Contrary to popular belief, Anglo- Saxon England had queens, with the tenth-century Elfrida being the most powerful and notorious of them all. She was the first woman to be crowned Queen of England, sharing her husband King Edgar’s imperial coronation at Bath in 973. The couple made a love match, with claims that they plotted the death of her first husband to ensure that she was free. Edgar divorced his second wife, a former nun, after conducting an adulterous affair with Elfrida, leading to an enmity between the two women that lasted until their deaths. During her marriage Elfrida claimed to be the king’s only legitimate wife, but she failed to secure the succession for her son, Ethelred. Elfrida was implicated in the murder of her stepson, King Edward the Martyr, who died on a visit to her at Corfe Castle. She then ruled England on behalf of her young son for six years before he expelled her from court. Elfrida was eventually able to return to court but, since he proved himself unable to counter the Viking attacks, she may have come to regret winning the crown for Ethelred the Unready. Wife, mother, murderer, ruler, crowned queen. The life of Queen Elfrida was filled with drama as she rose to become the most powerful woman in Anglo-Saxon England.
Saint Margaret, Queen of the Scots: a life in perspective
By Catherine Keene
Palgrave Macmillan, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-230-34048-0
Margaret, saint and 11th-century Queen of the Scots, remains an often-cited yet little-understood historical figure. Her world was the product of perspectives and models from Nordic, Kievan, Hungarian, Anglo-Saxon, Norman, and Scottish traditions, with all the expectations and admonitions which they pressed upon her. Likewise, her cult evolved within interconnected dynastic, political, ecclesiastical, and papal agendas. This book proposes to bridge the gap between what is known about Margaret and what has been surmised in order to provide a contextual understanding of her life and early cult. Catherine Keene’s analysis of sources in terms of both time and place – including her Life of Saint Margaret, translated for the first time – allows for an informed understanding of the forces that shaped this captivating woman.
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Ogling Ladies: Scopophilia in Medieval German Literature
By Sandra Lindemann Summers
Florida University Press, 2013
ISBN: 9780813044187
The book Ogling Ladies examines gazing female characters in a selection of medieval texts. While female scopophilia is harshly condemned in conduct literature and religious texts, female ogling is a common motif in medieval art and literature. Are artists and writers chronicling a widespread behavioral practice, or are they inventing it? The book looks at how female scopophilia functions in the medieval narrative and what effect it has on the ogling lady and her world. The theoretical framework of this project relies on psychoanalytic theory, in particular the work of the object-relations theorists D. W. Winnicott and Nancy Chodorow. This research emphasizes the importance of the mother’s early engagement with the infant, which is productive in conceptualizing the female gaze and its binary division into “desirable” and “forbidden” in medieval texts like Eneasroman, Parzival, Erec, and Iwein. Social formation is negotiated through the female gaze or, more precisely, through its splitting into an approved/approving motherly gaze and a forbidden sexual gaze. Male gender identity, it appears, remains unstable, causing male subjects to seek continued visual approval from women while simultaneously dreading their critical gaze.
Unrivalled influence: women and empire in Byzantium
By Judith Herrin
Princeton University Press, 2013
ISBN: 9780691153216
Unrivalled Influence explores the exceptional roles that women played in the vibrant cultural and political life of medieval Byzantium. Written by one of the world’s foremost historians of the Byzantine millennium, this landmark book evokes the complex and exotic world of Byzantium’s women, from empresses and saints to uneducated rural widows. Drawing on a diverse range of sources, Judith Herrin sheds light on the importance of marriage in imperial statecraft, the tense coexistence of empresses in the imperial court, and the critical relationships of mothers and daughters. She looks at women’s interactions with eunuchs, the in-between gender in Byzantine society, and shows how women defended their rights to hold land. Herrin describes how they controlled their inheritances, participated in urban crowds demanding the dismissal of corrupt officials, followed the processions of holy icons and relics, and marked religious feasts with liturgical celebrations, market activity, and holiday pleasures. The vivid portraits that emerge here reveal how women exerted an unrivalled influence on the patriarchal society of Byzantium, and remained active participants in the many changes that occurred throughout the empire’s millennial history.
