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- [00:01]
Matt Lewis
Hello, I'm Matt Lewis.
- [00:03]
Dr. Eleanor Yonega
And I'm Dr. Eleanor Yonega and we're.
- [00:05]
Matt Lewis
Just popping up here to tell you some insider info.
- [00:08]
Dr. Eleanor Yonega
If you would like to listen to Gone Medieval ad free and get early access and bonus episodes, sign up to History Hit.
- [00:15]
Matt Lewis
With the History Hit subscription, you can also watch hundreds of hours of original.
- [00:20]
Dr. Eleanor Yonega
Documentaries such as my new series on everyone's favorite conquerors, the Normans, or my.
- [00:25]
Matt Lewis
Recent exploration of the castles that made Britain.
- [00:29]
Dr. Eleanor Yonega
There's a new release to enjoy every week.
- [00:32]
Matt Lewis
Sign up now by visiting historyhit.com subscribe or find the link in the Show Notes for this episode. Thanks for listening to Gone Medieval. You can get all History Hit podcasts ad free, early access and bonus episodes. Head over to History Hit or you can sign up on Apple Podcasts with just one click hey, I'm Ryan Reynolds.
- [01:07]
Dr. Eleanor Yonega
Recently I asked Mint Mobile's legal team if big wireless companies are allowed to raise prices due to inflation. They said yes. And then when I asked if raising prices technically violates those onerous two year contracts, they said, what the are you talking about, you insane Hollywood? So to recap, we're cutting the price of mint unlimited from $30 a month to to just $15 a month. Give it a try@mintmobile.com Switch $45 upfront payment equivalent to $15 per month New customers on first three month plan only Taxes and fees extra speeds lower above 40 gigabytes. Details ready to pop the question? The jewelers@bluenile.com have got sparkle down to a science with beautiful Lab grown diamonds worthy of your most brilliant moments. Their lab grown diamonds are independently graded and guaranteed identical to natural diamonds and they're ready to ship to your door. Go to bluenile.com and use promo code LISTEN to get $50 off your purchase of $500 or more. That's codelistenluenile.com for $50 off blue nile.com.
- [02:05]
Hedda Howes
Code LISTEN.
- [02:12]
Dr. Eleanor Yonega
Hello, I'm Dr. Eleanor Yanaga and welcome to Gone Medieval from History Hit, the podcast that delves into the greatest millennium in human history. We uncover the greatest mysteries, the gobsmacking details, and the latest groundbreaking research. From the Vikings to the Normans, from kings to Popes to the Crusades, we delve into the rebellions, plots and murders that tell us who we really were and how we got here. One of the reasons that myths about the medieval era can propagate is that it was so long ago that we lose a lot of sources when we think and talk about medieval women. Myths are maybe Even more prevalent because women were more likely to be illiterate or too busy working and being mothers to write. And even when men did write about them, it's usually as an afterthought. How are we supposed to know about medieval women's lives if we don't get to hear from or about them? Luckily for all of us, Hedda Howes has a new book out, Poet Mystic Widow the Extraordinary Lives of Medieval Women, which looks at the literary output of medieval women to help us tell about all of their complex and interesting lives. I'm so excited to have her here today to talk to us about how women traveled, worked, engaged in self branding and made friends, all while juggling with families and lives and social expectations. Sound familiar? I bet it does. And I am absolutely delighted to speak with Hedda today to highlight how complex these women were. Hedda, thank you so much for joining us on Con Medieval.
- [04:00]
Hedda Howes
Thank you so much for having me.
- [04:01]
Dr. Eleanor Yonega
I am absolutely delighted that you are here because I'm delighted that there is another book about medieval women out. Yes, fantastic. There simply cannot be enough. But also I was really excited because I like the way that in your book you've highlighted these four different women who are really disparate, which kind of highlights the various ways that one can be a woman in the Middle Ages. And I wondered if you could just introduce us to the ladies in question.
