The real women behind Europe's greatest legends

Summary

---

The Real Women Behind Europe's Greatest Legends

HistoryExtra Podcast | Host: Danny Bird | Guest: Dr. Yanina Ramirez
Release Date: February 25, 2026

Episode Overview

In this episode, host Danny Bird is joined by historian, art historian, and author Dr. Yanina Ramirez to discuss her new book, which explores how medieval and early modern European women like Joan of Arc, Isabella of Castile, and others were transformed—often posthumously—into potent national and political symbols. Ramirez unpacks how legend and myth have obscured the real lives of these women, the political motives behind their mythologization, and the complex interplay between gender, identity, and nation-building.

---

Main Themes & Purpose

• Historicizing Women’s Role in Nationhood: The episode examines how individual women became larger-than-life symbols used in the construction of national identity, often posthumously and sometimes contradictorily to their own experiences.
• Legend vs. Reality: Ramirez challenges the listener to look past popular legends and archetypes and rediscover the complex, authentic lives of women whose stories continue to shape politics and culture.
• Lessons for Today: The conversation explores how history is manipulated for contemporary agendas and what we might learn about identity, resilience, and critical thinking from the women of the past.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Personal Perspective in Historical Research

Timestamp: 02:03–05:26

• Ramirez reflects on her own identity—as a woman of Polish-Irish heritage, raised Catholic in the UK—and how it naturally informed her scholarly voice and interests.
• She describes the gradual realization that national and religious identities are not just research topics but part of her own lived experience—"those scaffolds of my own identity have really come into everything I’ve done." (Yanina Ramirez, 02:07)
• National identity and terminology (British Isles, Welsh, Irish, etc.) have always required careful consideration, especially as history is repurposed for nation-building.

2. Women as National Icons: Enduring Impact

Timestamp: 05:26–08:07

• Joan of Arc: Ramirez discusses how Joan remains central to French political rhetoric, notably appropriated by far-right movements—“He then set up a further right version of it, which he named the party of Joan, the party of Joan of Arc, and made her the banner...” (Yanina Ramirez, 05:37)
• Isabella of Castile: Her legacy continues to affect Spanish regional dynamics and cultural tension—“And yet again we’ve got conflict in Catalonia, in the Basque region, in Scotland. These imposed identities will not always be simply accepted...” (Yanina Ramirez, 07:40)

3. The Paradox of Feminized Nations

Timestamp: 08:07–13:24

• National personifications (Britannia, Marianne, etc.) adorn institutions but exclude real women from power.
• Ramirez highlights the contradiction: “The nation is a woman, but women didn’t build nations... In almost every revolutionary moment... the women are almost entirely excluded from the creation of a national identity.” (Yanina Ramirez, 08:27)
• She reflects on progress and regression in women’s agency and the cyclical nature of gender roles in history: “We think we’re on a constant spiral of progress upwards, but what I’m seeing is that there are these sorts of waves... we move forward, we step backward, we slide way backwards.” (Yanina Ramirez, 12:12)

4. Why Some Women Become Heroines

Timestamp: 13:24–16:35

• Charisma, controversy, and the reductive power of storytelling help select which figures are remembered: “We are still in the thrall of the charismatic, the extreme, the outspoken, the difficult.” (Yanina Ramirez, 13:36)
• Iconography and simplicity foster endurance—e.g., Goya’s imagery of Agostina of Aragon: “That icon has been seared into people’s minds... the thing is, I could have written a thousand books looking at 1000 different historical figures.” (14:43)
• Ramirez urges readers to dig beneath the myth: “Let’s go beneath the story. Let’s be really forensic about who our historical figures are.” (15:41)

5. Objects, Art, and the Byzantium Chapter

Timestamp: 17:58–23:03

• The Greek War of Independence and the Byzantine world are often downplayed in “Western” narratives.
• Surviving artifacts—coined by female Emperors, bejeweled crosses—show that women were sometimes at the apex of power: “You find things like coins that have the two empresses, Zoe and Theodora... literally the top of the [world].” (Yanina Ramirez, 20:57)
• Ramirez stresses the importance of a global, less Eurocentric history and warns against Western exceptionalism.

6. Women of Faith: Catherine of Siena and Others

Timestamp: 23:03–28:05

• The allure and the dangers of self-mortification and extreme action as routes to religious/political prominence.
• Catherine of Siena—an “influencer” with a “vicious marketing team” (23:18)—used public penance to gain notoriety and effect political change.
• Discussion of how extreme acts and sainthood are tightly bound, often as the only available path to agency for medieval women.

