You may be less aware of her publishing credits. Not too long ago, I enjoyed The Private Lives of the Saints, which tackled issues of Anglo-Saxon faith and belief in an increasingly politically complex world. And her newest work, Femina, has moved on from there. It's a challenging work, which brings medieval scholarship up to the modern day. When someone is asking why is medieval history relevant to our world today, there's nothing more you can do than point the questioner in the direction of Femina.
Telling the story of women written out of history owing to their position as women, Femina sheds new light on the Middle Ages. What becomes clear quickly is that the women written out of history have been written out by historians; they were appreciated and admired in their own time and in their own place. We have the Loftus Princess, unknown to us but venerated by the people she lived cheek by jowl with. We hear of Jadwiga, Europe's only (successful) female king, whose legacy was a united Poland and the final pagan bastion of Europe conquered by Catholicism. We meet Margaery Kempe, a merchant and sage of King's Lynn, and a woman of the world.
The Church runs as a theme throughout, as is to be expected. Whether it's the dawn of Catholocism in England, monasteries in the south east or Germany, Crusades in Lithuania, or accusations of heresy through either the Cathars or Lollardy, we see the extent to which the power of the Church was influenced by and exerted control over the women of the Middle Ages. But women aren't subservient. We hear their authentic voices from their own accounts, particularly from women like Margaery Kempe who have their stories recorded through documents that have survived the centuries.
What has to be said, and this is a problem that fundamentally exists with history itself, is that the 'untold stories' have already been told. Individually, and in unknown documents, it is true; perhaps never put together thematically and as a part of a bigger story. But the fact remains: we do not know about other women. We can only extrapolate from what we know of these women, who tend to be more powerful due to the issues of recorded history. It's also true that we get the chance to dig in to the archaeology, which gives more of a voice to the voiceless, but we don't really get to know about individuals unless they already have a voice.
What Femina does, though, is correct the historical record in relation to the influence of those women. Although they have had voices heard and researched, they have been sidelined to allow for the power-plays of men to take centre stage. This is what Femina corrects. This is a narrative interwoven with what we know. It doesn't act as a complete rewriting of history, but it does challenge existing social and political power structures in relation to the experience of women in the Middle Ages.
Something else Femina does is bring the Middle Ages into the twenty-first century. The final chapter in particular corrects narratives that have been allowed to settle into historical debate unchallenged for far too long. Two examples help to challenge the white cis male power structures. The ideas of transsexuality and race are placed in a wider context. What is clear is that these are not issues that began in the twentieth century. Of particular importance right now is the issue of gender identity. Medieval people had their ideas, and we should not impose modern ideas on, for instance, the fourteenth century, but in the case of a non-cis individual arrested for prostitution with a man, challenges are made to the way we think of gender identity and the way medieval people thought of it. Although physically a man, the person involved was acting as a woman. Prostitution was something only a woman could do, according to medieval sensibilities, but sodomy was a thing only a man could engage in. It was a challenge to established ideas and we should not kid ourselves that the trans debate (such as it is; for me, just accept people without being a prat is a fair way forward) is anything truly new. This is history as current affairs, and it provides a thought-provoking counter to much contemporary debate.
We also see a black woman of African origin, dying in London during the height of the Black Death. The Empire Windrush was never the first example of people of colour coming into Britain, despite what certain narratives would have us believe. Miranda Kaufman's Black Tudors was an excellent counterweight to conventional (and incorrect) narratives, but Femina plays its part in widening the historical debate still further. London, recent research has shown, would have been just as diverse in the 1340s as it is today.
Whether Femina quite manages its ambitious aims is open to some debate. But debate is what it wants you to do. It wants you to question your vision of the past. It will challenge you. It accepts its biases (one for the year 7s there) and makes its case strongly. Whether you've heard of Janina Ramirez or not - and if you haven't, I pity you for missing out on one of the most enthusiastic medievalists out there - this is a book well worthy of your time.
