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Interview with Rafe de Crespigny

Rafe de Crespigny is Professor Emeritus at the Australian National University. He is considered to be one of the most important historians on early medieval China, focusing on the late second and third centuries, when the Han Dynasty collapsed and was replaced by the Three Kingdoms. Professor de Crespigny has written numerous books and articles related to this era, including his latest work, Imperial Warlord: A Biography of Cao Cao 155-220 AD. The book examines the life and legacy of the founder of the Three Kingdoms state of Wei, who has traditionally been portrayed as one of the greatest villains in Chinese history.

We interviewed Professor de Crespigny by email:

1. Cao Cao is certainly one the more famous individuals in Chinese history, but over the centuries he has been portrayed more as a Machiavellian-type villain (one of the famous quotes attributed to him has been “I would rather betray the world than allow the world to betray me.”). Is your book in part an attempt to give a more balanced view to this person?

Yes, I have long felt that the popular attitude to the history of the Three Kingdoms period has been distorted by the great novel Sanguo yanyi (Romance of the Three Kingdoms), and the favourable view which it takes of Liu Bei and the claim of his state of Shu to be the legitimate successor of Han. This “Romantic” tradition has been supported by plays, opera and other literary texts, and it is still the common approach. I believe that the bias affects our interpretation of history and – while recognising the power of the novel – I wanted to study the historical texts in their own terms.

It is remarkable how much information is available in early Chinese sources for the period, and particularly on Cao Cao. From that material I have sought to construct a reasonably coherent account of Cao Cao’s life and character. I have tried to make it a balanced history, but readily acknowledge that I have become increasingly impressed with his achievements and his conduct in extraordinarily difficult circumstances.

In the final chapter of the work, I offer a summary of how Cao Cao’s reputation developed in the centuries after his death, with some suggestions why he became celebrated rather as a great villain than as a hero of his time. Often enough, the answer appears to lie in the political circumstances of later generations, and also in the nature of the literary works – plays and the novel itself – and their requirements of format and plot. In any event, villains are often more interesting and attractive than simple heroes!

2. Besides the chronicles and historical works about Cao Cao, you also have access to some of his own writings, including his poetry. How did reading Cao Cao’s own words change your perception of him?

It is fortunate that such a quantity of Cao Cao’s writings has been preserved. Military and political figures are generally known only by accounts of their actions, while – despite the Confucian tradition of scholarship -men of letters seldom play a major role in public affairs, and in few cases are their writings directly relevant to their careers.

In literary terms, however, even if he had not been so active in affairs at the end of Han, Cao Cao’s poetry would have been important in the developing forms of individual expression: I personally find the Jieshi poem both powerful and touching, with some splendid imagery. It was a notable literary family: Cao Cao’s son and successor Cao Pi and his son Cao Rui were both fine poets, and Cao Pi’s brother Cao Zhi is still considered one of the greatest in all Chinese history.

We also have texts from a number of Cao Cao’s official proclamations – unlike his rivals, it appears that he wrote them himself. Many are purely political, but others express opinions, and on 1 January 211, he published a formal and public explanation of his past career and his plans for the future. As Wolfgang Bauer observed in Das Anlitz Chinas, this Apologia is one of the earliest autobiographical writings in China, and though it is naturally self-justifying – what else would one expect? – it provides a good insight to Cao Cao’s personality.

Both in his poetry and his public announcements, Cao Cao appears self-confident, practical rather than idealistic, with concern for the state of his world and sympathy for its people. Faced with a time of disorder, he has little patience with social niceties: “War is not a matter of ritual and courtesy.” In similar fashion, he looks to employ men who are competent, even if not necessarily of high character, for he can use them and deal with them: here is a refreshing contrast to the high-minded morality which confused political debate as Later Han fell into ruin.

3. One of the key episodes in the rise of Cao Cao was his victory over Yuan Shao at the Battle of Guandu in the year 200. Could you outline some of your thoughts about the strategy Cao Cao used in the battle?

