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You can watch today’s lecture in the above video (click “watch now” to pull up the page for this lecture) and you can adjust the playback speed of the lecture using the arrows in the bottom righthand corner of the video player.

You can also find the written copy of the lecture below, just in case you’d like to follow along with the recording. You can find a list of suggested readings at the bottom of the written lecture. Please feel free to post any thoughts, questions, or ideas you’d like to discuss in the comments.

I hope you enjoy this lecture about the scandalous women of the House of York!

Lecture 14 - The Scandalous Women of the House of York

When we think of the House of York, most of us probably think of Richard III or his brother, Edward IV. When we think of the women of the House of York, we probably think of their wives, Anne Neville and Elizabeth Woodville. Or maybe we think of their mother, Cecily Neville. We’ve already talked about several women in this course, especially the Yorkist matriarch, Cecily Neville, but for this lecture, we’re going to travel a bit back in time: to take a look at their predecessors – the women of the House of York before the tumultuous period of civil wars at the close of the fifteenth century.

These women weren’t constantly preoccupied with the maneuverings of civil war like some of the other late medieval women we’ve talked about in this course. But the women of the House of York we’ll be talking about today did see their fair share of scandal, both on a personal and on a political level. Before the House of York made a claim to the throne, its members were setting the realm on fire with intrigue, kidnappings, and love affairs.

The women you’ll be hearing about in this lecture defied norms and expectations. They thought for themselves and made their own decisions, sometimes (and maybe even often) acting impulsively and to the detriment of their own House.

But these women don’t just have fascinating stories that illuminate their own time. I’d also argue that their actions had direct impact generations later, when the House of York would take up their own claim to the throne.

Their lives and experiences give some helpful context to the better-known Yorkists that would come after them — Edward IV and Richard III, their father, Richard, Duke of York, and — perhaps especially — to their mother, Cecily Neville. While Cecily might have been known as Proud Cis due to her own sense of pride in both her own ancestry and her husband’s, the family she married into was anything but prim and proper.

Let’s dive in.

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You can watch today’s lecture in the above video (click “watch now” to pull up the page for this lecture) and you can adjust the playback speed of the lecture using the arrows in the bottom righthand corner of the video player.

You can also find the written copy of the lecture below, just in case you’d like to follow along with the recording. You can find a list of suggested readings at the bottom of the written lecture. Please feel free to post any thoughts, questions, or ideas you’d like to discuss in the comments.

I hope you enjoy this lecture about medieval women and their personal relationships!

Personal Relationships: Medieval Women as Friends and Lovers

We spent the last lecture getting to know one particular medieval noblewoman – Blanche, the Duchess of Lancaster. But while that lecture focused mostly on Blanche’s relationships within her family, this will explore other types of relationships, particularly through a closer look at the life of one of Blanche’s dearest friends, a member of the ducal household named Katherine Swynford.

Over their years together, Blanche and Katherine would develop a close relationship. With Katherine being a foreign knight’s daughter and Blanche being one of the wealthiest and best politically-connected women in all of England, a friendship may have seemed unlikely between the two. But a deep friendship developed, with the duchess and her servant forging a bond that would outlast even death.

We talked a bit earlier in this course about Katherine when we discussed her sister, Philippa, who would go on to marry the most famous author from medieval England: Geoffrey Chaucer. Katherine and Philippa came to England as children, where they were raised in Queen Philippa of Hainault’s nursery alongside the royal – and many noble – children.

It was likely in Queen Philippa’s household that Katherine and Blanche first met. As Katherine would later work as a governess herself (to Blanche’s children, no less, as will be discussed below), it is likely she had some sort of education while living in the queen’s household, with the chronicler Jean Froissart claiming that Queen Philippa had actually employed Blanche as the tutor for some of the young girls in her care, Katherine included.

At some point, Katherine left Queen Philippa’s household, instead taking up a new position in the household of the duke and duchess of Lancaster. We know that Katherine had made this move by at least 24 January 1365, with some scholars arguing that she was actually in the Duchess’s household at the time of the birth of Blanche’s daughter, Philippa, in March 1360. If this was the case, the eleven-year-old Katherine would have likely been employed as a caregiver in the infant’s nursery.

If Katherine was in the ducal household by the time she married in 1362, then it is likely that the thirteen-year-old girl had her marriage arranged for her by her employers, Blanche and her husband, John of Gaunt. This is perhaps further suggested by the fact that Katherine married another servant within the ducal household, Sir Hugh Swynford, a soldier who was in the employ of John of Gaunt by 1361. It is around this time that the thirteen-year-old Katherine was married to Sir Hugh, likely aged around twenty-one or so himself.

Katherine would have several children with Sir Hugh, with her own pregnancies often overlapping with those of Duchess Blanche. By the time of Katherine’s first pregnancy, Blanche likely already had two children of her own – Philippa, discussed above, and a son named John after his father, likely born at some point in early 1362.

Katherine likely gave birth to her first child – a daughter named Blanche in honour of the Duchess – in 1363, possibly right around the time that Blanche gave birth to her third child, a daughter named Elizabeth, on 21 February 1363. By the time Katherine’s Blanche was five years old, she was placed in the chambers of the ducal daughters, becoming a playmate and lady-in-waiting to both Philippa and Elizabeth, Blanche’s daughters.

The names of so many children can make things a bit confusing, but it goes to show that Katherine and Blanche were living intertwined lives, with the two women being near constant companions while they were each experiencing pregnancies and childbirth. When she was not in her own confinement, Katherine would have continued to serve her Duchess and friend, likely working in the ducal nursery and possibly even tending to her own children on a daily basis alongside those of Blanche and Gaunt.

Katherine would have been a constant source of help and companionship to the Duchess, and it’s easy to see how the two of them would have bonded over shared pregnancies, deliveries, and experiences in the trying days of early motherhood.

Katherine’s next daughter, Margaret, was born around 1364 or 1365, with Blanche having another baby – a second son, named Edward after the king – also in 1365. Blanche would almost immediately become pregnant again, giving birth to a third son, also named John on 4 May 1366 – indicating that the first John, born in 1362, had likely sadly passed away by that point.

Child loss was an unfortunately common occurrence in the Middle Ages, with even children from royal and noble families falling victim to a range of diseases and ailments that regularly struck them down in their early years. Despite what some scholars have tried to allege, medieval parents would have been devastated at the loss of their children, who they cared deeply for as individuals. Blanche would have undoubtedly been in need of comfort following this traumatic event, and it is likely that Katherine was there for her friend, helping her process her grief and try her best to move forward for her husband and surviving children.