7. The Political Use and Abuse of Historical Women

Timestamp: 28:05–31:05

• Propaganda’s modern manifestations: “It’s everywhere. It’s every day, it’s every moment. I mean, the frustration of the historian is we get often told to stay in our lane... How can I not?” (Yanina Ramirez, 28:20)
• The misappropriation of Templar and crusader imagery by modern far-right figures is cited as a stark example.
• Ramirez notes: “There’s never been a time where the good and the great haven't harnessed the past... None of us have the ability to see forwards... we’ll constantly go back and misuse that past...” (Yanina Ramirez, 29:24)

8. Resilience and Identity: Lessons for Today

Timestamp: 31:05–35:00

• Ramirez urges critical engagement with history as a tool for combating division, misinformation, and propaganda.
• “We need to be brave. We need to be clear minded. And I use the phrase sharpen our scholarly sword and sharpen our minds to prepare ourselves for what’s coming.” (Yanina Ramirez, 31:20)
• Emphasizes everyday agency, local history, and reconnecting physically with the landscape and each other as antidotes to the alienation of modern, digitized life.
• “The thing we can control... is we can connect with the people around us... We can help each other, we can live collaboratively... No, we’re humans and we’ve always lived alongside each other.” (Yanina Ramirez, 34:06)

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Joan of Arc’s Political Afterlife:
  “Even when he was kicked out of the National Front Party, he then set up a further right version... named the party of Joan of Arc, and made her the banner...” (Ramirez, 05:37)

• On Feminized Nations and Exclusion:
  “The nation is a woman, but women didn’t build nations. It is a fundamental injustice...” (Ramirez, 08:27)

• On Hero Construction:
  “People don’t wanna dig into all of the nitty gritty and the detail. They wanna know who their heroes are... an instantly reductive version of a hero.” (Ramirez, 14:13)

• On The Power of Objects from the Past:
  “When you see these accidental survivals... that are very, very clear indicators that women ruled the world... that chapter was really powerful for me.” (Ramirez, 21:32)

• On the Use and Abuse of the Past:
  “There’s never been a time where the good and the great haven’t harnessed the past... all anybody can ever do is look backwards.” (Ramirez, 29:24)

• On Lessons for Today:
  “We need to be brave. We need to be clear minded. And I use the phrase ‘sharpen our scholarly sword’ and sharpen our minds for what’s coming. Because... we are fighting against misinformation, we’re fighting against propaganda and control at the very highest, most manipulative levels.” (Ramirez, 31:20)

---

Timestamps for Important Segments

• Personal and National Identity in Scholarship – 02:03–05:26
• Icons as National Symbols (Joan of Arc & Isabella of Castile) – 05:26–08:07
• The Paradox of Nation as Woman – 08:07–13:24
• Why Some Women Endure as Legends – 13:24–16:35
• Art Objects, Greece, and Forgotten Heroines – 17:58–23:03
• Women of Faith & Power (Catherine of Siena, etc.) – 23:03–28:05
• Propaganda and Manipulation of History – 28:05–31:05
• Resilience, Reconnection, and Modern Lessons – 31:05–35:00

---

Conclusion

Dr. Yanina Ramirez’s insight-packed conversation with Danny Bird leaves listeners with a compelling call to interrogate the history behind national myths, remain vigilant against manipulation, and reconnect with the real, complex women whose lives shaped Europe’s past. Their courage, and the truth beneath the legend, offer both a challenge and an inspiration for thinking critically about identity, power, and resilience in the present.

Transcript

[White Claw Surge Advertiser]

This episode is brought to you by White Claw Surge. Nice choice hitting up this podcast. No surprises. You're all about diving into tastes everyone in the room can enjoy. Just like White Claw Surge, it's for celebrating those moments when connections have been made and the night's just begun. With bold flavors and 8% alcohol by volume, Unleash the night. Unleash White Claw Surge. Please drink responsibly. Hard seltzer with flavors 8% alcohol by volume. White cloth seltzer works Chicago, Illinois

[TaxAct Advertiser]

TaxAct can think of a million things more fun than filing taxes TaxAct is going to name some now. Sitting in traffic, folding a fitted bedsheet, listening to your co worker talk about his fantasy team digging a hole. Digging an even larger hole next to that original hole. Unfortunately, TaxAct's filing software can't make taxes fun, but TaxAct can help you get them done. Taxact, let's get them over with.