The most common interpretation of the Guandu campaign is that Yuan Shao had far greater resources than Cao Cao – he is said to have controlled four provinces – but made poor use of his army, embarking on a simple offensive without any real attempt at manoeuvre. Cao Cao managed to hold his ground against heavy odds, then defeated Yuan Shao by destroying his supplies.

While it is true that Cao Cao’s final attacks on Yuan Shao’s supply depots were decisive, it is my suggestion that Yuan Shao was always at a strategic disadvantage. Though he did control Ji province in the North China plain, he had done little to develop the territory, and his position further afield was tenuous at best. Faced with the growing power of Cao Cao, he summoned all his resources for a direct attack, but had no spare troops for operations elsewhere. He probably had a local superiority at Guandu, but he certainly did not outnumber Cao Cao by ten or even two to one.

Apart from Cao Cao’s oblique and surprise attack on Yuan Shao’s supplies, the comparison I would make with Sunzi is the manner in which Cao Cao prepared his defences and then obliged his enemy to fight on the ground he had chosen, while Yuan Shao was a long way from his base with a vulnerable line of communications. No military result can ever be guaranteed, but Cao Cao controlled the course of the campaign: in Sunzi’s terms, he obliged his enemy to submit to his will.

4. This is the latest in a series of books and articles you have done related to fall of the Han Dynasty and the Three Kingdoms period. How did you become interested in this time of Chinese history?

My first degree was in European history, and I then began studying Chinese under Hans Bielenstein, the great historian of the restoration of Han in the early first century AD. During my first year I read Brewitt-Taylor’s translation of Sanguo yanyi, and simply fell in love with the story. It has everything one could look for in the Western legend of King Arthur, with a basis in reality. So I wanted to find out what actually happened – the facts behind the fiction.

I am somewhat ashamed to say that I have never really cared for Liu Bei – high-minded rhetoric to justify treachery and double-dealing. So I first concentrated on the third kingdom, Wu, and then became involved in the question of what went wrong with Han itself: why and how did the empire fall? what was its structure and what were its fatal weaknesses? And that led into studies of frontier wars and geography, administration and tax, not to mention universities and rioting students, eunuchs and the harem.

In all this, my approach is that of an historian rather than a scholar of philosophy or literature. So I try to set people and their actions into the context of their time. When I was compiling A Biographical Dictionary of Later Han to the Three Kingdoms (23-220 AD) I did my best to record dates of birth and death – and was struck repeatedly by the thought that we all know our birthday, but very few can forecast their death: time, date and the order of events matter a great deal.

5. The early medieval period of Chinese history (roughly the end of the Han Dynasty to the Tang era) is becoming a more popular period for historians to do research in. Do you have any suggestions for graduate students and young historians on what they might want to study and work on from this period?

I find it disconcerting and somewhat disappointing that we do not yet have a detailed modern history of early medieval China. The first volume of the Cambridge series, for example, is stronger on Former than on Later Han, and the second volume is unlikely to appear in the foreseeable future. One problem is that chief attention has been given to the literature and philosophy of the period, and most historical studies are concerned with individual topics rather than narrative. Such subjects are certainly important, but I believe they need to be presented within the full perspective of politics, society and economic development.

I can offer two examples of such perspective. Firstly, the division of the Han empire into three rival states owed as much to changing demography – the retreat of Chinese population from the northern frontier and the expansion of colonisation in the south – as to the military efforts of the contending warlords. And secondly, as I have suggested on occasion, a major factor in the decline and fall of Han besides a series of under-age emperors and the rivalries of regent families and eunuchs, was that during the second century the central government was chronically short of money and may well have been effectively bankrupt. As a result, it was unable to perform its traditional functions of leadership and of benevolence in time of trouble, and it was vulnerable to the prosperous, confident, and increasingly independent-minded gentry of the provinces.

So my encouragement to any scholar planning work on medieval China would be to make a close study of a coherent period of history: as detailed an account as possible of what happened and how it came to pass; this will provide context and basis for exploring more specialised questions. There is plenty of traditional Chinese material which can be used for analysis, and the study of people is always worth while.

We thank Rafe de Crespigny for answering our questions.