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Unrivalled Influence brings together Herrin’s finest essays on women and gender written throughout the long span of her esteemed career. This volume includes three new essays published here for the very first time and a new general introduction by Herrin. She also provides a concise introduction to each essay that describes how it came to be written and how it fits into her broader views about women and Byzantium.
Elizabeth of York: A Tudor Queen and Her World
By Alison Weir
Random House, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-345-52136-1
Many are familiar with the story of the much-married King Henry VIII of England and the celebrated reign of his daughter, Elizabeth I. But it is often forgotten that the life of the first Tudor queen, Elizabeth of York, Henry’s mother and Elizabeth’s grandmother, spanned one of England’s most dramatic and perilous periods. Now New York Times bestselling author and acclaimed historian Alison Weir presents the first modern biography of this extraordinary woman, whose very existence united the realm and ensured the survival of the Plantagenet bloodline.
Her birth was greeted with as much pomp and ceremony as that of a male heir. The first child of King Edward IV, Elizabeth enjoyed all the glittering trappings of royalty. But after the death of her father; the disappearance and probable murder of her brothers—the Princes in the Tower; and the usurpation of the throne by her calculating uncle Richard III, Elizabeth found her world turned upside-down: She and her siblings were declared bastards.
As Richard’s wife, Anne Neville, was dying, there were murmurs that the king sought to marry his niece Elizabeth, knowing that most people believed her to be England’s rightful queen. Weir addresses Elizabeth’s possible role in this and her covert support for Henry Tudor, the exiled pretender who defeated Richard at the Battle of Bosworth and was crowned Henry VII, first sovereign of the House of Tudor. Elizabeth’s subsequent marriage to Henry united the houses of York and Lancaster and signaled the end of the Wars of the Roses. For centuries historians have asserted that, as queen, she was kept under Henry’s firm grasp, but Weir shows that Elizabeth proved to be a model consort—pious and generous—who enjoyed the confidence of her husband, exerted a tangible and beneficial influence, and was revered by her son, the future King Henry VIII.
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Drawing from a rich trove of historical records, Weir gives a long overdue and much-deserved look at this unforgettable princess whose line descends to today’s British monarch—a woman who overcame tragedy and danger to become one of England’s most beloved consorts.
By Elizabeth Norton
Amberley Publishing, 2013
ISBN: 9781445614861
Contrary to popular belief, Anglo- Saxon England had queens, with the tenth-century Elfrida being the most powerful and notorious of them all. She was the first woman to be crowned Queen of England, sharing her husband King Edgar’s imperial coronation at Bath in 973. The couple made a love match, with claims that they plotted the death of her first husband to ensure that she was free. Edgar divorced his second wife, a former nun, after conducting an adulterous affair with Elfrida, leading to an enmity between the two women that lasted until their deaths. During her marriage Elfrida claimed to be the king’s only legitimate wife, but she failed to secure the succession for her son, Ethelred. Elfrida was implicated in the murder of her stepson, King Edward the Martyr, who died on a visit to her at Corfe Castle. She then ruled England on behalf of her young son for six years before he expelled her from court. Elfrida was eventually able to return to court but, since he proved himself unable to counter the Viking attacks, she may have come to regret winning the crown for Ethelred the Unready. Wife, mother, murderer, ruler, crowned queen. The life of Queen Elfrida was filled with drama as she rose to become the most powerful woman in Anglo-Saxon England.
Click here to read Elizabeth Norton’s Blog
By Catherine Keene
Palgrave Macmillan, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-230-34048-0
Margaret, saint and 11th-century Queen of the Scots, remains an often-cited yet little-understood historical figure. Her world was the product of perspectives and models from Nordic, Kievan, Hungarian, Anglo-Saxon, Norman, and Scottish traditions, with all the expectations and admonitions which they pressed upon her. Likewise, her cult evolved within interconnected dynastic, political, ecclesiastical, and papal agendas. This book proposes to bridge the gap between what is known about Margaret and what has been surmised in order to provide a contextual understanding of her life and early cult. Catherine Keene’s analysis of sources in terms of both time and place – including her Life of Saint Margaret, translated for the first time – allows for an informed understanding of the forces that shaped this captivating woman.