[Grainger Advertiser]

If you're an H VAC technician and a call comes in, Grainger knows that you need a partner that helps you find the right product fast and hassle free. And you know that when the first problem of the day is a clanking blower motor, there's no need to break a sweat. With Grainger's easy to use website and product details, you're confident you'll soon have everything humming right along. Call 1-800-GRAINGER clickranger.com or just stop by Granger for the ones who get it done.

[Danny Bird]

National icons aren't born, they're engineered. But how were medieval figures such as Joan of Arc and Isabella of Castile transformed into political symbols, their real lives obscured by centuries of myth making? In this episode of the History Extra podcast, Yanina Ramirez tells Danny Bird about some of the women who have been elevated to such pedestals and and how these legends are created, recreated, and repurposed for national mythologies.

So I suppose what I should ask you is, was there a moment when you knew you had to write this book?

[Yanina Ramirez]

I think in a funny way, everything I've written coalesces around three aspects. Because of course, you know, I remember being brought up, learning about Said and this idea of the scholar exposing their identities openly in their work. You'd be very candid, as opposed to trying to be the voice of empirical truth, but instead trying to say, you know, this is where I come at this from. And so right from the beginning of my academic career, I always remember trying to think, be courageous, say who you are, and then if the readers want to come along on the journey with you, then at least you're being transparent. So my identity really revolves around the fact that A, I'm a woman, B class comes into it. You know, immigrants, lower classes. Then you've got this idea of the fact that I'm Polish Irish, of Polish Irish heritage, growing up in the uk, born in Dubai, funnily enough, weirdly, but married to a Spanish Scot, and, and having a kind of very European sense of myself and my identity and a very European upbringing. And then this idea as well of being Polish Irish. I wasn't gonna get away without a Catholic upbringing. So listen, what was I to do? There was nothing I could do. So I was brought up Roman Catholic, sent to a convent school. All the rest of it doesn't mean I'm a practicing Catholic now, but it means that I have this foundation in religion and a sort of an empathy and an appreciation for people with belief. I can understand why people have faith and why people believe. And so those scaffolds of my own identity have really come into everything I've done. I mean, I remember my aunt, who is actually a Franciscan lay missionary, bizarrely saying, oh, Nina, look at you. I'm so proud of you writing about the saints. Cause that was my first book. I said, have you actually read the book? Cause kind of the whole premise of the saints is I'm kind of pulling down the edifice of saints and putting them in the landscape, putting them in their own kind of real lives. But yeah, I was like, oh, oh my gosh, I've written about saints. Oh God, I've written a book about Julian of Norwich. Am I actually still just like this sort of 10 year old Roman Catholic girl who's writing about all these religious topics. But that's just bled into my knowledge and my understanding of the world, how I make sense of the world. And so in terms of nationality and in terms of writing this book, it's been there from the off. It's really been there from the off. I remember sending in my first book, Private Lives of Saints, and having a discussion about use of the terms British Isles, Welsh, Irish, Northern Irish, Scottish, uk, and how to very carefully and sensitively be very accurate about the national terms I was using. And that was God. That was nearly 12 years ago, 13 years ago. And then writing Femina, it started to become like a klaxon that was going off in every chapter. It's like, look how people are laying claim to this. Look how people are using this for their national histories now. Look how Scandinavia uses their Viking heritage. Look how France uses its Cathar heritage. Look how each of these figures that you're pointing out is situated so firmly in their own historical time, but have then been used and manipulated centuries after they actually lived for different agendas.

[Danny Bird]

And in the book, you explore how women like Joan of Arc or Isabella of Castile became symbols of national identity. Do you think their stories still shape how nations see themselves today?