Please also see his earlier article: Man from the Margin: Cao Cao and the Three Kingdoms

29 Aug 2010
Tags: China, Romance of the Three Kingdoms
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Interview with author Jayden Woods – August 29, 2010

Last week, we reviewed a book entitled “Eadric the Grasper: Sons of Mercia Vol. I”. I had the pleasure of interviewing author Jayden Woods about her upcoming book, background, and future novels.

Jayden graduated from the University of Southern California’s Writing for Screen and Television program and lived Los Angeles for five years before deciding to leave Hollywood and become an author.

“Eadric the Grasper” is her first book set in tumultuous 11th century England. It’s a fast paced historical fiction novel based on the life of Eadric Streona, often considered one of the worst villains in English history. This book tells a different side to his story. It will be released on Amazon.com on October 5th.

For more information about Jayden Woods and her work , please visit her website: http://www.jaydenwoods.com/

1.) You graduated from USC in screen and television writing; what made you decide to leave this career and pursue writing novels? Were you disenchanted with the Hollywood “scene”?

Before I pursued my degree of Writing for Screen and Television, I already wrote novels. But I also dabbled in some artwork and musical composition. I wanted to combine all my skills and make my stories come fully to life on the screen. And what better way to accomplish that than to go to arguably the best film school there is, USC in Los Angeles?

I lived in Los Angeles for five years in all. I met a great deal of successful people in the business. I received a fantastic education. I made short films, interned with a production company, and worked as a writers’ assistant on a primetime TV show (“Numb3rs”). I even got commissioned at one point to write a feature script for a production company (though it will probably never get made). In a lot of people’s eyes, I was really on my way to success.

But indeed, I became “disenchanted.” I saw that most blockbuster scripts went through so many people and revisions before production that they often became warped into something else by the end. I also saw that most of the people who found success did so by devoting years upon years of their life to miserable assistant jobs and/or by social networking. As for the first task, I found it self-defeating. If I put all my energy into a lousy job (and I am talking about jobs in which someone may literally work 60-80 hours in one week), I wouldn’t have the time or passion to write. As for social networking, I must confess, that has never been my strong suit. I’m an introvert, for goodness sakes! And I’m certainly not the only artist with that challenge. But to make a long story short, I felt as if I needed to turn over my entire life, and even change my personality, in order to get where I wanted in Hollywood. And I simply wasn’t willing to do that.

I haven’t lost my dream of bringing my stories to the big screen. In fact, I now think that starting by publishing a book may be the best way to achieve that. Popular books are a “safe” product for studios to invest in, and the writer’s original work is guaranteed respect, because it already has a fan-base. But even if it never comes to that, I am so happy writing novels and soon sharing them with the world.

2.) What interests you in this particular period of the Middle Ages? Will you be expanding into other areas of the Middles Ages for future books?

What intrigued me about the early Middle Ages, or Dark Ages, is that so little is known about them. As an artist, this allowed me to step into the genre of historical fiction and bring my somewhat rampant imagination along with me. During the Viking Age in particular, the Vikings burned valuable items and manuscripts left and right, items which otherwise might have preserved history. So it remains an especially mysterious time. I wanted to be able to use known facts as a plot-base but still have enough freedom to craft my own story. So the first book begins in 1002, and the next two books follow two subsequent generations, concluding a few years after the Norman Conquest.

3.) What drew you to Eadric’s story?

Interestingly enough, I already had a story I wanted to write long before I stumbled upon Eadric Streona’s wikipedia page. You can say my inspiration came from two major sources: the intriguing history of Eadric Streona and my life-long love of the 80’s TV version of “The Scarlet Pimpernel.” Sir Percy Blakeney was one of my childhood heroes. What does this have to do with Eadric Streona? When I finally read Baroness Orczy’s book, I was rather disappointed by the simplicity of some of the characters, but most especially by Percy’s wife, Marguerite. I wanted to write a story about a man with the skill and charm to achieve whatever he wanted, though sometimes what he wanted was not necessarily “good.” I also wanted him to play off someone equally strong, but dogmatic and self-righteous to a fault. I already had a light plot drafted out incorporating Vikings and Anglo-Saxons when I found Eadric Streona, and it was as if a light shone down from heaven. He was the man I needed to write about, and everything else fell into place from there.