Both Blanche and Katherine found themselves in England without their husbands in the autumn of 1366, with Gaunt and Sir Hugh both on the Continent attempting to pursue Castile. A pregnant Blanche and a heavily-pregnant Katherine spent Christmas 1366 at Bolingbroke Castle in Lincolnshire.

They were likely joined by their children: Blanche’s two daughters, Philippa and Elizabeth, and possibly Edward and the seven-month-old infant, John, along with Katherine’s two daughters, Blanche and Margaret. The mothers celebrated the Christmas season together with their children, forming a sort of blended household similar to the royal nursery where they had both grown up.

Sometime in mid-February, Katherine left Blanche’s side to travel to Lincoln, where she would give birth to her first son, Thomas. Blanche meanwhile would stay at Bolingbroke Castle, where she would give birth in April to her only son to survive to adulthood, Henry, who famously came to be known as Henry Bolingbroke and eventually King Henry IV.

Thomas would be the last child Katherine would have with Sir Hugh and Henry would be the last child to survive to adulthood that John of Gaunt would have with Blanche. Blanche would give birth one more time, though, to a daughter named Isabel, likely after her own mother, some time in 1368. But neither the baby nor the Duchess were to live to see the end of that year.

The twenty-six year old Blanche would die at Tutbury Castle in Staffordshire on 12 September 1368, to the devastation of her husband and her household staff. Like her parents and sister, it is likely that Blanche was killed by another resurgence of the Black Death. Gaunt, who was abroad at the time, would go into an elongated period of deep mourning upon hearing the news of the death of his young wife.

Katherine similarly went into mourning for her Duchess and friend. She and Blanche had likely spent more time with one another throughout the past seven years than they had spent with their husbands, experiencing pregnancies and raising their children together. Although we do not have definitive proof, it is possible that Katherine was with Blanche at Tutbury, possibly caring for her Duchess through her final illness. We do know that Katherine accompanied Blanche’s remains to London, where she likely attended the Duchess’s elaborate funeral at the Old St. Paul’s Cathedral.

Exactly what happened to Katherine career-wise in the first few months following her Duchess’s death is unclear: she may have stayed on in Gaunt’s employ as a familiar face to help care for the grieving children, or she might have relocated to her own home of Kettlethorpe. Katherine’s eldest daughter, Blanche, continued to live with the duchess’s children and it is possible Katherine lived there as well, but no historical record survives to confirm Katherine’s presence.

What is clear is that at some point by the early 1370s, Katherine had begun a great love affair with Gaunt – her deceased friend’s husband: a love affair that would scandalise the realm.

Katherine’s husband Sir Hugh had died in late 1371 in Aquitaine where he had been serving Gaunt, who himself had just married Princess Constance, the daughter of King Peter of Castile. Although hostile chroniclers would later state that Katherine and Gaunt’s infamous affair began during the life of Hugh – or, according to some, even the life of Blanche – there is no evidence that this was the case.

Katherine and Gaunt likely began their affair in early 1372, when Katherine and her sister, Philippa, were probably serving as ladies-in-waiting to the new Duchess – Constance – in the ducal household based out of Hertford Castle, where they were joined by Blanche’s children.

The twelve year old Philippa, eight year old Elizabeth, and five year old Henry would have been comfortable with Katherine, having likely all known their mother’s friend from their earliest memories. At a time when they were having to adjust to the arrival of a new mother-figure, it would make sense for Katherine to be living with them to provide guidance and moral support.

But it seems this support extended beyond the duke’s children. The affair between Katherine and Gaunt was likely already in full force by 1 May 1372 when Gaunt – living at his extravagant London residence, the Savoy Palace – gave £10 “to our very dear damoiselle Katherine de Swynford.”

This was quickly followed two weeks later by an increase in Katherine’s annuity by 30 marks, which Gaunt claimed was due to her close friendship with his first wife, explaining that the increase in pay was “for the good and pleasant services she rendered to our dear companion” – meaning Blanche – “and for the very great love which our companion rendered to Katherine.”

The next month, King Edward III gave Katherine control of the Swynford properties that her husband had left to their son, allowing her to run the properties until Thomas came of age; in return, Katherine had to take an oath not to remarry without the permission of the king.

By the next spring, Katherine was openly living with Gaunt at his Savoy Palace. It was at this time that she was likely given the position of governess to Gaunt and Blanche’s daughters, ensuring that she would be spending the vast majority of her time with Gaunt, travelling with him and his daughters between their large collection of properties.

Katherine likely helped Duchess Constance deliver her first child – ironically named Catherine – and possibly served her in the same childcare capacity as she had served Gaunt’s first Duchess during Constance’s postpartum recovery. Following the birth, Katherine was paid to deliver the news to King Edward that he had another granddaughter.

Constance would have a second child with Gaunt – a son named John after his father – but the baby would sadly die in infancy. While Constance likely knew about her husband’s affair, she seems to not have been overly concerned with it. Or she knew she had no real say over her powerful husband’s actions.

The affair would have been hard to miss. Around the time of the birth of Constance’s daughter, Katherine was likely also pregnant with the first child she would have with Gaunt – a son, named John for his father. When it came to choosing a surname for the baby, neither Swynford nor Roët nor Plantagenet seemed appropriate; instead, Gaunt and Katherine chose the surname Beaufort, a name that would be used for all of their children together.

Katherine would have at least another three children with the duke – Henry in 1375 (likely named after Blanche’s father, the first duke of Lancaster), Joan in 1377 (Joan Beaufort – the matriarch from the vast Neville family we discussed a few lectures back and the mother to Cecily Neville), and Thomas in 1381.

Gaunt recognized all of Katherine’s children as his own, and he seemed to have no qualms in showing Katherine off as his mistress. In addition to openly living together at the ducal residences, Gaunt sent his lover regular gifts of money, wine, firewood, and building materials.

Gaunt kept Katherine with him at almost all times while he was in England. She was regularly in attendance at court and official functions, often in a highly visible position directly beside her lover, sparking outrage and accusations of impropriety against the two of them. In another work by Chaucer, it is possible that Katherine is portrayed in her new role as mistress to one of the most powerful men in the country.

Katherine is likely the woman featured front-and-almost-centre in the below frontispiece to Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde, surviving today at Cambridge University as Corpus Christi College MS 061.

The image depicts a scene at the court of King Richard II, the young grandson of Edward III (and nephew of Gaunt) who took over as king upon Edward’s death in 1377. Chaucer is shown reading to a crowd of gathered nobles – including the king himself.

The woman thought to be Katherine is dressed in great finery, wearing a blue, ermine-lined gown with golden embroidery and a golden headdress. She has her arm draped around a younger woman in a similarly lavish dress, identified by some scholars as Joan Beaufort, Katherine’s daughter with Gaunt and the future mother of Cecily Neville.