[Yanina Ramirez]

So I open the book with John Marie Le Pen's, one of his very impassioned speeches that he gives in front of the statue of Joan. And, you know, when I was working with a French film crew and I had sent them the chapter about Joan, and I was like, do you think this taps into how people in France feel today? He was like, oh, my God, yes. Have you seen the memes of Jean Marie Le Pen saying, oh, Jean au secours? So it's still relevant, it's still being mocked, being taken seriously. It's still permeating the political landscape of France today. And, I mean, I watched his speeches back, so you don't have to. I sat through hours of his speeches, but the reason I felt so desperate about highlighting Joan in all of that is that even when he was kicked out of the National Front Party, he then set up a further right version of it, which he named the party of Joan, the party of Joan of Arc, and made her the banner, the picture for his party. So, absolutely, it's like, it's relevant right now. And Isabella of Castile, you know, when I talk to Spanish friends about how Castilian is still kind of seen as the benchmark, a little bit like in the uk, we would say that London feels like a brain drain, or it feels like when I lived in the north, people would just be like, oh, that London. Because it's sort of where it doesn't represent how they're living in the north, or it doesn't represent how people are living in Cornwall or how they're living over in Kent, but. And it's a bit like that with Castilian and with Madrid, and that all ties back to Isabella and what she did and how she did it. So, yeah, it's still so relevant and it's still affecting daily lives. But more than that, I think we're entering a time of division. And I think when you try and impose, like Isabella did, when you try and impose a sense of collective identity onto diverse peoples, peoples from geographical regions, peoples with different independent community histories and traditions, people of different faiths, when you try and impose a collective identity, it will crack, it will start to show cracks. Very, very Quickly. And even in her own lifetime it cracked, but it, but then it's continued to be sort of reinforced with concrete foundations again. And this is us again. Let's build up on that again. And yet again we've got conflict in Catalonia, in the Basque region in Scotland. These imposed identities will not always be simply accepted and tolerated and as well

[Danny Bird]

as real flesh and blood women. I'd love to explore this a little bit further and ask you about the way nations often personify themselves as women, from Britannia to Marianne. What do you think is going on there? Because they seem to carry these really interesting, almost contradictory qualities where they're both nurturing and maternal, but also virginal and chaste and even sometimes martial.

[Yanina Ramirez]

Oh, brilliant question. Thanks, Daddy. Well, I'm very, very lucky to be a colleague of Marina Warner in Oxford, the doyen of this sort of topic. And she has written on Joan of Arc, but she also wrote this wonderful book called Maidens and Monuments. And the whole premise there in that book is exactly this. It's about the fact that you could go and see the Statue of Liberty, you can go and stand in the Pantheon in Paris and look at that image of France, you know, protecting her people and Britannia, you know, just walk into St. Paul's Cathedral and you're met with that massive, sort of stoic, quite intimidating looking, trident wielding Britannia. And you're absolutely right, it's so frustrating because, I mean, I say this in the book, the nation is a woman, but women didn't build nations. And it is a fundamental injustice, as far as I see it, that in almost every revolutionary moment, well, in every revolutionary moment, possibly bar the Spanish, but even there it still goes against them. The women are almost entirely excluded from the creation of a national identity. It is liberty, equality and fraternity. That brotherhood aspect, it's about pulling up other men, not pulling up women with them. And you know, when you think about how the Declaration of the Rights of Man is followed by a declaration of the rights of women and the author is executed as a result of writing it. So revolutions don't work for women, women don't have a place in them. And yet in order to bind people together, the best way to do it is to give them a shared cause. And it doesn't sit alongside understanding women's rights or understanding women as equals. But the idea of the mother, the figurehead of the mother, is so compelling and so sort of universal that it can be used as a propaganda tool to bind people to king and country, to bind people to die for their nation because they're dying for their mother, they're dying for their mot. So, yeah, it's a wonderful contradiction you've picked up on there, Danny, because they are totally excluded. Women are totally excluded from every aspect of nation building. They can't be philosophers, architects, politicians. They're not invited into legal spaces. They're not allowed to be writing and thinking about what makes a nation. And yet the ultimate figurehead of a nation becomes a woman. It's such a deep irony, isn't it? And, I mean, each chapter in this new book has a different complexion. I very deliberately tried to shine a slightly different potential contemporary aspect in each of the medieval and revolutionary women that I'm writing about. So in the Joan and Charlotte Corday chapter, the French chapter, that is about how out of the ashes of revolution, women actually come off worse. The balance I'm trying to show between the rights of Charlotte coming out of the 18th into the 19th century, versus the rights of this medieval woman, Joan, arguably the modern woman, is having a much higher, much more difficult time and is far less empowered and actually has less framework in their societal fabric to lift them up. Joan is elevated, lifted up partly through her own skills and talents, but also because the society around her had a space in which she could become a celebrated military person, but also celebrated prophetess, a celebrated individual. And it's something that came out in writing Femina in Arguably, the suffragettes saw that medieval women had greater opportunities and greater agency at times than their modern equivalents. And I think that's another thing I wanted to keep drawing out in this book. All of them, all of the modern women, Agostina of Aragon, all the ones I write about who are trying to do things. And then you get some exceptions, like Laskarina Bouboulina in Greece, but they are really pushing against the tide. Really, really, really pushing against the tide. And often they're executed as a result of that, or they're vilified, or they're called a whore, or they're called a troublemaker, disturber, disruptor. They are having a much harder time. And when I'm flagging up these medieval women, what I'm able to show is that there were men and women in those communities that could allow these individuals to get the greatest agency. So isn't it funny? We think, whether on a constant sort of spiral of progress upwards, but what I'm seeing is that there are these sorts of waves where particularly the role of women, by putting a frame on that, you can see how we move forward, we step backwards, we slide Way backwards. And then we make progress again. And I also want the readers to come away from this thinking, well, what are the roots of these changes? What's the effect of industrialization, for example? What's the effect of secularization, of urbanization? How have these things had a knock on effect on both issues of class and gender and identity and race relations too? You know, what's the relationship between these things?