4.) Eadric has been vilified in historical treatises; William of Malmesbury described Eadric as, “The refuse of mankind and a reproach unto the English” ; what made you decide to reform this view of Eadric?

I am fascinated by the way society views “heroes,” and also why history remembers some figures more favorably than others. To me, it seems that Eadric was vilified because he lacked what one might call patriotism, or at least loyalty to a single king’s bloodline. He switched sides. He changed his mind. He wasn’t dogmatic. I find this especially interesting from a modern perspective, now that open-mindedness is more often embraced. Eadric certainly killed a few individuals, but he also prevented a major battle from taking place, and in that way saved hundreds of lives. His actions eventually brought England and Scandinavia together under a single king (at least for a little while). So should we vilify him while glorifying the people who wanted the wars to keep going indefinitely? After two-hundred something years of Viking attacks, what were the Anglo-Saxons still fighting for but an incompetent king? I do not want to turn Eadric into a hero, for he certainly wasn’t that. But I want people to question their definition of one.

5.) What sources did you use in your research? How long did it take to do research for this book?

Because Eadric Streona is so often described as a despicable man, sometimes without explanation, I wanted to start with the source texts and go from there: the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles by Florence of Worcester, the Chronicles of the Kings of England by William of Malmesbury, and so on. I tried to draw my own conclusions from those sources (at least as far as the characters and their personalities) before moving on to more recent compositions. I went on to read many other great texts from historians like Edward Freeman, James Henry Ramsay, James Campbell, and others, so that I could combine old knowledge with the new. I spent a few weeks researching vigorously before starting the book, and continued to deepen my research as I worked.

6.) What are your upcoming projects? The Eadric novel is part of a larger series entitled, “The Sons of Mercia”, what can we expect from upcoming novels in the series?

The next volume is “Godric the Kingslayer,” the story of Eadric’s bastard son, Godric. Godric is fictional, but many of the events in the book are not. Canute the Great is a prominent character of Volume 2. Godric wishes to kill King Canute and avenge his father’s death—a goal that comes to consume his entire life. His quest begins as a righteous one, but he watches himself become his own worst enemy, and eventually he must change his ways or tear his own world apart.

The third volume (which is the one I’m writing now) follows another descendant of Eadric Streona, Edric the Wild. Edric is more of a typical protagonist: charming, kind-hearted, and full of good deeds. He is a man who will later inspire the legendary tales of Robin Hood. He seeks to rise up against William the Conqueror and the Norman takeover—even if his battle becomes a losing one.

I see the entire trilogy as an exploration of what makes a hero, what makes a villain, and why we perceive certain men or women as such. Whenever I write, I like to turn black and white into as many other shades as possible. My villains tend to have good traits and intentions; my “heroes” tend to be seriously flawed.

7.) Can you tell us a bit more about your other series, “The Lost Tales of Mercia” and when it will be available to your readers?

“The Lost Tales of Mercia” are already available to readers free and online. As I write this interview, eight of the ten short stories have already been released, and the last two will be out by the time “Eadric the Grasper” releases. “The Lost Tales of Mercia” introduce minor and major characters from the novel and expose details from their lives that are not fully revealed in the book. The novel and the short stories strongly complement each other, but I wrote the book first. You can certainly read “Eadric the Grasper” alone; you will simply be a step ahead of other readers if you’ve read the Lost Tales. On the flip-side, you may finish reading “Eadric the Grasper” first and then wish to dive deeper into one of the characters’ lives; the Lost Tales allow you to do so.

The stories are available on my blog, http://talesofmercia.wordpress.com, and many other ebook distribution channels across the web. I also plan to release a printed version very soon, and people who prefer a physical book will be able to purchase one on Amazon. Otherwise, enjoy them for free online!