- [04:32]
Hedda Howes
I would love to introduce you to them. I feel like I've spent so much time with them in recent years. So, yeah, we have four women that the book focuses on, so it's called Poet, Mystic Widow Wife, although some of those do overlap. So we start off with the earliest woman, the poet is Marie de France. She is the person we know least about actually, and was probably the most challenging for this book. She wrote some incredible. She wrote fables, but I think most famously she wrote what we call lays, which are kind of short, almost like fairy tales or Arthurian legends. And what's interesting about them is they often tend to give a lot more attention than her male contemporaries to women's experience. So she writes this collection of books, one of which she dedicated to the king of her time. So she was aiming high in her readership and we know she must have done pretty well because she talks about getting a lot of envy from her colleagues and how difficult it can be when, you know, you're kind of trying to operate in quite a male dominated field. So she's the earliest woman we know. She's called Marie de France. So we know that she originally was From France, but we have a pretty good idea that she was in England for a good stretch of time as well. There's speculation that she might have been a noble woman. Seems very likely based on the level of her education and perhaps even that she became a nun. And if we look at her works, there does seem to be a bit of a narrative where she gets more and more interested in religious material. But again, we do not know. We know her name is Marie, we know she was from France, we know she wrote, and that is about all we know. The second woman, the mid Julian of Norwich, is probably becoming one of my favorites actually. She's sort of one of the quieter ones, but she wrote an incredibly beautiful and still very popular account of visions that she had from God. So she was very, very sick and she had these wonderful visions where God told her all kinds of important things. And she then decided to become what we call an anchoress, which meant that she enclosed herself away. She was to all intents and purposes, dead to the world. She was enclosed in a cell which she wouldn't come out of until she passed away. She dedicated herself to God and in that time she kind of worked on this account of her visions which we have now and which is still read by lots of people today. The widow Christine de Pizan, possibly the most famous name I think, of the four women, although she's also a poet, as arguably as Julian. She wrote an astonishing amount of works. I mean, she really was pretty much the first medieval woman in Europe to make a living, a profession out of writing. When her husband died, she was from a very well to do family. Her family was well known at court. When her husband passed away, she found herself in difficulty financially. I mean, she wasn't on the breadline mind, but she wanted to keep up what she was doing for her family. So she decided to, rather than remarry, she decided to write. And she started off writing love poetry, but increasingly kind of moved into more, I guess we'd say male dominatorinas, like political writing and commentary, historical writing. And then we have Margaery, who I like to think of as the Marmite of medieval women.
- [07:36]
Dr. Eleanor Yonega
That is so true. That is so true.
- [07:39]
Hedda Howes
I mean, I personally adore Marjorie. She is a woman who was a wife and a mother. We know she had at least 14 pregnancies, well, births. She might have had multiple more pregnancies that we don't know about. She was married, she was sort of living a fairly normal life. She was relatively well to do. She wasn't a noble woman. But she had a bit of money. Her dad was an mp. And then she, after the birth of her first child, had a bout of something that sounds to us like madness. It might have been potentially postnatal depression or psychosis even. She saw demons. She did self harm. She was having a terrible time. And this concluded with a vision from God which marked the beginning of her sort of mystical career, because Marjorie Kemp is the wife, or the no good wife as I call her in my book, but she's also a mystic. She also had visions. So she dedicated her life to God. But what she refused to do is enter a nunnery or an anchor hold. So Julian of Norwich has sort of enclosed herself away. Margaery is doing all the things she wants to do, very out in the open. She's traveling the world without her husband. She's negotiating a vow of chastity with her husband. She's talking about God wherever she goes. So she got herself in a bit of trouble. And as we probably will talk about more, some readers love her. Some readers find her incredibly irritating. And people that she encounters in her book, because she wrote what we tend to think of now as one of the sort of first autobiography by a woman in English, she encounters a lot of women. A lot of people have found her quite irritating in her own time as well.
- [09:09]
Dr. Eleanor Yonega
Yeah, I gotta say. Okay, so let me preface this by saying this is not to say that she isn't important. She's incredibly important. She tells us a lot about what it's like to be a woman. And I find her so bloody irritating. Like I just. Okay, rich girl. Like, yeah, you're the first one who ever had of it.
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Hedda Howes
Mm.
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Dr. Eleanor Yonega
And like, also, like, being personally irritating as a way to become a saint is a funny gambit, let's just say.
- [09:36]
Hedda Howes
Yeah, it's a strange way to do it, isn't it? It's like having that person at the party who keeps telling you off everything you're talking about or for having too much fun. And you're just like, I'm just trying to have a good time. Leave me alone. I don't need to be rebuked right this second.
- [09:48]
Dr. Eleanor Yonega
But what I really love about all of the women that you've chosen as well in the first place. I was so excited to see Julian of Norwich there because she's a personal fave of mine. But as you've already mentioned, they all make different pairs, which I think is really interesting. I mean, some of them, there's more overlap than that, but there's always kind of A Venn diagram going on in terms of what these women's decisions are. So you've got, you know, I would say that both Marjorie and Julian, you know, they have these visionary moments. Both Marie and Christine are writing these really wonderful pieces of literature. They all kind of match up in various ways, have varying experiences of marriage that we can find or, you know, religious interests. So I really love how, even though they're quite different women, it does show us that there are these kind of through narratives that we can find from women.
- [10:40]
Hedda Howes
Yeah, I'm really glad you said that, because they are very different. I mean, the organizing principle, ultimately, which I should have probably mentioned when I was introducing them, the kind of idea that I had for the book was that they all write. So it's, you know, rarer than we would like to find texts written by women in Middle Ages. Although, of course, there are many. There's not as many by women as there are by men. And I wanted to pick writers for two reasons. Partly because my background is in literature, and secondly because then I thought I could give more space to their actual words. You know, I mean, I have a lot to say as well, obviously, but I was trying to give a platform to the things that they were saying. So they all write. I mean, that is one thing they all have in common. But as you say, there's other moments of overlap that I found exciting when I was writing the book. Some of them I was sort of aware of, and then others I was like, oh, actually, yeah, these two experiences are kind of similar. And, you know, although they all have a degree of privilege in the sense that you couldn't write anything in the Middle Ages unless you had a bit of material backing, let's say.