Gaunt is possibly also depicted in this image, likely on the far left dressed in the long red robes, making the frontispiece possibly function as a family portrait with Gaunt, his mistress, and one of their beloved children.

Katherine was not just a mother to her own children with Gaunt and those from her first marriage, but she also served as a step-mother to Gaunt’s children with Blanche: Philippa, Elizabeth, and Henry. As was the case with so many families at the time, widowhood and remarriage necessitated the blending of families, as children were often left without mothers and fathers and husbands and wives were often left without spouses.

In the case of Gaunt and Katherine, this mixing of families seems to have been met with great success. Possibly because the children had all grown up together or possibly due to Katherine’s kind and caring nature – or, perhaps most likely, both – Gaunt’s children with Blanche, Katherine’s children with Hugh, and Gaunt and Katherine’s children together all appear to have gotten along very well and remained extremely close into adulthood.

For his part, the future Henry IV always considered Katherine to be a mother to him and considered her son, Thomas, to be like a brother. Both Thomas Swynford and Henry’s Beaufort half-siblings were instrumental in providing support to Henry when he usurped the throne from Richard II in 1399, becoming King of England himself. As the new king’s family, they were all richly rewarded and honoured early on in his reign.

Although their families blended seamlessly and the two of them seemed to be genuinely in love, Katherine and Gaunt were not without their detractors. Gaunt was condemned for his open relationship with Katherine during his marriage to Constance, leading the two to take a more private approach to their relationship following the criticism Gaunt faced during the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381. Although the two likely kept seeing one another, their relationship was much less openly visible and the condemnation of their affair seemed to die down.

During these years, Katherine would spend more time at her own homes, mostly Kettlethorpe Hall. She and her daughter, Joan Beaufort, often visited Mary de Bohun, the young wife of Gaunt and Blanche’s son Henry Bolingbroke, with both of them eventually entering into Mary’s household in 1387.

Again one of Katherine’s duties was likely taking care of Henry and Mary’s infant son, Henry of Monmouth – the future King Henry V. It was also in this year that King Richard II made Katherine a Lady of the Order of the Garter, the highest honour an Englishwoman could receive, likely again indicative of the close relationship she and Gaunt continued to share.

When Constance of Castile died on 24 March 1394, Gaunt was quick to act. He applied for a papal dispensation to marry his long-time mistress, with the wedding taking place on 13 January 1396 at Lincoln Cathedral. Later that year, all four Beaufort children were legitimised, increasing their marriage prospects and social positions, as was discussed with the case of Joan Beaufort.

Finally, after about twenty-five years of patiently waiting, the Duke and his Duchess were able to make their relationship official. She unfortunately would not get to enjoy her position as Gaunt’s official wife for long, as just over three short years later, Gaunt himself would die, leaving Katherine behind to remember the great love they had shared.

Katherine Swynford wasn’t the first nor would she be the last woman in late medieval England to embark upon an illicit affair. Unlike most of these other women, Katherine actually benefited from doing so. Most women in that type of a situation would have faced public outcry and shame, particularly if they fell pregnant outside of marriage as Katherine did.

Due to her high connections with both John of Gaunt and two kings – Gaunt’s father Edward III and nephew Richard II – Katherine was able to weather any political or personal turmoil thrown her way and still manage to die peacefully on 10 May 1403 in quiet dignity, the step-mother of the new King of England.

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Suggested Readings

Amin, Nathen. The House of Beaufort: The Bastard Line that Captured the Crown. Stroud: Amberley Publishing, 2017

Bolton, Kirsty and Lauren Sisson, eds. Motherhood in the Medieval World: Mothers in Literary and Textual Sources, c. 300-1400. Turnhout: Brepols, 2026

Cantor, Norman F. The Last Knight: The Twilight of the Middle Ages and the Birth of the Modern Era. New York: Free Press, 2004

Carr, Helen. The Red Prince: John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster. London: Oneworld Publications, 2021 (This book just so happens to be our next non-fiction bookclub read - send me a message if you’d like to join!)

Goodman, Anthony. John of Gaunt: The Exercise of Princely Power in Fourteenth-Century Europe, 1992

Leyser, Conrad and Lesley Smith, eds. Motherhood, Religion, and Society in Medieval Europe, 400-1400. London: Routledge, 2011

Sandidge, Marilyn and Albrecht Classen, eds. Friendship in the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Age, 2010

Weir, Alison. Katherine Swynford: The Story of John of Gaunt and His Scandalous Duchess. London: Vintage, 2008

Wheeler, Bonnie. Medieval Mothering. New York: Routledge, 1999

For a fictional account of Katherine Swynford’s life, I recommend Anya Seton’s 1954 novel Katherine

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You can watch today’s lecture in the above video (click “watch now” to pull up the page for this lecture) and you can adjust the playback speed of the lecture using the arrows in the bottom righthand corner of the video player.

You can also find the written copy of the lecture below, just in case you’d like to follow along with the recording. You can find a list of suggested readings at the bottom of the written lecture. Please feel free to post any thoughts, questions, or ideas you’d like to discuss in the comments.

I hope you enjoy this lecture about medieval women and their familial relationships!

Familial Relationships: Medieval Women as Daughters and Sisters, Wives and Mothers

Women lived multi-faceted and layered lives in the Middle Ages, often coping with challenges by forming and cultivating their own support systems, forging deep personal relationships with those around them from parents to siblings and from partners to friends. Our remaining lectures of this course will explore these personal relationships through the lives of some of medieval England’s leading noblewomen, beginning with Blanche of Lancaster, the first wife of John of Gaunt and the mother of the Lancastrian Dynasty.

The next lecture will explore the life of one of Blanche’s closest friends, Katherine Swynford, who would go on to scandalise the English court through her relationship to Blanche’s widower following her dear friend’s untimely death. Lastly, our final lecture of this course will focus on the inheritors of Katherine’s legacy: the women of the House of York.

The family unit was the foundation of most noblewomen’s lives in late medieval England. Most women spent the early years of their lives alongside their parents and siblings or – as was the case with many noble children during the reign of Edward III and his wife, Queen Philippa – in the households of other members of the nobility or even the royal family, often forming close personal bonds that would last throughout their lives.

While some families were large – like that of Joan Beaufort and her husband Ralph Neville – others were very small. In some of these smaller families in particular, either no male children were born or were lucky enough to survive to adulthood, leaving only daughters to carry on their parents’ titles, properties, and sometimes even the existence of an entire noble “house” whose future these women could secure only by marrying and having children of their own. Mothers in particular were under immense pressure to produce a male heir, especially if they were members of a female-only generation of a noble family.