We would like to thank Jayden for taking the time to answer our questions ~ Peter & Sandra

29 Aug 2010
Tags: Anglo-Saxon, Eleventh Century, England, Literature, Military History, Vikings
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Interview with John Hosler

We interview John D. Hosler, associate professor of history at Morgan State University. Professor Hosler talks about going from a graduate student to becoming a tenured professor, and the work a historian needs to do to reach that level. We also talk about his book ‘Henry II: a Medieval Soldier at War, 1147-1189′ and his research on medieval military history. The interview was done during the International Congress on Medieval Studies in May 2010.

Click here to see Professor Hosler’s website

For more information about Henry II: A Medieval Soldier at War, 1147–1189, please go to the Brill website

17 Aug 2010
Tags: Academia, Military History
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Interview with Dan McCarthy

The Irish Annals: Their genesis, evolution and history, by Dan McCarthy, examines the works created in early medieval Ireland, and which continued to be a major source of Irish history into the early modern period.

McCarthy’s book, which was first published by Four Courts Press in 2008, re-examines the manuscript evidence, commencing with an account of the primary manuscript witnesses for the ten most characteristic annalistic texts. It then reviews the scholarly literature relating to the annalistic corpus and identifies those hypotheses that are not supported by the available evidence. Next, based upon a critical evaluation of both the textual and chronological characteristics of the texts, the book establishes, where possible, the place, author(s), time and salient characteristics of the compilations that have contributed to the development of these ten texts.

Dan McCarthy is a senior lecturer in the Department of Computer Science and a Fellow of Trinity College Dublin. We interviewed him by email:

As you talk about in your book, the use of annals has long been popular in Ireland, stretching over more than a thousand years. Why do you think that this way of writing history remained so popular among the Irish?

Well, to start from before the time of Christ, I believe that in learned Celtic society the questions of the meaning of time and its representation were considered of great significance. For example, in Gaul both the Coligny calendar and Caesar’s statement in book six of De bello Gallico that Gaulish education included the detailed study of the stars and their motions, of the extent of the world, and of the nature of things, attest to this interest. That this interest survived both the Roman invasion and the arrival of Christianity there is shown by the fact that the only two significant Western Paschal compilations, the 84-year latercus of Sulpicius Severus and the 532-year Easter table of Victorius of Aquitaine, were both compiled in fifth-century Gaul. Regarding Ireland, there is evidence that in pre-Christian times the learned class here shared their Gaulish cousins’ interest in time. Then, with the arrival of Christianity in Ireland, this learned class received an annalistic chronicle representing each year of the world from Creation to the early fifth century. This work clearly resonated with their pre-existing interest in time and consequently found an enthusiastic readership amongst them, for they continued this chronicle for well over a thousand years, indeed until the collapse of learned Gaelic society in circa 1600. Thus it appears to me that a critical interest in time was a deeply embedded intellectual tradition of learned Irish society, and it was this that sustained their recording of history in annalistic form for so long. Furthermore, that Irish society still retains a keen interest in the detailed recording of history implicit in annals is clearly demonstrated by the large number of titles registering chronicles and history listed in the catalogue of my publisher, Four Courts Press.

In this book you note the “importance of including the chronological apparatus in the analysis of a chronicle.” Part of your research focuses on how chronologically accurate the various annals are, such as the dating of periods of famine and widespread mortality during the sixth century. Why did you want to take a look at this aspect of the annals?

To me the chronological apparatus is the critical element that coherently links all of the entries together to form a meaningful temporal structure, a chronicle; in terms of an analogy, it is the essential thread that secures many pieces of fabric together to form a single, usable garment. As such the chronological apparatus, while it normally only constitutes a small percentage of the text of a chronicle, plays a crucial role of integration, for it coherently locates all of the chronicle entries across time in a measured fashion. In order to be able employ chronicle entries to make reliable inferences concerning the events that they describe we need to know whether this distribution is trustworthy or not. One way to do this is to compare the chronology of the phenomenological entries against the independent chronology provided by such as dendrochronology, orbital mechanics, and ice cores. In the case of the Irish Annals, which exist in multiple copies with a relatively simple chronological apparatus of either just a kalend, or a kalend plus a ferial datum, this apparatus had been hardly studied by earlier scholars with the result that the editors of the published editions invariably supplied conflicting marginal chronologies. My study of the chronological apparatus of the Annals was undertaken in order to resolve the conflicts between these conflicting published editorial chronologies.