[Danny Bird]

And as you've alluded to there, some of the women you write about pushed back against the expectations of their time. Why do you think some have ended up being celebrated as heroines while others have been condemned by history?

[Yanina Ramirez]

The way I conclude it is by saying that we are still in the thrall of the charismatic, the extreme, the outspoken, the difficult. We are in a world where I don't understand why some celebrities and influencers are the ones that everybody listens to, while there are very reasoned, rational, brilliant people who don't carve out followers of 2 million and can't just click their fingers and issue a riot or a rally. I think that in the same way that we need to be extremely cautious who we celebrate and hold up as heroes of our time today, that's the same looking backwards. And the exceptions come through and survive because of something attractive about their legend. How their legend has been condensed, turned into a formula that can be reproduced in babies, nursery rooms, in school classrooms, turned into a poster, turned into a symbol that could be very instantly recognizable. So of Aragon. Why did her fire in the cannon ensure that she had a legacy when there were many women just in Zaragoza, just in the same town, at the same place, who have not become iconic? It's because painters like Goya could take the image of the cannon, take the image of a diminutive woman on a pile of bodies lighting a fuse. And that icon has been seared into people's minds. And I think that's the difference. You know, the thing is, I could have written a thousand books looking at 1000 different historical figures. When I first started thinking about this book, I was gonna include male figures like Robin Hood, Alfred the Great, because again, their legends have been manipulated and abused and turned into these sorts of soundbites and nuggets of stories. Because people don't wanna dig into all of the nitty gritty and the detail. They wanna know who their heroes are. They wanna be able to see them, statue of them go, oh, there's Churchill. Wasn't he great? Just an instantly reductive version of a hero. And so that's why I wrote the book as well, because I wanted to say, well, we just take these things as fact. But when you look at things like the Lady Godiva story, there is nothing, not even the only iota of fact binding the original historical figure of God Gifu to the Lady Godiva of Legendary is Coventry. That's literally the only thing that is factually correct between the individual and the legend. So you can see how the truth gets spun into stories. And I love stories. I'm a storyteller myself, and I start each of the chapters with a bit of storytelling. But what I want to say is let's go beneath the story. Let's be really forensic about who our historical figures are. And in the telling they become more complex, more fascinating. I think more exciting and thrilling than the legendary version.

[Celsius Advertiser]

My day kicks off with a refreshing Celsius energy drink. Then straight to the gym, pre K pickup back home to meal prep. Time for my fire station shift. One more Celsius. Gotta keep the lights on when the three alarm hits. I'm ready. Celsius Live Fit. Go grab a cold refreshing Celsius at your local retailer or locate [e-mail] LifeLock

[TaxAct Advertiser]

how can I help the IRS that

[Grainger Advertiser]

I filed my return, but I haven't?

[LifeLock Advertiser]

1 in 4 taxpaying Americans has paid the price of identity fraud.

[Grainger Advertiser]

What do I do?

[Yanina Ramirez]

My refund though. I'm freaking out.

[Danny Bird]

Don't worry, I can fix this.

[LifeLock Advertiser]

LifeLock fixes identity theft, guaranteed and gets your money back with up to $3 million in coverage.

[Grainger Advertiser]

I'm so relieved.

[White Claw Surge Advertiser]

No problem.

[TaxAct Advertiser]

I'll be with you every step of the way.