- [11:47]
Dr. Eleanor Yonega
Oh, absolutely. Yep.
- [11:48]
Hedda Howes
There's different levels to that. So Christine de Pizan is a much more wealthy woman than, say, Marjorie Kemp, for example. So they all. I think, yeah, I guess it's important for me to say that they're all operating from a position of privilege, but that differs depending on the individual as well.
- [12:03]
Dr. Eleanor Yonega
So you start your book out, I think, very cleverly, with a chapter which you've called Knocked up, which I love. But it's about, you know, the. One of the major expectations of women in the Middle Ages, I would argue, and have argued, you know, is this idea that you are going to be a mother. You know, the primary thing that one expects from medieval women is that they will get married and they will have children, you know, and this reproductive capacity is often considered to be the only thing about women but what I like about your book is you've been able to highlight how whilst you know, that is a problematic at the best way to think about women, it's still a really important experience for a lot of women as well.
- [12:45]
Hedda Howes
Yeah. And sort of personally speaking, I discovered whilst I was writing this chapter that I was pregnant. That gave me a whole different perspective.
- [12:54]
Dr. Eleanor Yonega
I bet it was.
- [12:55]
Hedda Howes
You know, it was a funny, serendipitous thing that I discovered that in the middle, I actually had to park that chapter for a little bit and come back to it because some of the actual burst off I was not ready to deal with. But, yes, I mean, I think it's that thing about kind of timeline in history. When we first were sort of thinking and writing about women in the Middle Ages, it was really important to really emphasize the issues with women and the choices they made and how awful it is that women were expected at this time to just have children and how difficult it was for people who couldn't, but also who didn't want to. But then there is, of course, as you say, a flip side to that, and I'm hoping. I'm hoping, like you said, there's much. There are many more books written about medieval women now than there were priorities. And we can kind of do a slightly more nuanced vision now. There are lots of women who are really pleased to be parents or really devastated to have lost children as well. I think another thing we assume is that because women were having lots of children, there was no contraception. If a child was lost, it wasn't a big deal. But we see from sort of piecing together the evidence that that wasn't the case at all. You know, it was still a significant thing to not be able to have a child or to lose a child. So hopefully I've tried to give a balanced view. But the thing that struck me about writing that chapter is how there are still, you know, so many men that have opinions on breastfeeding or what kind of birth you should have or how to be a good mother. You know, in that sense, maybe less has changed than we'd like to.
- [14:21]
Dr. Eleanor Yonega
I think that it's a really important thing to talk about because I think that there are sort of two things that go on in a modern perspective when we think about medieval births. You hit the nail on the head here. I run into a lot of lay people who believe this thing, that medieval people just didn't care about their children, which is wild to me, but it's a really pervasive myth. So I'm super glad that you addressed that. But also, I think it is really important to talk about how difficult, you know, the process of having children is and was. There's still kind of a conspiracy of silence about the way that we talk about labor. And I think that kind of talking about historical women's experiences with it is really important. Talking about Marjorie Kemp's problems with, you know, what she sees as a form of madness, you know, not her term, not ours, you know, after giving birth, is important to see that here are these historical antecedents to things that we're still dealing with.
- [15:15]
Hedda Howes
Yeah, absolutely. And that account of hers that sort of is one of the first things we get in her book of childbirth is one of the earliest accounts we get from a woman of what childbirth might be like and the sort of horrors of her experience. It's really harrowing to read. And like you say, it's her term. She says she feels like she was going out of her mind. Now, whether she was or not, that was what it felt like to her. Although even then there's still so much more emphasis, I think, placed in her account on what happened afterwards than the birth itself. And it is something that, you know, like you say, there's still a taboo around it today that people don't necessarily talk that openly about their experience. And there are so many frustrating sort of omissions or religions. So you're like, but what was it actually like in the room? You know, you get so much about the lead up, you know, what the confinement was like, and then what happens afterwards. But, yeah, it's interesting that we're so often so reluctant to talk about it or maybe people are reluctant to hear about it and that has dictated it. And of course, in the Middle Ages, it was such a woman centric activity anyway. Men weren't allowed in the room and, you know, probably had no real interest in being, at least not in any accounts I've read about. Whereas, of course, now you would expect maybe to have, you know, a male birth partner there, if you've got one. To want to be involved in that way is a change. But, yeah, I still think, you know, one thing I've tried to do in the book is reflect on those moments where actually the thinking is more similar than we might imagine. I think it's so easy to think, oh, everything in the Middle Ages was awful and backward and blah, blah, blah, so bored of hearing it. And actually, we're not always. It's not a straight, linear narrative. We're not always as enlightened as we like to think we might be. And sometimes the medieval people can surprise us in return.