This was the case for one of the wealthiest and most politically-important families of the early fourteenth century: that of Henry of Grosmont (c. 1310-1361), the first duke of Lancaster, and his wife, Isabel de Beaumont (c. 1320-1361). Duke Henry was an integral member of the extended royal family, himself the great-grandson of Henry III; he was also known as one of Edward III’s closest friends, one of the realm’s leading captains in the early phases of the Hundred Years’ War, and a founding member of the prestigious Order of the Garter, the most senior order of knighthood that came to be a symbol of chivalry.

The Duke was the wealthiest peer of the realm and held immense power and political prestige, having been honoured with the first non-royal dukedom when he had been created Duke of Lancaster in 1351.

But even the most powerful peer in the realm could not control fate. Henry and Isabel were to have only two children survive to adulthood – their daughters Maud and Blanche.

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You can watch today’s lecture in the above video (click “watch now” to pull up the page for this lecture) and you can adjust the playback speed of the lecture using the arrows in the bottom righthand corner of the video player.

You can also find the written copy of the lecture below, just in case you’d like to follow along with the recording. You can find a list of suggested readings at the bottom of the written lecture. Please feel free to post any thoughts, questions, or ideas you’d like to discuss in the comments.

I hope you enjoy this lecture about Cecily Neville and the power of a woman’s appearance in the Middle Ages!

Cecily Neville and the Politics of Appearance

On 3 May 1415 Joan Beaufort, daughter of the illustrious Prince John of Gaunt from his illicit union with Katherine Swynford, laboured in her birthing chamber. This was familiar ground for Joan, who was in the process of giving birth to her sixteenth – and last – child, the fourteenth she shared with her second husband Ralph Neville, 1st Earl of Westmorland. For Ralph, the baby Joan was birthing was his twenty-second.

With Ralph having such an impressive number of children – including eleven sons – the typical pressure to produce a male heir would have been entirely absent from Joan’s childbed. When she finally gave birth to the baby and saw that the newborn was indeed a girl, the couple would have been entirely content.

Ralph had already made lucrative matches for several of his daughters; there was no reason to believe this new child – who the couple named Cecily – would be any different.

What Joan and Ralph were unable to predict was just how lucrative of a marriage – and how incredible of a life – this child was to have. Cecily spent most of her childhood at Raby Castle in County Durham, her family’s principal residence and favourite home. This earned her one of two nicknames – the Rose of Raby – with the second nickname – Proud Cis – coming from the reportedly intense pride she had in her family and heritage in her adult life.

Even as a child, Cecily certainly had a right to be proud. Both sides of her family were major players in English politics throughout the fifteenth century, with her father’s family advancing from simple barons to one of the realm’s leading noble houses in the span of two centuries, thanks largely to a series of impressive marriages to wealthy heiresses.

Ralph himself was the eldest of several siblings, inheriting his father’s title at just twenty-four years of age and becoming a powerful lord in the north. Ralph remained loyal to Richard II throughout the last shaky years of his reign, earning him the title Earl of Westmorland in 1397.

Although the Nevilles were a powerful family at the time, it was to her mother’s family that Cecily owed much of her prestige and social pull. As the daughter of one of the favourite sons of King Edward III and Queen Philippa of Hainault, Joan Beaufort had lived a privileged life in the public eye, especially following the legitimation of Joan and her brothers in 1396 following the marriage of their parents, John of Gaunt and Katherine Swynford, who we’ll be discussing further in a later lecture. No longer considered illegitimate, Joan married Ralph two months after this announcement, bringing him into the extended royal family and herself becoming a member of the powerful Neville network.

Joan’s status was to be further elevated when her half-brother, Henry IV, became king in 1399 after usurping the throne from their cousin, Richard II. The Beaufort siblings had enjoyed a close relationship with their brother throughout their lives, and they were important sources of support for the young Henry IV when he decided to pursue the throne.

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You can watch today’s lecture in the above video (click “watch now” to pull up the page for this lecture) and you can adjust the playback speed of the lecture using the arrows in the bottom righthand corner of the video player.

You can also find the written copy of the lecture below, just in case you’d like to follow along with the recording. You can find a list of suggested readings at the bottom of the written lecture. Please feel free to post any thoughts, questions, or ideas you’d like to discuss in the comments.

I hope you enjoy learning about medieval women’s recreational activities and self-representation!

Lecture 10 - Women’s Recreational Activity and Self-Representation

As we’ve seen in our lectures over the past two weeks, women knew how to present themselves in particular ways, oftentimes using this self-presentation to achieve a particular goal. This was the case for Joan Beaufort and her daughters, including Cecily Neville, when they chose how they wanted to be portrayed in their portraits in the Neville Book of Hours, with Joan’s fur-lined mantle clearly communicating her position as a member of the royal family and each woman’s interlocking ‘S’ chain representing proud membership in the royal House of Lancaster.

This was also the case when women chose whether or not to use cosmetics or to do their hair in a certain way, with each choice being both a personal one and being part of the broader social and cultural context in which these women lived. Just like today, women in the Middle Ages could use fashion and personal adornment to present a carefully curated version of themselves to the outside world if they so wished.

This same mindset also extended to women’s pastimes and recreations in the medieval period. While much of the feasting, dancing, storytelling, and sporting that women participated in was rooted in fun and entertainment, it was also often part of a highly-visible display of manicured actions and reactions, especially for women who found themselves in high-stakes arenas like the royal court.

MS Bodl. 264: A Treasure Trove of Medieval Pastimes

One medieval manuscript that shows a wide range of pastimes and options for entertainment survives today in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, as MS Bodl. 264. It’s from this manuscript that many of the images in today’s lecture will come, and the manuscript is entirely digitized, so you can view all of its illustrations through this week’s supplemental reading link.

While the literary contents of the manuscript are mostly a retelling of the legends of Alexander the Great and Marco Polo, its illuminations and marginal illustrations give us some really interesting insights into the recreational activities of people living during the time of its creation, from the mid-fourteenth to the early fifteenth centuries.

This particular manuscript was made to impress (which you can tell by the elaborate illustrations and gold leaf), and many of the images in its pages reflect the entertainments chosen by the upper classes. Scholars think the earlier part of the manuscript may have even belonged to Edward III or his queen, Philippa of Hainault, due to its contents and elaborate illustrations.

We also know that at a later date, this manuscript belonged to Richard Woodville, the father of Elizabeth Woodville, who likely received this sumptuous collection of texts as a New Year’s Day gift in 1466, the year after his daughter was crowned queen, as we will see. Perhaps more than most of their fellow noble families, the Woodvilles were well-aware of the importance of curating appearances, and even just possessing this manuscript would have conveyed a certain amount of social prestige and opulence for the owner.