[LifeLock Advertiser]

One in four was a fraud paying American. Not anymore. Save up to 40% your first year. Visit lifelock.com podcast terms apply.

[Yanina Ramirez]

So good. So good. So good.

[Nordstrom Rack Advertiser]

New spring arrivals are at Nordstrom Rack stores now. Get ready to save big with up to 60% off rag and bone. Marc Jacobs Free people and more.

[Yanina Ramirez]

How did I not know Rack has Adidas? Cause there's always something new.

[Nordstrom Rack Advertiser]

Join the Norty Club to unlock exclusive discounts. Shop new arrivals first and more. Plus buy online and pick up at your favorite Rack store for free. Great brands, great prices. That's why you rack

[Danny Bird]

in terms of those things you've just alluded to, such as objects, spaces and artworks which are tied to these women that are under focus in your book. Were there any unexpected objects or sources that opened up that story for you?

[Yanina Ramirez]

One of the hardest chapters to write was the chapter about Greece. And I think a lot of people when they talk about the birth of nations. The impact of that Greek revolt in 1821, it kind of gets played down. I don't think people realize because I think Greece was rebelling against the Ottoman Empire, it was rebelling against the East. It felt like a different agenda to what the Belgians or the Germans or the French were trying to do in terms of, you know, power to the people and let's pull down the monarchs and let's make it, you know, democracy. The Greeks, I feel like their stories always sort of push to the edge of these narratives. So I wanted to foreground it and see what I could learn. And what really came in to start relief for me is I run Gloucester History Festival and I sat through first a talk by Peter Frankopan, 10 years after writing Silk Roads, where he was carrying on this clarion cry to people that you don't be so Eurocentric, don't be so Western orientated, look around the world, see what's happening on a bigger picture. And it was followed immediately by a talk by Vince Cable. He was doing exactly the same, but pulling it right up to the present day, asking the audience to think about the role of China and India and areas of Japan and how our global interactions are so much more than what's just going on in Europe and in America. And I feel like in writing the Greece chapter, I desperately wanted to pull the narrative away from that sort of classical tradition of Europe tying back through Rome to ancient Greece and make everybody realize that for the majority of medieval history, the power hub, the glorious jewel of cities, the place where anything civilized, cultural, amazing, magnificent, was happening, was Constantinople, Istanbul. Now that is where the absolute nexus of power was. They didn't give a damn what was happening in London or couldn't care less, particularly about up in the north. We were not the center of power. We were nothing. We were sort of barbarians on the edges of the world. Constantinople was the center, the new Rome, the hub of everything. So when I wrote that chapter, I wanted to show that actually Greek identity is not that very Lord Byron esque thing of, oh, I must go and fight for the Greeks, because they have ancient culture, ancient civilization that I tie myself to. They were concerned about their recent past. Constantinople fell in the 15th century. When they're fighting a couple of centuries later, they're fighting to take back that sense that they were always a different center of power, a different nexus. So when I was digging around trying to find out about the role of women in Constantinople, going back to your question about particular objects, there were some incredible coins and enamels and objects that shouldn't have survived, particularly bejeweled crosses, things like that, that in any other circumstances would be melted down, reused, broken up, particularly during the white heat of revolution. And yet they survive in these sort of collections of what was Byzantium, because the Ottomans didn't really care about them, so they just sort of left them alone, weren't really bothered about them. But as a result, we find things like coins that have the two empresses, actually they went by the title Emperour, Imperator Augustus, Zoe and Theodora, the sisters, the 11th century sisters who ran the empire. And seeing their faces together and seeing them in enamels as well, that been sort of bizarrely picked up and transplanted in Georgia on this diptych that was made by another great female ruler, Queen Tamar. When you see these accidental survivals that are very, very clear indicators that women ruled the world, that there were women that were literally the top of the. There is nowhere higher that anyone could get than Imperator Augustus of Constantinople. And you've got Charlemagne scrappling around in Arkan going, oh, no, there's an Empress Irene in Constantinople, I've got to try and make a Holy Roman Empire. Irene's over there in Constantinople going, God, look at those sad peasants over there trying to build what they think of as an empire. So that chapter was really powerful for me. It made me question our Western national narratives and also make me think, where are we going forward and do we actually need to be very aware of the rise and fall of civilizations and that we are part of those processes today and we need to be a little bit more humble and open minded about how we live in a global world that has been in constant flux across time. And where do women picture in that as well?