What areas of research do you think scholars might want to focus on – in terms of the annals themselves, as well as the material they cover?

Well I believe that, because they have been relatively little studied in detail, the Irish Annals provide many interesting research opportunities in a number of areas. Firstly, the presence of a considerable number of phenomenological entries recording astronomical events (e.g. eclipses, comets, aurorae), meteorological events (e.g. extremes of rain, ice, wind), biological events (e.g. human and animal plagues, harvest extremes), which may all be collated against any parallel entries in other chronicles and against records drawn from orbital mechanics, dendrochronology, ice-cores, and pollen deposits, in order to improve our understanding of these events. I am aware of two such studies recently concluded, one dealing with climate and the other with European cattle plagues. Secondly, because obituaries form the majority of the Annalistic entries and these often incorporate personal name elements linking two or three generations, then these may be collated against the vast corpus of biological links recorded in the Irish genealogies, and such studies may now also be able usefully to employ DNA analysis. Thirdly, over the latter centuries of the first millennium a canonical list of Ireland’s supposed kings evolved, and this regnal canon was used for both mythological and chronological purposes. By the twelfth century this resulted most famously in various recensions of The Book of Invasions, alias An Lebor Gabála, and a critical examination of the formation of the regnal canon should greatly illuminate the origin, intention, and chronology of this culturally important compilation. Fourthly, some of the Annals preserve early versions of the Irish origin myth, and more may be learned about the evolution of this myth by comparing these Annalistic versions against the later versions preserved in a great variety of literary forms.

Finally, you explain that you have been reading and researching these annals since your youth. Can you tell us why you found them so fascinating?

I suppose that from an early age I was interested in the phenomenon of time and its representation, and consequently when I first encountered the Irish Annals I was attracted by their unique kalend, or kalend plus ferial, representation. The scholars who had previously discussed this representation had considered it to be both trivial and hopelessly compromised by scribal errors. However, when I examined it I found this not to be the case, and hence I became engaged in the task of resolving the chronology of the Annals. In this undertaking both the presence of the phenomenological entries, and of my having access to computer technology greatly facilitated this process, and I was able to make the resultant collations available at www.irish-annals.cs.tcd.ie in an accessible form. This chronological interest, together with the fact that the Annals provide so much detailed information about a huge number of diverse events in Ireland and neighbouring countries for over a thousand years, ensures that my fascination with them will continue into the foreseeable future.

We thank Dan McCarthy for answering our questions.

13 Aug 2010
Tags: Historiography, Ireland
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Claire Jones, editor of HerStoria

HerStoria magazine started up in 2009 and soon got impressive reviews, including being named to the top ten list of new magazines from Library Journal. ”History that puts woman in her place” is the tagline for HerStoria, which provides a feminine slant on history and offers a wide variety of articles and features dealing with women’s history from ancient times to the present.

We interviewed HerStoria’s editor, Dr. Claire Jones, by email:

1. You began publishing Herstoria in 2009. Can you tell us about how the process of developing this magazine from the idea stage to getting your first issue published?

Before launching HerStoria I had been researching and teaching women’s and gender history (I gained my doctorate in this subject in 2005) and co-editing an academic journal. However I was increasingly frustrated that all the exciting research going on in this area was rarely making its way beyond academia into popular history magazines (or indeed into the classroom). The idea was, simply, that there must be room for a publication that provided a different kind of history – women’s history. And so HerStoria was born.

It was a steep learning curve getting the magazine established! Even the name took a while to decide upon, and for a few months we thought we were about to launch ‘Women and History’; after that we investigated styles of magazine in an attempt to come up with a really attractive, distinctive design. This was a long process and we did not really find our distinctive style until issue 3.

The website, www.herstoria.com, was another vital part of the launch process. This is not only our shop window for subscribers, but it also contains a ‘Discover’ web with essays on issues and biographies which is building up into an authoritative, mini-encyclopaedia of women’s history. All entries are written by university academics or published history authors.

