Lesbianism was discussed in medieval Arabic writings as far back as the 9th century. One text even tells the tale of the so-called first lesbian couple and how their love was so great that it transcended death itself.
medieval women
Empress Matilda, Lady of the English
In 1141, Matilda, daughter of Henry I, sat down to a victory banquet in Westminster, certain of her imminent coronation as Queen Matilda of England. Yet it was a coronation that would never come to pass - so how was England's potential first queen regnant foiled?
Women of the Black Country
The stories of nine Black Country Women, specially researched for Black Country Day 2023.
Pirates: Jeanne de Clisson
In 1330, Jeanne de Belleville married her third husband, wealthy Breton nobleman Olivier de Clisson IV, becoming Jeanne de Clisson. The couple individually had extensive properties and the combination of their assets and wealth turned them into something of a power couple, though it would take some years (and Olivier’s death) before that power truly revealed itself.
Pirates: Six Biographies
Six short biographies of ruthless female pirates across history.
Women in STEM: Trota of Salerno
In New York, there stands a statue of J. Marion Sims, a man known as the ‘father of gynaecology’. Asks historian Monica H. Green — ‘why the field of women’s medicine has a father but no mother’. Well, perhaps there was one - enter Trota of Salerno.
Warriors: Black Agnes Randolph
‘From the record of Scottish heroes, none can presume to erase her.' These were the words used by novelist and poet Sir Walter Scott about Black Agnes Randolph, a Scottish heroine in the fight against the English.
Warriors: Nusaybah bint Ka’ab
The birth of Islam allowed women to have independent identities and for a woman’s successes or failures to rest entirely on her. This is no better demonstrated than in the case of Nusaybah bint Ka’ab, Islam’s first woman warrior.
Women in Mythology: The Morrígan
Sometimes a triple goddess, sometimes an individual entity, the Morrígan is a feared figure from Irish mythology. As a goddess of war, her stories are centred around the battlefield, an unusual place for a woman in Celtic myth.
Eleanor of Aquitaine – The Power Behind Medieval Europe
Arguably the most powerful woman in medieval Europe, Eleanor oversaw the rise and fall of kings, governing and leading in a way which was all but unheard of for a woman in her time.