[Danny Bird]

We've spoken about Joan of Arc and I'd like to turn now to other women, such as Catherine of Siena and their connection between faith, politics and war. If they were alive now, would their faith make them look radical or perhaps more reactionary, do you think?

[Yanina Ramirez]

Catherine is so complicated? Because I think she's really quite hard to like. I say that in the chapter. She's actually quite hard to get your head around. I think she'd be seen as a radical extremist because she's not content to stop at any point. So she gets incredible notoriety within her own community on a kind of ground level. She's starting to get involved in local politics, she's starting to stick her nose into family feuds, she's getting involved with the nobility, she's Sort of putting herself front and center, having decided not to take the life of a nun, which is far too self effacing, far too modest. She won't be in the public eye if she's a nun. So she exploits this new area of the third Order of the Dominicans, this third order of Franciscan, Third Order of Dominicans, which allows women to sort of have it all. In as much as they live with the holy, they are with the rhythms of the monastic life in terms of their prayers, they are attached to a religious order. But they can go about in the world doing what they want to do. They can marry, they can have children, they can sort of have it all. But even that's too restrictive. Catherine wants more. She wants notoriety, she wants publicity. Now add to that the fact that she has this vicious marketing team behind her that see the potential of exploiting this influencer by pushing her front and center, she sort of enters into this roller coaster of use, misuse and abuse where she is constantly being pushed onto ever more public platforms and becoming more reactionary and more extreme as a result of that. But then of course getting to the very highest positions where she has the ear of the Pope and is actually getting involved in Avignon controversy where, you know, she's trying to determine global politics. So it's a sort of rapid and tragic rise to fame because her light burns very short and she dies from the extreme physical trauma that she's causing her body through starvation, through ever more dramatic acts of self harm. And I say this in the book. It's a horrible irony within the medieval world that for a woman to reach those highest positions, people like, you know, I talk about Marie of Oiny as well, and the beguines, the things that are supposedly condemned, fasting, extreme acts are also things that are celebrated. So when they're doing crazy things like going into frozen rivers or having themselves beaten against a wheel, that gets them notoriety, which makes them seem more sacred, which gives them a better public platform to be able to achieve things. It's a horrible thing that in order to court attention, in order to get attention, they're punishing themselves, but then they secure their legacy. And that runs right through particularly the religious figures, the female religious figures in the book. But it's not exclusive to women. You've got men following very similar patterns. And if we look around the globe today, I was thinking when I was in India about some of the bubbas that do things like hold their hand in the air for 15 years. So it withers in Blake. That is extreme and that's the sort of thing some of my women in this book are doing. And we think we're so beyond it now in this very clever, enlightened, secularized age. But religious endeavor and the punishing of the self for religious ends is very, very alive today. And we ignore it at our peril. We have to see it and we have to then have that question. And can we reduce it to being either an extreme religious fanatic or being somebody that's trying to stand out, trying to make a difference? It's very hard with these terms. And I think we're very keen to label everything in the West. We're very keen to kind of make sense and be very reasoned and rational. And sometimes, particularly when it comes to religion and belief, you can't apply reason. Actually, it comes from somewhere else. But one thing that really has come through in all the work I've done is anything. Nationality, identity, religion, belief, economics, politics. All these things in the wrong hands become extreme. And when fueled by personal greed and ambition, it's not about religion, politics, belief, identity anymore. It's about individual gain and power. And that comes through by looking at individuals, but also the way those individuals operate within bigger social patterns and within communities. Why does one person rise to the top when others don't?

[Danny Bird]

Turning more towards posterity's view of some of these women that you've looked at in the book in terms of using them as propaganda or feminist icons, have you spotted any examples recently of how history has been manipulated to serve a political point today?

[Yanina Ramirez]