Most important, of course, were the articles to appear in our launch issue. I was lucky to know many academics researching women’s history and was shameless in asking them to write for me. Our first issue included a mix of articles including the history of women pirates and women’s love lives in ancient Greece, to the significance of girls’ school stories and Bess of Hardwick, plus book reviews, interviews, listings and so on.

We launched HerStoria just as the financial crisis hit – so getting funding was impossible. We had to use savings and any income we could find to get going, and everyone on the magazine (except contributors) are working for free, fired by a passion to get women’s history to a wider audience. There has been little money for marketing or advertising alas, so we are so pleased that HerStoria is growing via favourable reviews and word of mouth. In April we learned that Library Journal in the States included us in their ‘best ten magazines of 2009’.

2. Your website notes that “HerStoria magazine aims to be the place to go for a feminine slant on history.” Can you tell us why you think there is a need for a feminine perspective on history and how this factors in the kind of authors and articles you include?

As mentioned, women’s history only occasionally makes it into mainstream magazines, which is why HerStoria is needed. Of course, History Today, the BBC History Magazine and other journals (including the growing band of family history magazines) are wonderful publications producing authoritative history. However, the former at least tend to view history from mostly the traditional ‘male’ standpoint; HerStoria provides a complement to this and is the only (as far as we know) specialist women’s history magazine for a popular audience.

Why does history need a feminine slant? Well, history is an amazingly varied subject, but this often does not get across (which may be one of the reasons why it is losing popularity in schools). If there is ‘traditional’ history I guess it is political, military and economic history, and the history of empire, familiar from the classroom. This has typically been taught from a male viewpoint, with the addition of ‘special women’ such as Queens, Boudica or the suffragettes. Yet look at history from the women’s view and, like a kaleidoscope, everything changes. Women’s history disorganises the given historical canon, so much so that even accepted historical periods and categories can come into question. Pioneering women’s historian Joan Kelly once famously asked ‘Did women have a renaissance?’ Arguably, no …. and the history of democracy would look very different if told from the perspective of women. This is not to challenge the validity of ‘traditional’ history, just to point out how partial it is. To present history from just the women’s angle would be as skewed as presenting it only from the vantage point of men.

The articles and authors featured in HerStoria are chosen to convey the exciting breadth of women’s history. Although we include biographic articles, our aim is to look at context and issues and to relate to the wider situation and experiences of women at any particular time. We also like to make our history relevant to today; we have carried, for example, articles on women historians in the media, on why femininity and science has such a difficult relationship, from the 16th century to 2010, and the history of women and Christianity and what this tells us about modern wrangling over female priests.

We especially like to include quirky, unexpected history, often found in our regular features ‘Women’s history walk’ and ‘Curator’s choice’.

3. What can readers expect in terms of content related to the Middle Ages? (Perhaps you could tell us about some of the medieval articles that have already been published).

So much more research is being done into the lives of medieval women, and they are not quite as anonymous as they were even ten years ago. Our current issue, Summer 2010, in particular has a medieval theme. It includes a 3-part article on the backgrounds and experiences of women in England’s medieval monasteries, an in-depth look at a 12th-century female scribe who had mastered ‘secret writing’ (thought usually the preserve of men) and an interview with Sarah Dunant about researching her Renaissance fiction. We have more medieval-focused articles planned for future issues, including one on medieval healers and ‘cunning folk’.

4. Can you also tell us about any future plans you have with HerStoria and how you might continue to build on its success so far?

We have just made available to a digital edition of HerStoria to subscribers with www.exacteditions.com and have launched into independent shops with our current Summer issue. We have, so far, published six women’s history walks around various UK cities and have as many more in preparation; one idea is to publish these as an HerStoria book in due course. However our main aim now is to keep on getting leading historians of women’s history to share their research with us, to produce really entertaining and authoritative history, and to earn ourselves more readers!