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You can watch today’s lecture in the above video (click “watch now” to pull up the page for this lecture) and you can adjust the playback speed of the lecture using the arrows in the bottom righthand corner of the video player.

You can also find the written copy of the lecture below, just in case you’d like to follow along with the recording. You can find a list of suggested readings at the bottom of the written lecture. Please feel free to post any thoughts, questions, or ideas you’d like to discuss in the comments.

I hope you enjoy learning about medieval beauty standards!

Lecture 9 - Medieval Beauty Standards: Hairstyles and Cosmetic Options

Just as they did for clothing, as the lecture last week discussed, women had several options for hairstyles and headgear in the later medieval period. Women could wear their hair in a variety of designs and styles, with young unmarried women being able to wear theirs loose and uncovered while married women typically used elaborate styles or coverings to tightly bind or conceal their hair entirely.

If women preferred an up-do with exposed hair, they could gather their hair into golden cauls or nets, or they could utilise one of the most popular hair techniques of the Middle Ages: plaiting. Plaited hairstyles could range from unadorned braids (like those featured in the top image below) to elaborately ornamented plaits framing the face (like those in the lower image).

In most of these styles, hair was parted in the middle before being divided into braids, with fake hair sometimes being used to achieve particular looks, with some women even using hair from a horse’s mane to give them the appearance of having a fuller head of hair.

Noblewomen usually used maidservants to help them achieve these styles, with each noblewoman having at least one or two maidens in her employ who would have been known for her hairstyling skills. These styles would often take considerable time to accomplish, with women waking up early to ensure they had time to achieve the complicated – but desired – looks.

In addition to creating elaborate designs with hair itself, medieval women could also wear headdresses and other fashionable headgear. Women of the upper classes are often depicted wearing hennins – the seemingly gravity-defying headdresses often depicted with veils attached that appear in so many medieval portraits from the fifteenth century, like that of Mary of Burgundy and her ladies, below.

Proper crowns were of course limited to the use of royal women, with queens and princesses often wearing their jewels on formal occasions like weddings, holidays, and state occasions.

The oldest surviving royal crown known to have been used by royalty in England dates to this period. The Crown of Princess Blanche, below, likely first belonged to Anne of Bohemia – the beloved wife and queen of Richard II – before it passed into the hands of the House of Lancaster when Henry IV usurped the throne from his cousin, Richard, in 1399.

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You can watch today’s lecture in the above video (click “watch now” to pull up the page for this lecture) and you can adjust the playback speed of the lecture using the arrows in the bottom righthand corner of the video player.

You can also find the written copy of the lecture below, just in case you’d like to follow along with the recording. You can find a list of suggested readings at the bottom of the written lecture. Please feel free to post any thoughts, questions, or ideas you’d like to discuss in the comments.

I hope you enjoy this glimpse into medieval women’s fashion!

Lecture 8 - Women’s Fashion in Late Medieval England

Over the last few weeks, we focused on the conduct considered “appropriate” for medieval women, exploring the advice and warnings that women were given regarding their actions and personalities.

This week and in the next few to follow, we will look at the different options available to women concerning their self-presentation, focusing on the clothing, hair, cosmetic, and recreational possibilities that women could pursue to express themselves to the outside world. Due to the nature of the survival of sources from the late medieval period, most of our examples for these lectures will come from the upper classes.

We will begin this unit with the everyday clothing options available to medieval women, from the material that sat closest to their skin to the elaborate outer layers that were put on display for all to see. These women had several articles of clothing that they were expected to wear on a daily basis.

These articles of clothing – and the materials they were made from – would have been determined by each woman’s social status and their income, with most women having access to pieces like a chemise or a gown. More elaborate elements of ensembles – like ermine-lined mantles and jewels – were reserved for those occupying the very upper levels of medieval society. This lecture will explore some key articles of clothing owned by women, with extra readings on medieval women’s fashion also being available in this week’s supplemental material.

Let us begin our discussion of medieval women’s clothing with the very first layer: undergarments. Physical evidence of medieval women’s underwear is scarce. Some scholars are even divided on whether or not medieval people wore underwear, but most agree that medieval people likely wore a base layer of clothing similar to what we still wear today. It can be assumed that women would have likely worn some sort of sturdy fabric layer especially during childbearing years, but the written and visual evidence for such articles of clothing is nearly non-existent.

Women likely wore underwear or braies similar to men’s – like the pair of linen underwear below, itself dating from circa 1480 and uncovered at a castle in Austria in 2008. The same excavation uncovered a bra similar to our modern bras, indicating that women may have also worn these undergarments beneath their gowns. An article on these finds is available as one of this week’s supplemental readings (linked at the end of this post).

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You can watch today’s lecture in the above video (click “watch now” to pull up the page for this lecture) and you can adjust the playback speed of the lecture using the arrows in the bottom righthand corner of the video player.

You can also find the written copy of the lecture below, just in case you’d like to follow along with the recording. You can find a list of suggested readings at the bottom of the written lecture. Please feel free to post any thoughts, questions, or ideas you’d like to discuss in the comments.

Special Reminder: Instead of a lecture next Friday, we will meet next SUNDAY on Zoom for our first (optional) class discussion. This discussion will take place on Sunday 14 June at 3:30 pm EST / 8:30 pm BST. The link will be sent out this week!

I hope you enjoy learning about women’s conduct manuals!

Lecture 7 - Words to Live By: Conduct Manuals and “The Book of the Knight of the Tower”

In the mid-fourteenth century, a French knight from Anjou named Geoffrey de La Tour Laundry put together a conduct manual for the education of his three young daughters, entitled Livre pour l’enseignement de ses filles du Chevalier de La Tour Landry – given the title The Book of the Knight of the Tower in its English translations.

This work became popular throughout France, England, and the Holy Roman Empire in the late medieval period, even maintaining its popularity into the reign of England’s Henry VIII, who had his printer publish his own copies of the manuscript in 1514, increasing its readership even more.

Several manuscript versions of Geoffrey’s book circulated throughout England in the fifteenth century, with one copy of the original French version making its way into the royal library. The history of this particular manuscript – now British Library Royal MS 19 C VII – is unknown.

It’s possible that it was part of the royal library of Edward IV or the impressive collection of books owned by Jacquetta of Luxembourg (mother to Edward’s queen, Elizabeth Woodville), or it might have been added to the royal collection by the first Tudor monarch, Henry VII, or his mother, Margaret Beaufort, a known collector of manuscripts. What we do know for sure is that all of these individuals would have been aware of this popular work, and that the royal copy of this manuscript was in the hands of the royal family in the reign of Henry VII’s son, Henry VIII.