It's everywhere. It's every day, it's every moment. I mean, the frustration of the historian is we get often told to stay in our lane and, you know, you're a historian, deal with the past. Why are you commenting on the present? How can I not? Everything that's happening now, I could give you a historical parallel for. I could tell you something that the past teaches us in order to help us make sense of it now. You know, we are not a dusty, irrelevant subject. We are literally the ones that can see how these patterns unfurl and the sort of the collective responses that human beings have to challenges. You know, we. How do they respond to pandemics? How do they respond to external threats? How do they respond to ideological change? You know, we've seen it, so maybe we have got something to say about it. So many. Danny. I mean, the one that really alarms me, this is just one, and I don't want to alienate listeners to this, but the rise of the use of Knights Templar Imagery for some sort of modern sense of the brave, modern man forging forward in this new world. I've seen the misuse and abuse of Templar imagery everywhere, and that sort of worries me quite a lot. I think that a true enthusiasm and interest in the Templars is wondrous. I mean, I find them utterly, utterly fascinating. But when it becomes sort of cartoons and memes and posters of kind of crusaders going against the infidels with the idea that the knight is the modern man, somehow kind of going out as a keyboard warrior and taking on the world, that's where I think it gets blurry and dangerous. And I'm sure you've seen many. You know, even when we think about attacks and things that have happened where people have lost their lives, you'll sometimes find these references to particular historical individuals, particular moments that theirs were going back to. It is a scary misuse, but it's always been that way. There's never been a time where the good and the great haven't harnessed the past. You know, when I'm looking at people like the Tudors and how they forged their identity out of some imagined connection to the Arthurian past and how you could take any moment in history and all anybody can ever do is look backwards. None of us have the ability to see forwards or see what we will be or what will come. So every single person operating in the present only has the past as reference and will constantly go back and misuse that past or use it the way they need to use it to make sense of where they are and hope and then kind of engineer the future that they want to see. And that's what makes it important to study the past.

[Danny Bird]

Nina, in the end, you argue that reconnecting with these stories can actually help us resist division and manipulation. What do you think these women have to teach us about resilience and identity today?

[Yanina Ramirez]

Oh, gosh, that's an excellent question as well. There's lots of ways I could answer this, and I think I try and tackle all of them in the book. You know, in my conclusion, I say, augustina lit the cannon, Joan picked up the sword. You know, these women, the thing that unites them is their courage, that at times of threat and change, they were brave. And my argument is that we need to be brave. We need to be clear minded. And I use the phrase sharpen our scholarly sword and sharpen our minds to prepare ourselves for what's coming. Because the threats are not the same as having to go out on the streets, pick up a sword and fight with someone. But we are fighting against misinformation, we're fighting against propaganda and control at the very highest, most manipulative levels. And we need to be empowered and equipped to understand where we're going in terms of community. The thing I start and end the book with are examples of women who would have had no concept of nations as we think of them today. And yet they shared the same land as us. They walked on the same paths, lived in the same buildings, looked at the same mountains, walked through the same forests. And we can find inspiration from them that they survived, they did well, they did brave and wonderful things, and they did it in that environment. And so by tapping into those environments, we are part of their legacy too. I'm a massive believer in the power of local history and connecting with your environment. Dare I say it, as a notorious goth going out into graveyards, but also digging around in archives, you know, looking at museum artifacts up close. Connecting through an object, through a place, with a person from the past, that is powerful and enriching. It allows us to see how complex and brilliant humans have always been. This arrogant stance we have in the modern day that we are the pinnacle of all improvement of humanity and the people of the past were sort of ignorant pigs, peasants that sort of did live these nasty, brutish, short lives. No. You know, the complexity of a human who lived 500, 1000 years ago excites me. I want to know them, I want to understand them. And through finding out on these sort of micro levels, points of similarity and difference, I think it teaches us to be better global citizens, to live in the world now. We have to be not worrying about geopolitical events taking place hundreds, you know, thousands of miles away from where we are, over which we have no control and which the greedy and the empowered will, will do what they are going to do. The thing we can control on a day to day, moment by moment means, is we can connect with the people around us and we can find the same ways that humanity have found across all of time to coexist. We can help each other, we can live collaboratively, we can work with the landscape, we can show understanding and try and learn from people things that we didn't know before, from cultures that we didn't know about before. And I think that sort of shared day to day living that I see when I talk about my medieval figures, we still have that. We've just lost sight of it a bit and we need to go back out there and find it and connect again with each other and with the landscape and try and kind of tie ourselves away from this digitized, almost ethereal non existence of human beings where we're all just existing on screens and as texts that we send to each other. No, we're humans and we've always lived alongside each other. And we need to go back to that. We need to go back to kind of understanding our relationships with each other.

[Danny Bird]

That was Yanina Ramirez speaking to Danny Bird. Janina is a research fellow in the history of art at the University of Oxford, as well as an author and broadcaster. Her new book, which explores the medieval women whose lives have been exploited over centuries for political nation building ends, is Legenda

[Yanina Ramirez]

Sa.