We thank Dr. Jones for answering our questions

Click here to go to the HerStoria website

Click here to see their page on Facebook

Click here to follow HerStoria on Twitter

12 Jul 2010
Tags: Women’s Studies
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Interview with Bernard and David Bachrach

We interviewed Bernard S. Bachrach (University of Minnesota) and David Bachrach (University of New Hampshire) who are father and son, and both professors of medieval history. We spoke with them at the 2010 International Congress on Medieval Studies, where we talked about how they became interested in medieval history, and some of the challenges they have as academics in researching, teaching and publishing.

Bernard S. Bachrach’s works include:

Early Carolingian Warfare: Prelude to Empire

Fulk Nerra, the Neo-Roman Consul 987-1040: A Political Biography of the Angevin Count

Merovingian Military Organization, 481-751

David Bachrach’s works include:

Religion and the Conduct of War c.300-c.1215

Saladin: The Sultan and His Times, 1138–1193

They jointly edited and translated:

The Gesta Tancredi of Ralph of Caen

11 Jun 2010
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Tips on Buying a Medieval Sword

We interviewed Robert of Swords4You.com, who sells medieval swords and other medieval replica products, and ask him for some tips about what kind of medieval swords one can buy, and what someone should look for when buying one of these weapons.

11 Jun 2010
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Black Death – Interview with Dario Poloni

Black Death, a supernatural thriller set in England in the year 1348, will be coming to movie theaters next month. Starring Sean Bean, the movie centers around the efforts of a monk and a group of knights to learn the secret why a remote village is not being effected by the plague which is ravaging Europe.

We are pleased to interview Dario Poloni, who wrote the screenplay for the film. He gives us some new insights about the movie:

How did you come up with the idea of setting a supernatural thriller in the Middle Ages?

I have always been fascinated by history and feel it is an underused resource in British films, certainly film makers tend to favour some periods of our history over others, and pre-Elizabethan England is not seen that often. For me just the name ‘The Dark Ages’ is enough to get the imagination going. I’m not sure I’d classify the film as supernatural, that decision is for the audience to make.

What was so appealing about the episode of the Black Death to make it your background to the story?

As a backdrop the Black Death is a writer’s dream, a chaotic, turbulent and unpredictable world. It’s hard to draw too much of a parallel between today’s epidemics / health concerns and what happened back in 1348, partly because the world was so different then, as was the mindset of the average person. Though I believe fear of contagious disease is part of the human psyche, and of course that made this period especially interesting. But just as much of an attraction was the ‘Wild West’ aspect, the lawlessness, the fear of the unknown and the lack of central organisation .

Anytime you make a film set in another historical era, a balance needs to be achieved between achieving a realistic look to the movie and making it accessible to a modern audience. Was their a challenge for you in doing this when creating dialogue and developing the plot?

I decided immediately not to go for Shakespearian / period type dialogue, but instead to use a robust Anglo Saxon that hopefully does not sound modern but is at the same time completely accessible. The look of the film is more in the hands of the director and set designer but I felt it was in keeping with the mood I wanted to create and also more authentic to set the story in remote, rural locations – as at that time the majority of the population did not live in large towns – and of course this helped with the budget!

In the end, how do you think the audience will react to Black Death when they see it?

My hope is that people will see the film as an intriguing and chilling story, set in a period of history about which they may have heard but know very little. The aim of everyone involved, the director, myself, the actors, was to make something that would have popular appeal and at the same time give you something to think about. The medieval world was truly fascinating for all sorts of reasons, hopefully we have captured a small piece of what made it such an interesting period. Ultimately the aim of the film is to entertain, to take you out of your world and place you into another one for 90 minutes – I’m optimistic we have achieved that.

We thank Dario Poloni for answering our questions

Black Death hits British movie theaters on June 11th. Click here to see a trailer for the film.

14 May 2010
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Interview with Jack Whyte

We speak with Jack Whyte, author of a dozen historical fiction novels, including The Camulod Chronicles (A Dream of Eagles) series and The Templar Trilogy series. We discuss how he became an author, his writing style, and his upcoming book, The Forest Laird, which will begin a new trilogy set in Scotland during the days of William Wallace and Robert the Bruce. The Forest Laird will be released in September 2010. The video is split into three parts: