montagu made various attempts to assault Dunbar Castle. He began by using catapults to fire huge rocks at the walls, but they did little to damage the strong fortifications. According to Wyntoun, Agnes poured salt on the wound of Montagu’s failed bombardment by sending out her ladies-in-waiting to dust the ramparts with pieces of cloth:
Thai warpyt at the wall gret stanys
Bathe hard and hewy for the nanys
Bot that nane merryng to thame made.
And alswa qwhen thai castyne hade,
Wyth a towalle a damyselle
Arayid jolyly and welle
Wipyt the wall, that thai mycht se,
To gere thaim mare anoyid be.
They threw great stones at the wall
Both hard and heavy for that purpose
But they did no damage.
And also, when they had the thrown them,
A damsel with a cloth,
Dressed prettily and well,
Wiped the wall, so that the English could see,
To make them even more annoyed.
The siege of a medieval castle, defended by women, from the Luttrell Psalter: Add MS 42130, f. 75v
When the catapult barrage failed, Montagu then tried to blackmail Agnes into submission, by threatening to execute her brother, John Randolph, 3rd Earl of Moray, who had recently been captured. Agnes responded by pointing out that there was no incentive for her to save her brother, as his death would leave her the inheritor of the earldom. At the same time, another effort by the English to reach the walls with a special siege engine, called a 'cat’ or a ‘sow’, ended badly when Agnes ordered a giant boulder to be dropped on it, re-purposing one of the very stones Montagu had fired at the castle earlier in the siege.
An English attempt at bribing one of Agnes’s men to sneak them through the castle gates similarly led to disaster for the besieging army. The guard received the money, but promptly told the countess, who used it as an opportunity to set a trap for Montagu and his men. When a portion of the English army was already through the gates, she suddenly closed the portcullis behind them with no way for them to leave. While the English earl was able to escape in time, many of his men were killed in the chaos that ensued.
A woman defends a castle from assault, from the Smithfield Decretals: Royal MS 10 E IV, f. 18v
Eventually, on 10 June 1338, five months after the English had first arrived at Dunbar Castle, with supplies dwindling and having spent some £6000 in the attempt (the equivalent of over £4.5 million in modern currency), Montagu decided to raise the siege completely. Wyntoun’s chronicle quotes a song the English are believed to have sung as they abandoned the castle, its words a testament to the strength of Agnes’ resilience and the impression she left on them over those five months:
I wowe to God, scho maid gret stere
The Scottish wenche ploddere.
Come I are, come I late,
I fand Annot at the yhate.
I vow to God, she makes a great leader
That Scottish woman fighter.
Come I early, come I late
I found Agnes at the gate.
Andrew Wyntoun’s verse account of the Siege of Dunbar in his Orygynale Cronykil; Scotland, 15th century: Royal MS 17 D XX, ff. 238v-239r
To learn more about Agnes Randolph and see the account of the Siege of Dunbar 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
18 January 2025
The mortuary roll of Lucy of Hedingham
What is the measure of a life once it has ended? In the early decades of the 13th century, the Benedictine nuns of Castle Hedingham Priory in Essex marked the life and passing of their first prioress, Lucy, in the most special way: they made a mortuary roll for her. This most poignant of manuscripts (Egerton MS 2849) can be found on display in our major exhibition, Medieval Women: In Their Own Words, which runs till 2 March 2025.
The installation of the Mortuary Roll of Lucy of Hedingham (Egerton MS 2849) in Medieval Women: In Their Own Words
Mortuary rolls were used to commemorate the deaths of the most significant members of monastic communities during the medieval period. They were typically composed of a covering letter, which eulogised the deceased and set out a call for prayers to be made for their soul. Specially employed messengers would then take the roll around neighbouring institutions, who would add these Latin prayers for the dead beneath the letter, together with memorials and reflections on their passing.
The mortuary roll of Prioress Lucy was made between 1225 and 1230. Now divided into two parts, the roll comprises ten parchment membranes and is almost six metres long. It is particularly notable for its opening illustrated panel, arranged in three framed scenes. At the top, a depiction of the Crucifixion is shown alongside the seated Virgin and Child; in the middle, two angels carry the soul of Prioress Lucy up to Heaven; at the bottom, a vision of Lucy’s funeral appears, with her body lying in a bier, surrounded by priests, clerics, and nuns.
The illustrative programme at the beginning of the Mortuary Roll of Lucy of Hedingham: Egerton MS 2849/1, Membrane 1
The roll’s covering letter, written by Agnes, Lucy’s successor as prioress of Castle Hedingham, provides an account of her virtues – among them her virginity, her piety, her abstinence, and her lifelong discipline – and the grief of her fellow sisters at her death, ‘ymbres lacrimarum, et fletuum innundacionem’ (a storm of tears and flood of lamentation).
The letter is followed by the written responses (also known as 'tituli') of 122 religious houses in East Anglia and the southern half of England, including Barking Abbey, the Abbey of Bury St Edmunds, Campsey Priory, St Augustine’s Abbey, Canterbury, Dover Priory and Wilton Abbey. It is unclear how long it took the roll-bearers to reach these houses and return to Castle Hedingham, but it could have been a period of many years, a reflection of both the magnitude of the nuns’ undertaking and the strength of their affection for the late prioress herself.
The first response, made by the monks of St Botolph’s Priory in Colchester, some 20 miles from Castle Hedingham, is also the longest and includes a set of Latin verses dedicated to Lucy, which play on the Latin meaning of her name, ‘light’:
Hec Virgo vite mitis super astra locatur.
Et sic Lucie lux sine fine datur.
Transijt ad superos venerabilis hec Monialis.
Vix succedit ei virtutum munere talis.
Luci lucie prece lux mediente Marie
Luceat eterna, quia floruit vt rosa verna.
This Virgin, humble in life, is placed above the stars.
And so, Lucy is given eternal light.
This venerable nun has passed to the Heavens.
There are few who can compare to her in virtue.
Let the eternal light shine on Lucy with its light,
by the intercession of Mary’s prayer, because
she flowered just like a spring rose.
The first ‘titulus’ or written response added by the monks of St Botolph’s Priory: Egerton MS 2849/1, Membrane 3
Little is known about the rest of Prioress Lucy’s life. There are few documents or references to her in the surviving historical record, though some have speculated that she was a close relation of Audrey de Vere (d. 1194), 1st Earl of Oxford, who probably founded Castle Hedingham Priory in the second half of the 12th century. Nonetheless, the impact of her life and the emotion at her passing are preserved forever in this precious mortuary roll, made by the community of women she led and left behind.
The Mortuary Roll of Lucy of Hedingham on display in Medieval Women: In Their Own Words
To see the Mortuary Roll of Lucy of Hedingham 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
13 January 2025
Permission to practise medicine
Our major exhibition, Medieval Women: In Their Own Words, features many examples of female figures working in professions and fields otherwise dominated by men. Among them, one woman’s story is particularly striking. Around the year 1403, the widow Joan du Lee sent a petition to Henry IV, King of England, asking for permissions so that she could practise medicine around the country. Her petition is known to us through a single document now housed at the National Archives in London (SC 8/231/11510). We are thrilled to have this incredible manuscript on loan to us for the exhibition, which runs until 2 March 2025.
The petition of Joan du Lee to Henry IV, requesting permission to practise medicine; England, c. 1403: The National Archives, SC 8/231/11510
Joan’s document is so significant because it provides first-hand evidence of women practising medicine during the medieval period. Surviving medical manuscripts from the Middle Ages typically give us an impression of a field almost entirely occupied by men, specifically those who were able to receive a university education. Women were not allowed to go to university to study medicine and so could not qualify as licensed physicians. Yet despite the institutional restrictions placed upon them, women were not entirely alienated from medical professions. In fact, they performed many functions and occupied numerous roles, serving as healers and caregivers in domestic and religious households, hospital and infirmary staff, midwives who assisted women in childbirth, wetnurses who looked after young children, and other paid professionals called upon to attend patients or exist in caring capacities.
A midwife hands a newborn baby to their mother: Arundel MS 66, f. 148r
Evidence of the kind of medical treatments women might have performed can be found in a collection of medical treatises (Sloane MS 6), made in England in the 15th century. The volume is also on display alongside Joan’s petition in the exhibition. The manuscript notably features an accompanying set of drawings of female medical practitioners caring for their patients and performing different treatments and surgical procedures. These include ‘cupping’, where a heated glass cup would be applied to a patient’s skin as a means of managing their humoral balance.
A set of drawings showing women performing different medical procedures and treatments, from a collection of medical treatises: Sloane MS 6, f. 177r
However, while women did take up medical roles, they could undoubtedly face animosity and suspicion as a result. Joan’s petition to Henry IV hints at some of the adversity she faced. In her request to Henry, she specifically asks for letters under the great seal – a symbol of the King’s approval that would effectively guarantee the legitimacy of the documents for anyone doubting her – which would allow her to go safely about the country, performing the art of ‘fisik’, without hindrance or disturbance from those people who might regard her with contempt or otherwise mistrust her medical knowledge.
A female medical practitioner performs a cupping treatment to a patient: Sloane MS 6, f. 177r
Unfortunately, we do not know any further details about the kinds of resistance Joan faced as a physician or the medical treatments she performed, or even if Henry ever granted her request. Nonetheless, her petition is a fascinating example of a medieval woman using the legal channels available to her to continue to work in her chosen profession.
To see Joan's petition 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
07 January 2025
Tales of Medieval Women
The team behind our major exhibition Medieval Women: In Their Own Words has created a new animation (designed by animator Ivyy Chen) telling the stories of five of the exhibition’s extraordinary leading figures, women who carved out their own destinies in ways that would be remembered for generations to come. The full animation can now be viewed below!
Discover the stories of Empress Matilda, who battled to assert her claim to the English throne in the 12th century, and Shajar al-Durr who became the first Sultana of Egypt and defended her country from an invading Crusader army.
Learn about Margery Kempe, a visionary responsible for the first autobiography written in the English language, and Christine de Pizan, a professional female author who argued for the moral and intellectual equality of women in her writings.
Explore the life of a military leader and patron saint of France, the young peasant girl Joan of Arc, who was inspired by a divine calling to rally the French army and save her country.
The animation’s design has been inspired by medieval manuscripts that are part of the British Library’s collections, many of which are also on display in the exhibition. How many references can you spot?
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
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
Follow us @BLMedieval
28 November 2024
The Eleanor Crosses
When you visit our exhibition, Medieval Women: In Their Own Words, the first item you’ll find on display isn’t a manuscript, a document or a printed book. It’s a statue. A crowned female figure in formal robes, weathered to a ruddy brown, her body damaged in places and missing a hand, but whose distinctive likeness remains. This statue and the woman she represents lay claim to one of the most poignant stories to survive from medieval England, a testament to the strength of affection of a husband to his wife, as well as an elaborate display of royal power. This is the story of Eleanor of Castile (b. 1241, d. 1290), Queen of England, and the Eleanor Crosses made in her memory.
The reproduction of a statue of Eleanor of Castile, on display in Medieval Women: In Their Own Words, made by Michael Whitley
Eleanor was the daughter of King Fernando III of Castile and Juana of Ponthieu. She came to England in 1255 at the age of only 14, following her marriage to Prince Edward, son of Henry III, who later became Edward I. They ruled the country together for some 18 years. During their reign, Eleanor became renowned for her skill as a landowner and administrator, her devotion to the Church, and her patronage of the arts, particularly the production and copying of books. Among the manuscripts associated with her is the Alphonso Psalter (Add MS 24686), a lavishly illuminated copy of the Book of Psalms, made to commemorate the betrothal of her son Alphonso to Margaret, daughter of Florent V, Count of Holland and Zeeland in 1284.
The Alphonso Psalter, made for Eleanor of Castile’s son: Add MS 24686, f. 11r
Towards the end of her life, Eleanor’s health began to decline, some have speculated because of an underlying heart condition or possibly a case of malaria. She eventually died on 28 November 1290, a record of which can be found in a set of accounts made by her personal treasurer, John of Berewyk (see our previous blogpost on the details of this fascinating account-book). At the time, Edward and Eleanor were engaged in a tour of her properties in the Midlands, their final stop the village of Harby in Nottinghamshire. Perhaps aware of her impending death, Eleanor had already made preparations for her final resting place. Notably, she was to receive a triple burial: her internal organs were to be buried at Lincoln Cathedral, her heart in Blackfriars Priory in London, and her body in Westminster Abbey.
The final page of Eleanor of Castile's household account book, including a note of her death: Add MS 35294, f. 15v
Such was the depth of Edward’s affection for Eleanor that after her death he commissioned a permanent memorial to his departed queen, a series of large stone crosses placed at 12 sites along the route her body was taken from Lincoln to Westminster. Constructed between 1291 and 1295 at a collective cost of at least £2000 (over £1.5 million in modern currency), each cross was at least 13 metres tall and featured a representation of her likeness. Now known as the ‘Eleanor Crosses’, these sculptures stood at Lincoln, Grantham and Stamford in Lincolnshire; Geddington and Hardingstone in Northamptonshire; Stony Stratford in Buckinghamshire; Woburn and Dunstable in Bedfordshire; St Albans and Waltham in Herfordshire; Cheapside in London; and Charing in Westminster.
The sites of the Eleanor Crosses, from Lincoln to Charing Cross (Source: Wikipedia; © OpenStreeMap)
The statue in our Medieval Women exhibition is a handmade reproduction of a sculpture owned by Hertfordshire County Council and now housed at the Victoria & Albert Museum. It was originally part of the Waltham Cross, crafted by Alexander of Abingdon, one of the leading sculptors in England around the turn of the 13th century. The statue was removed and replaced by a replica in the 1950s because of the weathering it had suffered over the centuries. This was the fate of many of the other Eleanor Crosses too, which either deteriorated through exposure to the natural elements, or instead were dismantled or destroyed. Aside from the Waltham Cross, only two others now survive in their original state (Geddington and Hardingstone). But even though the statues may not mark Eleanor's final journey as they once did in the 13th century, the story behind the crosses, Edward's love for Eleanor, and the strength of the queen's image in the popular imagination has persisted.
A drawing of the Waltham Cross as it looked in the 18th century: Add MS 36367, f. 49r
To see the statue of Eleanor of Castile 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
Follow us @BLMedieval
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
Follow us @BLMedieval
Medieval manuscripts blog recent posts
Archives
Tags
- Africa
- Alexander exhibition
- Ancient
- Anglo-Saxons
- Animals
- Black & Asian Britain
- British Library Treasures
- Calendars
- Classics
- Decoration
- Digital scholarship
- Early modern
- Elizabeth and Mary exhibition
- English
- Events
- Exhibitions
- Fashion
- Featured manuscripts
- French
- Gold exhibition
- Greek
- Harry Potter
- Humanities
- Illuminated manuscripts
- International
- Ireland
- Latin
- Law
- Leonardo
- LGBTQ+
- Literature
- Magna Carta
- Manuscripts
- Maps
- Medieval
- Medieval history
- Medieval women
- Middle East
- Middle east
- Modern history
- Music
- Olympics
- Palaeography
- Polonsky
- Printed books
- Rare books
- Research collaboration
- Romance languages
- Royal
- sacred texts
- Sacred texts
- Science
- Scotland
- Slavonic
- South East Asia
- Visual arts
- Women's histories
- Writing