By Sandra Lindemann Summers
Florida University Press, 2013
ISBN: 9780813044187
The book Ogling Ladies examines gazing female characters in a selection of medieval texts. While female scopophilia is harshly condemned in conduct literature and religious texts, female ogling is a common motif in medieval art and literature. Are artists and writers chronicling a widespread behavioral practice, or are they inventing it? The book looks at how female scopophilia functions in the medieval narrative and what effect it has on the ogling lady and her world. The theoretical framework of this project relies on psychoanalytic theory, in particular the work of the object-relations theorists D. W. Winnicott and Nancy Chodorow. This research emphasizes the importance of the mother’s early engagement with the infant, which is productive in conceptualizing the female gaze and its binary division into “desirable” and “forbidden” in medieval texts like Eneasroman, Parzival, Erec, and Iwein. Social formation is negotiated through the female gaze or, more precisely, through its splitting into an approved/approving motherly gaze and a forbidden sexual gaze. Male gender identity, it appears, remains unstable, causing male subjects to seek continued visual approval from women while simultaneously dreading their critical gaze.
By Judith Herrin
Princeton University Press, 2013
ISBN: 9780691153216
Unrivalled Influence explores the exceptional roles that women played in the vibrant cultural and political life of medieval Byzantium. Written by one of the world’s foremost historians of the Byzantine millennium, this landmark book evokes the complex and exotic world of Byzantium’s women, from empresses and saints to uneducated rural widows. Drawing on a diverse range of sources, Judith Herrin sheds light on the importance of marriage in imperial statecraft, the tense coexistence of empresses in the imperial court, and the critical relationships of mothers and daughters. She looks at women’s interactions with eunuchs, the in-between gender in Byzantine society, and shows how women defended their rights to hold land. Herrin describes how they controlled their inheritances, participated in urban crowds demanding the dismissal of corrupt officials, followed the processions of holy icons and relics, and marked religious feasts with liturgical celebrations, market activity, and holiday pleasures. The vivid portraits that emerge here reveal how women exerted an unrivalled influence on the patriarchal society of Byzantium, and remained active participants in the many changes that occurred throughout the empire’s millennial history.
Unrivalled Influence brings together Herrin’s finest essays on women and gender written throughout the long span of her esteemed career. This volume includes three new essays published here for the very first time and a new general introduction by Herrin. She also provides a concise introduction to each essay that describes how it came to be written and how it fits into her broader views about women and Byzantium.
By Alison Weir
Random House, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-345-52136-1
Many are familiar with the story of the much-married King Henry VIII of England and the celebrated reign of his daughter, Elizabeth I. But it is often forgotten that the life of the first Tudor queen, Elizabeth of York, Henry’s mother and Elizabeth’s grandmother, spanned one of England’s most dramatic and perilous periods. Now New York Times bestselling author and acclaimed historian Alison Weir presents the first modern biography of this extraordinary woman, whose very existence united the realm and ensured the survival of the Plantagenet bloodline.
Her birth was greeted with as much pomp and ceremony as that of a male heir. The first child of King Edward IV, Elizabeth enjoyed all the glittering trappings of royalty. But after the death of her father; the disappearance and probable murder of her brothers—the Princes in the Tower; and the usurpation of the throne by her calculating uncle Richard III, Elizabeth found her world turned upside-down: She and her siblings were declared bastards.
As Richard’s wife, Anne Neville, was dying, there were murmurs that the king sought to marry his niece Elizabeth, knowing that most people believed her to be England’s rightful queen. Weir addresses Elizabeth’s possible role in this and her covert support for Henry Tudor, the exiled pretender who defeated Richard at the Battle of Bosworth and was crowned Henry VII, first sovereign of the House of Tudor. Elizabeth’s subsequent marriage to Henry united the houses of York and Lancaster and signaled the end of the Wars of the Roses. For centuries historians have asserted that, as queen, she was kept under Henry’s firm grasp, but Weir shows that Elizabeth proved to be a model consort—pious and generous—who enjoyed the confidence of her husband, exerted a tangible and beneficial influence, and was revered by her son, the future King Henry VIII.
Drawing from a rich trove of historical records, Weir gives a long overdue and much-deserved look at this unforgettable princess whose line descends to today’s British monarch—a woman who overcame tragedy and danger to become one of England’s most beloved consorts.
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