In addition to the original French text, two Middle English translations circulated in the mid-fifteenth century, with William Caxton printing one in book form as early as 1484, making the text more accessible and affordable to a wider audience than the more expensive manuscript versions. Because printing books was cheaper and could be done on a broader scale than creating manuscripts by hand, people from the lower classes of English society had easier access to this text by the end of the fifteenth century. A Middle English version of Geoffrey’s book survives today as British Library Harley MS 1764.

Because of this incredible popularity, The Book of the Knight of the Tower gives us invaluable insights into the reading material that circulated throughout various levels of English society in the late medieval period. Literate women and girls could and did read this text for and by themselves, but it was likely also popularly read in group settings.

The chapter breakdown of the manuscript would have allowed it to be read either from beginning to end over a period of several days or weeks, or for favourite – or particularly helpful – chapters to be read and discussed by a group of interested listeners. Collective reading was a common form of entertainment and education throughout the period, with groups of family members, friends, or households gathering around the fire to read and discuss manuscripts during the colder months and lounging outside on the grass to listen to tales in the warmer weather. As we will see, The Book of the Knight of the Tower would have been sure to provide entertaining discussion material.

Geoffrey’s target audience is undoubtedly women. In his preface to his 1484 printed version of the text, William Caxton states that a certain unnamed ‘noble lady’ brought the manuscript to his attention, encouraging him to print it for the education of young people, which he states he did “for al maner people in generally but in especial for ladies & gentilwymen, daughters to lordes & gentlemen.” [“for all manner of people in general, but especially for ladies and gentlewomen, daughters to lords and gentlemen.”]

Caxton neglected to share the name of the noblewoman who brought him the original manuscript, but it is possible it was Margaret Beaufort – the mother of Henry Tudor, who at that point was soon to become King Henry VII – who had commissioned Caxton to print other books and who certainly took an interest in the education of young women.

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You can watch today’s lecture in the above video (click “watch now” to pull up the page for this lecture) and you can adjust the playback speed of the lecture using the arrows in the bottom righthand corner of the video player.

You can also find the written copy of the lecture below, just in case you’d like to follow along with the recording. You can find a list of suggested readings at the bottom of the written lecture. Please feel free to post any thoughts, questions, or ideas you’d like to discuss in the comments.

I hope you enjoy learning about women’s religious works!

Lecture 5 - Women’s Religious Works: A Treatise on Meekness

For the first few weeks of this course, we’ve explored the different lifestyles available to women living in late medieval England, focusing on women as nuns and mystics, workers and entrepreneurs, and wives, widows, and courtiers. Over the next few weeks, we’ll start our deep dive into how these women were supposed to actually live: how were women expected to act? What was considered good versus bad behaviour? What conduct was considered proper versus improper? How could a woman use her actions to help her find an ideal husband? What made a woman “good” in the Middle Ages – or, equally as interesting, what made a woman “bad”?

The sources we’ll be looking at for the next three lectures consist of both religious and secular reading material that was popular with medieval women throughout the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. These texts were composed in manuscript form and would have been purchased and read by families who could afford to do so, i.e. royalty, the nobility, and – increasingly – the merchant elite. Both reading texts and listening to texts being read were popular recreational and devotional activities, with women reading manuscripts individually and alongside others in groups, fostering imaginative and contemplative reflection on books’ religious and secular themes alike.

Today’s lecture takes as its focus the religious texts that women regularly commissioned, gifted, read, and treasured. These texts helped medieval women organise their daily lives and keep their focus on their spiritual well being, serving as a guide for prayer and contemplation on religious events, like the immaculate conception and the passion of Christ.

Women could show their devotion through the manuscripts they chose to own and reflect upon, showcasing their piety through their choice of reading material and the regularity with which they read it. At a time when religion was an integral part of everyday life, the religious texts that women read could impact both the way women saw themselves and the ways in which others saw them.

By far, books of hours were the most widely owned type of religious text for people living in England in the late medieval period. These particular texts could be small and transportable, similar to modern paperback books – allowing their owners to easily carry them or perhaps even keep them in pockets or pouches as part of their daily ensemble. They could also be large and elaborately illustrated, serving as statement pieces that owners could display to impress their company.

Noblewomen like those discussed earlier in this course would have likely had their best books of hours on show when visited by their fellow nobles. Depending on the cost of the manuscript and the preferences of the patron, books of hours could range from being elaborately illuminated with sumptuous images taking up entire pages to more modest books containing only the necessary religious texts.

Most books of hours began with a calendar of church feasts, with some manuscripts including detailed depictions of the labours of the month, giving the reader insights into the (often rural) activities that took place in each month of the year, as evidenced in the example below of the Hours of Henry VIII.

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As always, if you’d like to join our bookclub, just send me a message with your email address …

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You can watch today’s lecture in the above video (click “watch now” to pull up the page for this lecture) and you can adjust the playback speed of the lecture using the arrows in the bottom righthand corner of the video player.

You can also find the written copy of the lecture below, just in case you’d like to follow along with the recording. You can find a list of suggested readings at the bottom of the written lecture. Please feel free to post any thoughts, questions, or ideas you’d like to discuss in the comments.

I hope you enjoy learning about women at the medieval English court!

Lecture 4 - Ladies of the Court: Women at the Late Medieval English Court

Being a queen in medieval England was no simple task. A queen was expected not only to carry on the royal line by giving birth to royal children, but she was also expected to uphold a position of social power and prestige, serving as a figurehead and role model for her subjects. From the time a queen woke up in the morning until the time she laid her head on her pillow at night, she was expected to perform perfectly in this particular role. And, lucky for her, she was surrounded by a group of women who would help ensure her success.

Ladies-in-waiting – typically called “damsels” at the medieval English court – dedicated their careers to helping their queen succeed. Throughout the Middle Ages, a core group of women lived alongside their queen, rising with her in the mornings and sleeping alongside her in the bedchamber at night. These women knew the ins and outs of service, performing tasks from helping their mistress to dress and do her hair to performing entertainment through song or storytelling on long winter’s evenings to helping to deliver royal children in the birthing chamber – and sometimes even nursing those children from their own bodies.

The position of damsel was a privileged one. Unlike the peasants who toiled in the fields or the merchants who bought and sold their wares in the cities, the queen’s damsels were a select group of women – often from the nobility – who had been chosen to live and work at court. They had constant access to their mistress and regular access to her husband – the king – and to other members of the royal family and leading courtiers.

Almost more than any other woman in the kingdom, the queen’s damsels were well-placed to have successful careers and pursue avenues of power unavailable to the majority of their fellow countrymen and women. And many of them took advantage of those opportunities.

The Household of Philippa of Hainault

One medieval queen who had an impressive collection of damsels was Philippa of Hainault, wife and queen of the incredibly powerful Edward III. Philippa married Edward in 1328, when she was likely around fifteen years old. Edward had just recently become king when his mother, Isabella, worked with her lover, Roger Mortimer, to overthrow her husband and Edward’s father, Edward II.

Isabella had chosen Philippa of Hainault as her daughter-in-law, hoping that a marriage into a powerful foreign family would help to solidify her teenaged son’s new hold on power. While Isabella has her critics even still today, her choice of wife for her son cannot be criticized. Philippa and Edward shared a loving relationship, and their impressive number of children brought peace and prosperity to a divided realm.

From the very start of her time in England, Queen Philippa was surrounded by capable damsels. The chronicler Jean le Bel detailed the new queen’s impressive coronation: “There was a great host of noble lords, dukes, earls, barons, knights and high-born ladies and maidens, richly bedecked and attired, for whose sake there was much jousting and tourneying, and dances and music and glorious banquets every day: anyone who knows what befits true nobility would expect no less.”1

It seems likely that some of these high-born ladies and maidens would have been joining the new queen’s household. Queen Philippa’s mother-in-law, Dowager Queen Isabella, selected many of Philippa’s early attendants and it is likely they were at the coronation. Several of Philippa’s damsels had similarly served Isabella during her time as queen, and Isabella likely brought them into her daughter-in-law’s employ to help her adjust to her new role in a foreign country.

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You can watch today’s lecture in the above video (click “watch now” to pull up the page for this lecture) and you can adjust the playback speed of the lecture using the arrows in the bottom righthand corner of the video player.

You can also find the written copy of the lecture below, just in case you’d like to follow along with the recording. You can find a list of suggested readings at the bottom of the written lecture. Please feel free to post any thoughts, questions, or ideas you’d like to discuss in the comments.

I hope you enjoy learning about medieval noblewomen!

Lecture 3 - Marrying “Well:” Noblewomen and the Institution of Marriage

The institution of marriage was one of the key pillars on which medieval society was built and functioned. Most men and women could expect to enter into a marriage at some point in their lives, with many having second and even third marriages due to the prevalence of early deaths and widowhood, discussed below. While same-sex relationships did exist in the Middle Ages, the institution of marriage was limited to heterosexual relationships.

The majority of gentry- and noblewomen in late medieval England would be married during their teenage years. Canon law set the age of consent at twelve for girls and fourteen for boys, and in some cases girls were indeed married and expected to begin reproducing at that young of an age. The most famous example of preteen pregnancy comes from Lady Margaret Beaufort (1443-1509), who was married to Edmund Tudor (who was twelve years her senior) on 1 November 1455 when Margaret was just twelve years old.

At thirteen she would give birth to her son with Edmund: Henry Tudor, the future King Henry VII. Pregnancy and a difficult delivery at such a young age likely ravaged Margaret’s body, making her unable to have more children. It is argued that Margaret’s experience continued to impact her later in life, when she refused to allow her granddaughters to be married at such a young age for fear of them experiencing a similar fate.

Women of the upper classes were often betrothed to be married as children, with canon law allowing seven-year-olds to be engaged as long as they were given the freedom to overturn such betrothals when they reached the age of consent. This resulted in many noble families arranging marriages for their young children, with kings and queens even sometimes having a hand in these arrangements, for which Margaret Beaufort again serves as an example.

The only child of John Beaufort, a member of the prominent Beaufort family, Margaret was highly sought-after in the marriage market, with her fortune sure to make any future husband an immensely wealthy man. King Henry VI had granted the wardship of Margaret to one of his favourites, William de la Pole, Duke of Suffolk, who promptly married Margaret to his son, John, while they were both still children. When Suffolk fell from favour, Henry VI dissolved the union, instead giving Margaret’s wardship to his own half-brother, Edmund Tudor, who would marry Margaret when she legally came of age. For her part, Margaret would never recognise her marriage to John de la Pole. Because she had not yet reached the age of consent, the union was easily dissolved, with Margaret viewing Edmund Tudor as her first legitimate husband.

Strictly speaking, from the late twelfth century on, all that was really needed for marriage was the consent of both the bride and groom. While the couples’ families and communities might have preferred if the couple was married in a church in front of a priest and/or witnesses, nothing but consent was actually required. This meant that men and women could (and did) get married simply by speaking words of present consent to one another.

Margery Paston’s Forbidden Marriage

This consent did have to be in the present – not the future – tense for it to be considered binding, and it typically had to be followed by consummation (sex). This predictably resulted in instances of young people marrying without the permission of their parents, as was the case with Margery Paston (1448-1480), the eldest daughter of John and Margaret Paston, a gentry family living in Norfolk in the fifteenth century. The Pastons are mostly known for the impressive collection of letters they left behind, providing modern readers with fascinating insights into medieval family dynamics and concerns of the gentry class. But this family also provides us with some interesting glimpses of medieval marriage practices and the power women could have in deciding who they would – and in some cases would not – marry.

John and Margaret Paston had hoped that their daughter Margery would make an advantageous marriage like others in the family had done; in fact, John himself had made a very advantageous match when he married Margaret, who was a wealthy heiress of the Mautby family, a prominent gentry family who had important connections across Norfolk, situating the young couple to have a prosperous life together. John and Margaret wanted the same for their daughter. But Margery had other ideas.

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You can watch today’s lecture in the above video (click “watch now” to pull up the page for this lecture) and you can adjust the playback speed of the lecture using the arrows in the bottom righthand corner of the video player.

As always, you can also find the written copy of the lecture below, just in case you’d like to follow along with the recording. You’ll also find a list of suggested readings at the bottom of the written lecture. Please feel free to post any thoughts, questions, or ideas you’d like to discuss in the comments.

I hope you enjoy learning about medieval women in the working classes!

Lecture 2 - Working Women: Lifestyle Options for Women in the Working Classes

The religious women discussed in lecture one and the upper class women we will be discussing in our lecture next week had fascinating lives and experiences, but the vast majority of medieval women were not born into these relatively privileged positions: instead, they were born into the working classes. Most of these women would have been peasants who worked in agriculture in rural areas alongside their husbands – as discussed below – but some working class women lived and worked in England’s major cities.

During the 11th century, trade had increased, more social mobility allowed people to move to cities, and a new order of society began to emerge across western Europe. Agricultural advancements made it possible for this commercial revolution to occur. A moderate climate along with innovations in farming technology began to improve the food supply, which expanded the population through enhanced nutrition and a more ready availability of crops. As the population grew, more and more people were able to leave farms and move to cities to pursue different jobs, with a new urban population emerging of people who lived in cities and worked in trade, giving working class women options and economic opportunities that most of them had never had before.

