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Fiery Floripas: The Muslim Warrior Woman in Mediaeval French and English Literature

Fiery Floripas: The Muslim Warrior Woman in Mediaeval French and English Literature

Paper by Eva Simmons

Given online by Lucy Cavendish College on June 2, 2021

Excerpt: This evening my own focus will be on their counterparts in European literature, and specifically that of France and England. I first got interested in medieval warrior women when I began researching stories featuring love affairs between Christians and Muslims from the Middle Ages onwards. I was primarily interested in the ones that end happily so to speak – in other words, they end with the love of getting married and living one hopes happily ever after, which may not be everyone’s idea of a happy ending, but I think the authors and audiences probably did think so.

Dr Eva Simmons is a journalist and academic. She worked for the BBC as a broadcast journalist for 25 years, including stints teaching journalism for the BBC World Service in Romania and Malawi. Her latest project is a book called, A Slave to Love: Muslim-Christian Encounters in Literature. Dr Simmons will begin a period as a Visiting Scholar at Lucy Cavendish later this year.

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Top Image: British Library MS Egerton 3028   fol. 94

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