- [17:10]
Matt Lewis
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- [18:36]
Dr. Eleanor Yonega
I'll have to keep my voice down because right now I'm between the actual bedsheets of some of history's most famous figures. Want to know more about what Hitler might have been like in the sack? Or Julius Caesar? Or our very own Billy Shakespeare? You wouldn't believe the details I'm able to uncover here on Betwixt the Sheets, a podcast by History hit because sexuality explored through a historical lens can reveal a surprising amount about the human experience, warts and all, if you'll excuse the pun. And we don't just stop at sex. Expect outrageous scandals throughout the centuries as well as probing into everyday issues. The nitty gritty of human life that really connects us to all people throughout history. Join me, Kate Lister, every Tuesday and Friday on Betwixt the Sheets to find out more. Listen wherever you get your podcasts Right, time to slide out of here and avoid the bedpan. When you use SAP Concur solutions to automate your business finances, you'll be ready for anything. Except the new office dog running off with your lunch. With SAP Concur, you can be ready for almost anything. Take control of your business finances today@concur.com hey, I'm Ryan Reynolds. Recently, I asked Mint Mobile's legal team if big wireless companies are allowed to raise prices due to inflation. They said yes. And then when I asked if raising prices technically violates those onerous two year contracts they said, what the are you talking about, you insane Hollywood So to recap, we're cutting the price of mint unlimited from $30 a month to just $15 a month. Give it a try@mintmobile.com Switch $45 upfront payment equivalent to $15 per month New customers on first 3 month plan only Taxes and fees Extra speeds lower above 40 gigabytes Details I want to skip forward to my very favorite chapter, which is what I keep banging on to all my friends about when I tell them about your book. I love your chapter on wanderlust and travel because, oh, I'm glad I'm obsessed with medieval travel like all medieval historians are, I think. But I think it's so important because again, there's this pervasive myth that nobody traveled in the Middle Ages, that you were just born into a tiny village and you never went anywhere and no one did anything. And medieval people travel all the time. But then, even then, when we acknowledge that, we miss out on all the women who are traveling. And it's because, as you highlight very well, there are more difficulties to women traveling and certainly on their own, but that doesn't mean they didn't do it. So I was just so, so delighted by this chapter.
- [21:27]
Hedda Howes
I think it was one of the more fun chapters to write and I will say as well, one of the ones where I learned the most. You know, obviously, as you know, I do tons of research for everything and I think this was I knew a lot about Marjorie Kemp and traveling, but I learned a lot in the process of researching that I hadn't previously been aware of. It's so funny because it's normally men writing about the travel, and when they do write about women, it often tends to be because they're either these paragons of virtue or they're really annoying. But sometimes you just get these little mentions that are almost like a size and you're like, oh, there were tons of women there. Like, you're not necessarily talking about it that much. And that could be for all kinds of different reasons. But yes, they were very present. Or, you know, you find their presence in sort of almost music out when there's been accidents at shrines or stampedes or things because people are so excited and some women have been injured. You're like, oh no, they absolutely were there. It's just they're not necessarily the ones doing the writing about it. And then the men might not be so interested in talking about them being there unless they happen to have attracted A ton of attention in either a very positive or a very negative way.
- [22:31]
Dr. Eleanor Yonega
Yeah. I mean, what I always say about this is when we see documents like this, it's almost as though women aren't quite people. They're features.
- [22:38]
Hedda Howes
I love the way you've put that. Yes, completely agree.
- [22:40]
Dr. Eleanor Yonega
They're just kind of in the background and you're like, oh, I don't know. And then there are a bunch of women here and you're like, wait, what can I hear about them? No, like, okay, great.
- [22:48]
Hedda Howes
It's so frustrating when you're like, just tell me a bit more.
- [22:51]
Dr. Eleanor Yonega
And they're like, absolutely not. You know, and obviously then I ignored them. Duh. And I'm like, cool, thanks. Thank you for that. But I also, like. One of the things that this allows us to do is kind of have a slight imaginary space here because, you know, what we know about travel or what we know about pilgrimage. If I think about, for example, late medieval lowlands pilgrim badges of, you know, penises or vulvas wearing crowns and all this stuff, there's also, we think, a bit of a space there where, you know, we see a lot of religious travel in particular, but it's also kind of like a way, hey, hey, girls on tour kind of situation as well, which I really love. And we have to kind of guess because of the spaces there. But we do know that it's also quite fun. It seems to be traveling.
- [23:37]
Hedda Howes
Yeah. And if it wasn't fun, then the more serious people would be telling them not to do it. You know, you read stories of be warned in conduct books that your wife doesn't try to engineer a pilgrimage so she can get away with doing the things she wouldn't normally be able to do. And, you know, Christine de Pizan's pretty down on women traveling, which is interesting because she didn't travel as much as you'd expect herself. She seemed to be pretty comfortable once she'd moved from Italy to France, staying where she was and sort of batted away invitations to travel more. But, yeah, you know, she's like, oh, women should really stay at home. And it's like, yeah, because they're having a great time. You should try it, Christine. You should go on pilgrimage and have fun.
- [24:12]
Dr. Eleanor Yonega
Yeah. I mean, and absolutely, like, you know, we see Margaery sort of doing the same thing where she's like, oh. And then everyone else was having fun on pilgrimage, but not me, because I'm very holy. And you're like, okay, all right. Like, that's one thing to brag about. I Guess. Right. But I just find it so funny how, again, when we have these common misconceptions about the medieval period and, oh, it's incredibly religious, so that means everyone's kind of dour. And it's like, no, people are people. They will just ignore religious things if they feel like it.
- [24:42]
Hedda Howes
Yeah. And this belief that I always think to my students and what surprises them the most. And two things. Firstly, that they had a sense of humor. This seems wild to a lot of people that are new to medieval history or literature. And it's like, of course. Because they were people just like us, and we have a sense of humor, so why wouldn't they, if we're scribbling? You know, if boys today are scribbling penises on the walls of toilet cubicles, why wouldn't they be doing it with pilgrim badges or whatever? And I guess it's kind of related in a way that they wouldn't be humorous about sex. That, you know, of course they were having sex, but they would never joke about it or do it too often. And it's like, no, no. They actually had religious talismans that you could get as merchandise with Jenna Taylor on, like, that's how funny. Oh, you know, the penis tree. The famous penis tree, which I did manage to just about work into my book, which is a sort of illustration in the side of Roman de la Rose, which is a very serious poem that has got penises instead of branches and a nun collecting them. I mean, they had a very childish and fun sense of humor, a lot of these people.
- [25:41]
Dr. Eleanor Yonega
So, yeah, absolutely. I love how, you know, they're just like me. For real.
- [25:46]
Hedda Howes
Exactly.
- [25:46]
Dr. Eleanor Yonega
And I think that's great. But. Okay. Another of your chapters that I really loved is your chapter on hustling, because so in the first place, I would argue that all four of your subjects, here, they are on their grind. They're out here hustling. They're making their names in various ways. And I think it's so important not just to highlight all the work that women do in the Middle Ages, but also that they're super aware of what the social expectations for women are and are able to gamify them. You know, I think you've made a really compelling argument in here that Christine de Paizon is one of the first people who's ever really understood branding as a huge exercise. And, you know, Marie de France, she's at court. She's hustling. She's out here playing like she's up against these other men in order for Julian of Norwich, to make a name for herself, you know, as an anchorist. What oftentimes gets you allowed to be walled into a cell, you know, like you want to be, is the fact that everyone understands your name. And Marjorie Kemp is making an attempt to get her name out there, which fails spectacular until the 20th century. But hey ho, poor Marjorie, she tries.
- [26:55]
Hedda Howes
So hard and no one remembers her for ages. But yes, I mean, and I think you raise a really important point there, which is the navigation of a system can be as important as a dismantlement of a system. And I think when you're working with medieval women in particular, the society they're living in is so enmeshed in patriarchal structure, it's incredibly difficult to just try and smash that down. But what all these women do in really interesting ways is navigate within it and find a way to achieve within it and to make a name for themselves, like you say, and whether it's earning money or making a name or kind of gaining validation in some sense, which they all, in different ways, I think, suggest they would like. You know, even Julian of Norwich, she's not interested in people necessarily remembering her name or fame in any sense, like some of the others might want, like Marie de France or Christine de Pizan. But she's really interested in people reading her because she wants to share this message that she's been given and she feels like it's her vocation, her mission to do that. And in order to do that, she needs to have respect, authority. I mean, the fact that Marjorie Kemp went to visit her to say, do you think I'm legit? Shows that Julian had, you know, a sense of real social capital and religious capital. So, yeah, I think they all are very savvy in working within the systems that they're in to push back in a way. And I think, you know, when we talk, you know, feminism didn't exist as a term then, it would be far too much to expect the things of them that we would expect of women or hope for women today. But I think within the parameters they're working within, they achieve extraordinary things.
- [28:37]
Dr. Eleanor Yonega
Oh, absolutely. And I mean, fundamentally, we are still talking about them hundreds of years later. And, you know, I think in particular, Christine de Pazon, because she's so great at marketing herself, you know, she, as you quite rightly point out, oversees the manufacturer of her own manuscripts, makes sure that they're up to her standards, she understands what all the illustrations are that are happening in these things. She's overseeing a workshop and as a result, I use Christine de Paizon's images so much. She is just such an incredible boon to medievalists, because when we need, you know, if you need a picture of a medieval woman, it's like, oh, there's Christine. Yeah, great, thanks. Thanks, honey. You know, like she was able to market herself to a point that 800 years later, it's like, oh, well, thank God, you know, there's something from Christine.
- [29:23]
Hedda Howes
Yeah. And the fact that we recognize her is massive. And, you know, I think, you know, if you know a bit about medieval kind of manuscripts and authors, I mean, for the majority of the time, people weren't putting their name to things that they wrote to start with, let alone an image. And she is making sure that in different versions of her manuscripts, a very recognizable image of herself, usually in blue, usually with the hair that she has. I mean, there's, you know, just Google her quickly if you're listening, and you'll find all the beautiful images very fast, that you can instantly recognize her. I mean, that's really significant that she realized that might be an important thing to do. And it obviously worked because, I mean, you know, it's not every day that a woman at her time got asked to write a biography of a king or was kind of presenting manuscripts to the queen. And yes, she had the networking down, she had the sort of nepotism down in the sense that her family was well known, but there were lots of other women like that who didn't create such a huge marketing machine for themselves.
- [30:20]
Dr. Eleanor Yonega
Oh, absolutely. And, you know, obviously, probably the fact that she is of the nobility allowed her to understand how to market herself to the nobility. But also, as you get to in the book, most women, if their incredibly wealthy and well connected husband dies, which Christine's did, it's just sort of like, oops, well, you can remarry or not. And she doesn't. She's got the imagination to say no. I think that I've got this other way of coming at things.
- [30:49]
Hedda Howes
Yeah. And I think it also, and this is something that I sort of felt a lot of people would be able to relate to through her writing. And she processes a lot of her grief through the writing. So not only is she making money for herself and, you know, making sure her family's provided for, there's sort of a number of poems where she is always talking about her husband and how much she misses him and how much loss she feels. And in loads of her autobiographical and semi autobiographical work, she comes back to that theme. And I think it must have Helped her to write about that. You know, even now, in sort of therapy, people say, oh, write down what you're feeling. She talks about being very much in love with her husband. She clearly felt the loss. And the writing helps her to sort of move through that in a really human way that I think just reaches across time. I found that really moving when I was doing that bit of the book, actually, to be like, yeah, it doesn't really matter when you're living, if you're feeling something really significant. Writing, literature, reading, creating is something that can really help. So she's, on the one hand, this really fascinating, ordinary human person, but on the other hand, just so unbelievably savvy and prolific. I mean, it took me ages to write this book. She was writing all the time.
- [32:02]
Dr. Eleanor Yonega
I don't even understand how anyone has the energy, let alone the ideas, to do what she did. I don't know. I think about doing it all with a quill. No, thank you. Just seems awful. It seems awful. Another one of the chapters that I thought was really important is your chapter on Making friends that discusses the relationships of women. Because if we don't get to hear from women in the Middle Ages very often, which we certainly don't, one of the last things we get to hear about is when women are chatting to other women. Right. Because we're often relying on some man mentioning that he saw a woman. Right. You're saying there's a group of women on pilgrimage. What are they saying to each other? Like, who are their friends? And being able to hone in on women's relationships is such an interesting and fruitful line of inquiry, and it tells us so much about what half of society was doing.
- [32:52]
Hedda Howes
Yeah. And what half of society was worried the other half was dying. Because, as you say, like, I think I loved writing the making friends chapter. But, you know, I think in terms of imaginative space, like you mentioned with Wanderlust, there was a lot of imaginative space to do there as well, because the accounts that we have often are not recording female friendship like we know it existed. We have tons of really tantalizing glimpses of it, but we never quite get to the accounts we want. I mean, Marjorie talks quite a lot about failed friendship quite openly. I think she is someone. She's that friend who has just massively overestimated what your relationship is like. You're like, oh, this is someone I kind of know from work. And they're like, come to all of my birthday parties forever, and let's hang out on every weekend, and it's just like a horrible mismatch of expectation. There is a lot of gaps to fill. But when we do find those moments, they tell us so much. When we find men panicking about what those moments might entail, it also tells us so much. This sort of just. I mean, I can't think of any word other than sort of fear of anxiety of what on earth are these women doing and talking about when they get together? And we shouldn't really let them, because what if they're just sort of badmouthing us and saying terrible things about making fun of us, you know, and this sort of fear of women working together. And that's so telling, because if in any society we are uncomfortable with certain groups being together too often, it suggests that we are, in a very essential sense, trying to repress that Crick pride. So if you want any kind of firmer proof that there was some real challenges for women in the Middle Ages, reflect on the fact that men were really worried about them having a chat over a glass of wine.