Commerce was not new to western Europe in the 11th century, but the commercial revolution of the Middle Ages gave rise to the institutions that would be the direct ancestors of modern businesses: corporations, banks, accounting systems, and urban centres. Whereas ancient cities in the Latin West had primarily religious, social, and political functions, medieval cities were now also bustling centres of production and economic activity. The urban landscape was drastically changing and expanding, moving toward the major cities and economic centres – like London – that we know today.

Women could and did hold a wide variety of occupations in both urban and rural settings, typically working as merchants, inn-keepers, alewives or brewsters, textile producers, shopkeepers, laundresses, midwives, agricultural workers, and domestic servants. Some positions were more secure, year-round work like live-in domestic servants and laundresses for wealthier families (including wealthier peasants), while other types of positions were seasonal such as harvesting and planting crops according to the agricultural calendar. Women did much the same work as men and were expected to undertake the same intense physical labour as their male counterparts.

In an age when working class individuals were expected to physically create the items and materials they needed for survival, women were expected to contribute just as much to the family’s needs as men. Although women were expected to do as much work as men, they were often not paid as much, as evidenced in the 1388 Statute of Cambridge which set six shillings as the maximum annual wage for women labourers versus male-dominated jobs like shepherds and carters having their maximum wage set at ten shillings.

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You can watch today’s lecture in the above video (click “watch now” to pull up the page for this lecture) and you can adjust the playback speed of the lecture using the arrows in the bottom righthand corner of the video player.

You can also find the written copy of the lecture below, just in case you’d like to follow along with the recording. You can find a list of suggested readings at the bottom of the written lecture. Please feel free to post any thoughts, questions, or ideas you’d like to discuss in the comments.

I hope you enjoy learning about medieval religious women!

Course Overview

Most people have a vague idea of the Middle Ages as a time of war, famine, and powerful kings. And while the period did experience plenty of battles, crop failures, and remarkable rulers, there is much more to be explored when it comes to the medieval period, particularly about the half of the population who are typically understudied: medieval women.

We could easily have a year-long class on medieval women and their lives, but to keep things manageable over the sixteen week duration of this course, we’ll be focusing our content both geographically and temporally. This class will focus on the experiences of women in late medieval England, roughly ranging from the years 1300 to 1500, with a little bit of content falling on either side of that two-century range. Throughout this course, we will explore the lives of remarkable individuals and groups of women who lived through some of the most tumultuous periods of English history from the Black Death to the Wars of the Roses and its devastating aftermath. We will investigate the different options available to women, from marriage or singlehood, to cosmetic and clothing choices, to manners and friendships. Over the course of this clas, we will take deep dives into the lives of different women from the period, exploring these women’s lives as case studies to help us think deeper about our courses’ themes.

To start off our course, we will spend some time looking at the different lifestyles available to women, ranging from women who entered into the religious life by becoming nuns or mystics, to working women pursuing economic independence, to noblewomen who entered into advantageous marriages, and to the very highest echelons of medieval society: the royal court. We will learn about several individual women from this period: a princess nun, two religious visionaries, a king’s mistress, a determined peasant woman, two rebellious daughters from the Paston family, the thrice married Elizabeth de Burgh, and some key players at the centre of power in the royal castles and palaces dotting the English landscape.

But first, some brief context for this course. Medieval society was made up of 3 orders: those who fought, those who prayed, and those who worked. Those who fought can typically be thought of as the nobility and gentry who occupied the upper levels of medieval society: the knights and ladies who likely come to the forefront of most people’s minds when they think of the Middle Ages. Those who prayed were the religious elite: the men and women who dedicated their lives to prayer and contemplation, typically residing in a monastery or nunnery. The lowest and largest order were those who worked – the working classes who kept society running through their (often difficult) physical labour. Over the first few weeks of this course, we will explore the experiences of women from each of these social classes, considering the options available to them and the agency some women could exercise to determine the course of their lives.

And with this brief background, let us begin.

Lecture 1 - Wives Of Christ: The Lives of Religious Women

In the ancient village of Amesbury – near the site of Stonehenge – the seven-year-old Princess Mary of Woodstock’s (1278-1332) life was about to change drastically. As one of the younger daughters of King Edward I and Queen Eleanor of Castile, Mary was destined for a life in the church, trading her parents’ opulent court for a more austere life in Amesbury Priory, a Benedictine monastery. Amesbury had long been a hub of religious activity for England’s elite, with Henry II dissolving the ancient Amesbury Abbey – which had been founded in 979 – on charges of immoral conduct, and replacing it with the Priory in 1177. While the old Abbey had been exclusively a nunnery, the new Priory was a double monastery under the Order of Fontevraud, with both monks and nuns living together, albeit separately, within the Priory complex. The Priory’s inhabitants were subject to the authority of the Prioress, who was typically a woman from a noble (or royal) family.

When Princess Mary found herself at the door of her new home in August 1285, she was far from alone. The young princess was joined by thirteen other young women from noble families from across her father’s realm, having been similarly chosen by their families to dedicate themselves to a religious lifestyle. This practice was common for younger daughters of the nobility. In a time when families were often financially stretched and unable to provide adequate dowries for all their daughters to find suitable husbands, a life in the church was a viable (and much cheaper) alternative, especially for the younger daughters of large families. Mary and the other young girls were not to officially become nuns until they reached the age of twelve, but they were to live alongside the sisters of the Priory and learn the religious lifestyle from a young age.

Mary’s mighty grandmother, Eleanor of Provence, likely played a key part in convincing her son, Edward I, and daughter-in-law, Eleanor of Castile, to dedicate their daughter’s life to the Church. The Middle Ages were a deeply religious time and becoming a nun was seen as one of the most honourable vocations a woman could pursue, with religious women viewing themselves as Brides of Christ and swearing vows of chastity and poverty. They dedicated their lives to contemplating religious matters and praying for the souls of others, seeking God’s blessings and the intervention of the saints in both personal and political matters. Some nunneries even offered a quality education for girls and women, making them a popular choice for wealthy families.

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But don’t worry! We recorded the whole conversation and you can enjoy it from the comfort of your own home.

Sarah graciously gave us an hour of her time to discuss Blood Sisters, a book we’ve all truly enjoyed. I think I speak for us all when I say it was an hour very well spent.

Don’t forget we’ll be meeting to discuss Blood Sisters a second time on Sunday 3 May. If you’d like to join this Zoom conversation, just message me your email address and I’ll get the invite sent your way.

Happy reading!

Days are getting longer, flowers are starting to bloom, and weekly premodern history content is coming your way from The Historian’s Desk.

I am SO excited to share that I’m once again running my virtual course Women in Late Medieval England. This was the very first virtual course I ever created to run on my own platform, and each t…

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(And if you want MORE medieval illustrated fun, check out my lists of 10 Medie…

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