“God has given women beautiful minds,” said Christine de Pizan. James Burge reviews the Medieval Women: In Their Own Words exhibition at the British Library, which features Christine among many other well- and less-known women, and finds that “this exhibition makes a powerful case in her support.”
There was not a huge amount of documentary evidence created in the Middle Ages to start with and the destructive action of time has been reducing it ever since.
The period often appears to us, therefore, as a dense mist, out of which stumble individual lives and opinions, almost at random. This, as it happens, is exactly the image which greets the visitor to this show: shadowy figures on a large screen step forward in turn to speak selected quotes.
In this case, however, the speakers are all the sparser because they are all women. The image sets the tone for the show, which is lofty: “After centuries of neglect and under-appreciation, we hope to let the stories of these women shine through as vividly as grains of ultramarine,” is how Rowan Wilson puts it in the accompanying book.
The rather dark and sequestered atmosphere of the British Library’s exhibition spaces is dispelled as we descend the stairs into a cool blue space, divided into sections by fretwork suggestive of the Middle Ages. There we follow a path on which we meet a diverse assembly of women who managed, despite the prevailing culture, to enter the historical record.
Then, as now, women’s occupations were not evenly distributed. Writers of one kind or another are relatively plentiful but, on the other hand, Joan of Arc is the only female military field commander in the exhibition and is indeed the only one for hundreds of years on either side, French or English. It is a thrill to see her actual signature – Jehan – at the bottom of a letter requesting military aid.
Occasional interactive displays provide a welcome break from the business of reading captions and looking at books. There is an absorbing display about medicine – for information, just tap the body part that interests you.
There is some music to listen to and a selection of fragrances to sample, revived from Margery Kempe’s book The Presence of Angels, none of which particularly rang my bell, I must confess.
This area also provides some of those alarming eccentricities which are a medieval speciality. The 14th-century Breviarium Bartholomei describes a method of contraception involving weasels’ testicles. In the Latin text the word for weasel (mustele) is encoded as ‘lxtufmf’, presumably to avoid putting undue pressure on the weasel population.
The exhibit about the law also offers a surprise. In 13th-century England, if your husband was unfaithful, impotent or had bad breath there was precious little you could do about it. In Wales, however, things were different: the Llyfr Iorwerth, a 14th-century Welsh law-code, details a range of opportunities for legal redress in all these circumstances and more.
Welsh culture makes another memorable appearance in the shape of poet, Gwerful Mechain (d 1502) whose work was well-known during her lifetime but was only written down after her death. Here is a 21st-century translation of part of one of her works:
But what really gets wives going, bless their little cotton socks,
Is, pardon me for saying it, the love of good, big cocks.
To be fair to Gwerful’s reputation, she did also write much devotional religious poetry.
The monastic life provided an excellent opportunity to meditate on the status of women. “Just because I am a woman, must I therefore believe that I should not tell you about the goodness of God?” exclaimed the monastic anchoress Julian of Norwich in 1416.
Her account of her visions and their interpretation, the Revelations of Divine Love, was the first full text in England to be authored by a woman. It is still in print.
Christine de Pizan (d 1430) was left at the age of 25 with three children when her husband died. She was determined to make a support her family through writing and she succeeded. That makes her the first professional female writer in Europe.
Her book, The City of Ladies, is a story of a city populated exclusively eminent women – a bit like this exhibition. Not only did Christine achieve unique success for herself but she consistently spoke out on behalf on her sex.
She has a feminist consciousness and so she gets the last word: “God has given women beautiful minds to apply themselves, if they want to, in any of the fields where glorious and excellent men are active.” This exhibition makes a powerful case in her support.
Medieval Women: In Their Own Words is on at the British Library until 2 March, 2025.
James Burge is an author and former producer of BBC TV factual programmes. Among his books is the double biography Heloise And Abelard: A Twelfth Century Love Story. He is currently working on a novel about politics and sex in 12th-century Paris.
You may enjoy some of Jim’s other Historia pieces:
The history of history on television
TV review: Lessons in Chemistry
Review: Feminine power: the divine to the demonic
Review: The World of Stonehenge
Review: Charles I: Downfall of a King
More features about medieval women include:
Magna Carta’s inspirational women by Sharon Bennett Connolly
Anglo-Saxon women with power and influence by Annie Whitehead
To have and to hold: pawns in the medieval marriage game by Anne O’Brien
Female networks of power in the Middle Ages by JF Andrews
Books of Hours and their role in women’s lives by Elizabeth Buchan
Women and the Crusades by Carol McGrath
Images:
- Exhibition publicity image
- Woman and her baby at the exhibition: supplied by the author
- Couple kissing from Leges Hywel Dda, the Laws of Hywel Dda, mid-13th century: Llyfrgell Genedlaethol Cymru – The National Library of Wales (public domain)
- Christine de Pizan, c1410–1414: British Library, Harleian MS 4431, fol 4 r (detail): © British Library Board via ResearchGate (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)