- [34:33]
Dr. Eleanor Yonega
Oh, completely. I mean, we have so much literature on this as well, right. From negative sources. So there's a really famous account of laundry houses where because women would get together to do laundry, because it's an incredibly involved process in the Middle Ages to do your whites, you know, so all of the women of the village will generally get together and do it together to lighten the load. And men are terrified of this. They apparently refer to the wash house as the woman's court. They say, oh, well, they're just in there and they're going through everything and now everybody knows everything about everything. It's like, well, don't be a jerk. And then the women aren't going to talk about you. Or even within that, too. I also find it incredibly funny how worried they are because you got to alewives stories in this as well.
- [35:13]
Hedda Howes
And. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [35:15]
Dr. Eleanor Yonega
And they're like, oh, yeah. Well, you know how the alewives get together. And our friend and colleague, Carissa Harris, she has this great quote where there's an alewife story and they are sitting there spinning and one of them holds up a pintle that you use for spinning and says, here is a pintle of far length, and the pintle is slang for penis. And they're like, well, you know how women are. They're just sitting around talking about our penises. And it's like, bro. Like, that is absolutely not what's going on. But they cannot even imagine a world in which women might have something to talk about other than men's junk. And I think that's so important and.
- [35:48]
Hedda Howes
I think so surprising to lots of readers. I mean, these ale house poems that you're referring to, of which Carissa is queen of. I mean, she is the absolute expert. You know, they are super explicit, right? They, you know, written by men usually, we think, although often very anonymous, but in terms of the tone, we often assume. Interviewed by men. And yeah, the topics of conversation is just like, it's just sex. Men's Venusalia making. Saying they're not good enough in bed, making fun of whether they're big enough or not. I mean, they're just so. First of all, I'm sure women were talking about many other things. Guys, come on. But also, I do think it is surprising how explicit they are. You know, this kind of correction to this idea that everyone in medieval Europe was super prudish because they were all very Christian. I mean, clearly not. I'm sure some of these poems would make my students blush when we look at them. And it always is. You know, wine is usually involved and sort of some sort of private space is usually involved. And it's a man eavesdropping and sort of discovering, oh, God, they're saying terrible things about me. Whereas actually, I'm sure they were just talking about lots of other things. I find that genre of literature particularly fascinating and just really funny.
- [37:08]
Matt Lewis
Thanks for listening to Gone Medieval. You can get all history hit podcasts ad free, early access and bonus episodes. Head over to historyhit.com subscribe or you can sign up on Apple Podcasts with just one click.
- [37:25]
Dr. Eleanor Yonega
Deep in the ocean, an orca pod is on the hunt. But these aren't your average Orcas. These guys are organized marketing team. Did you get those social media posts scheduled for the seal migration? Aye aye, captain.
- [37:39]
Matt Lewis
We even have an automated notification for all pod managers when they go live.
- [37:43]
Dr. Eleanor Yonega
They use Monday.com to keep their teamwork sharp, their communication clear, and their goals in sight. Monday.com or whatever you run, even orcas go to Monday.com to dive deeper. Well, your book ends with a chapter on death. You know, not. Not to bring the mood down, but I think that you've also done a great job here of treating the way that even everyone's spectacular career comes to an end. We're all gonna hit this particular point, and there is a definitive experience for women in the Middle Ages around that.
- [38:27]
Hedda Howes
Yes, you make such a good point. Because I think, first of all, the idea of women having like, what we would call a career is unusual. They were working all the time. And I try and make that point in the book, that it's not just like, you know, we tend to think women didn't work. They often were helping out in tons of different ways with lots of different sort of apprenticeships, jobs, things like that, you know, chipping in with the family trade and all that sort of thing. But for, I think, you know, someone like Christine de Pizan in particular, who made such a career out of writing, I do wonder what it must have felt like when she stopped. And then if we think about Marjorie Kemp as a sort of vocational mystic or kind of career saint trying desperately to get, you know, she never says that herself, I should be clear, but now it feels like she's trying to get her way into sainthood. There's such a sense when she talks about the end in terms of heaven, of what she hopes to find there, and it's really poignant. She wants to find belonging, fellowship, I think, status as well. For sure. She's up there with all the saints and, you know, all the sort of host of biblical figures, and she can count herself amongst that number. And we don't know the ins and outs of how any of these women died, but I think their writing tells us enough that we can piece a bit together what they might have felt like about death. So that's what I tried to do in that chapter, is to reflect on how they might have wanted their death to be. Because people in the Middle Ages thought a lot about having what they would have called a good death, making sure that their consciences were clean and that they had had a good life and that they were prepared for the next life, which would have been for most people at the time. And many of you were at the Christian afterlife and sort of getting to that point, Christine de Pizan talks about heaven and one of her poems. And heaven is really intellectual and there's space for her to be a scholar. And that seems absolutely as it should be, based on what I've read of her work. You know, Margaery sees fellowship. I think Julian is just such an accessible writer. She just so badly wants for everyone to feel like they have hope and comfort and reassurance. So her kind of imagining of the afterlife feels tinged with those kinds of feelings. So I think all of them, you know, Marie, we have to do a little bit, like, with everything with Marie, you have to kind of do a little bit more imaginative leaping than with the other ones. But, you know, she talks loads about purgatory and what that might be like and sort of the proper things that a soul needs to do in order to get to heaven. So, yeah, I think there's a lot that we can glean from how they felt about their lives, but also their deaths. And hopefully there's kind of an uplifting end to the chapter in that sense, because it was quite a. It was gloomy one to write that one, I must say.
- [41:10]
Dr. Eleanor Yonega
Well, I mean, I think, though, that it is such an important thing to talk about, you know, much in the way that we don't talk about. About things like childbirth or the awful grief that medieval mothers went through when their children died. You know, we don't. We don't talk about death because we're uncomfortable with it. And so just bringing in these subjects that really are what makes a life really. You know, it's not just the high highs, it's the lows that tell us about how a society is functioning. And you've done that really well here, I think.
- [41:41]
Hedda Howes
Thank you.
- [41:42]
Dr. Eleanor Yonega
Yeah.
- [41:42]
Hedda Howes
Like you're saying, it was always this sort of natural end point in a way, but it's also, I think, cheering to see how hopeful of their writing is when they must have been seeing death so constantly. I mean, there's been lots of speculation on Juliet of Norwich in particular. She was living in an incredibly plague ridden town. Did she lose members of her family? Possibly, Probably. Almost certainly. You know, some people suggested she might have had a family of her own, a husband and children that she lost to the plague. We don't know. But she certainly will have seen a lot of death around her. The plague was hideous and just very visibly hideous, but also just, you know, it's a time when there wasn't as much medical treatment around as there was and it was a higher mortality rate for women having children and infant mortality was higher. So death is something that they would have been more visibly acquainted with. And I've wondered a lot myself recently if that's why the writing is a little bit more hopeful, because it's not alien and frightening and new and it's not this thing they've shoved away in a corner never to think about, but they are actively thinking about it, reflecting on it, seeing it, and that maybe allows them to take some of the fear out of it.
- [42:49]
Dr. Eleanor Yonega
Oh, I think, you know, you're bang on here. It's easier perhaps to meditate on whether or not all shall be well if you are grappling with the big questions, which certainly these women all did.
- [43:01]
Hedda Howes
Yeah, yeah. And, you know, I think that lovely phrase, all shall be well, friend Julian which still is so popular today. I got it. My granny got me that on a bracelet when I was graduating from university. I've still got it. It still speaks to so many people. Because this is ultimately. And again, you know, what I wanted to try and think about the most in the book is yes, these women were living hundreds and hundreds of years ago and yes, their lives looked very different to ours and society looked very different, challenges were different. But ultimately these kind of through lines of what will happen when I die? Should I have a family? Should I try and have a career? Can I have both? How will people react if I try and have it all is really similar to the kinds of things I think women are facing today. You know, I've just gone back to work after maternity leave. I'm sort of trying to grapple between wanting to be with my daughter all the time, but also wanting to be back at work and like, do creative things and able to get a coffee on my own. I mean, you know, I'm wanting to kind of try and balance all of this and then, you know, have a relationship, even though we're now parents, as it's all these things that I'm like, oh, you were also in a different context, in a different world, having all these very resonant thoughts. So it brings them a lot closer, these women, than we often tend to think they are.
- [44:15]
Dr. Eleanor Yonega
Well, I absolutely agree that it does and I want to thank you one more time for writing what I think is just a really wonderful book. And thank you so much for coming to talk to us about it.
- [44:24]
Hedda Howes
Oh no, it's been an absolute honor and delight to talk to you. Thank you so much. Big fan of the podcast, so very pleased to be on it.
- [44:32]
Dr. Eleanor Yonega
Thanks to Hedda for gossiping about dead women with me and thanks to you for listening to Gone Medieval from history hit. Remember, you can enjoy unlimited access to award winning original TV documentaries, including my show Working More Than nine to five the Working Lives of Medieval Women, as well as ad free podcasts by signing up@historyhit.com subscription as a special gift, we're offering 50% off your first three months when you use the code Medieval and do follow Gone Medieval on Spotify where you can leave comments and suggestions or, you know, wherever you get your podcasts. Matt Lewis will retake the Gone Medieval throne on Friday and I will forcefully take it back again on Tuesday. There's never a dull moment here on Gone Medieval. Until next time. You've been waiting all year and the moment is finally here. Bowen Branch is the betting brand for better sleep and their best sale of the year is happening now. Right now you can get 25% off the organic cotton sheets loved by millions of sleepers. They feel breathable, luxuriously soft and get softer with every wash. Shop Bolin Branch's Cyber event with extended returns for the holiday season. Hurry to bolinbranch.com and use code buttery for 25% off everything. Limited time only exclusions apply.
- [46:06]
Hedda Howes
See site for details.
- [46:08]
Dr. Eleanor Yonega
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