IN THIS immensely readable and academically rigorous book, Hetta Howes has succeeded in assimilating a vast array of material about the circumstances and contributions of women in medieval times, when the material is itself scattered, hidden, piecemeal, and prejudiced.
She focuses on four extraordinary women writers: Marie de France (the poet), Julian of Norwich (the mystic), Christine de Pizan (the widow), and Margery Kempe (the wife). She does so thematically, drawing on hundreds of other sources and stories to give these women contexts that only emphasise how pioneering they were.
“Knocked up” — childbirth: I was particularly struck by Howes’s description of birthing chambers to which the mother withdrew, prepared more or less ornately, peopled by supporting women and things that would aid the birth: amulets, images, wall hangings, not men. “Tied down” — marriage: the pressure to marry was inordinate, resistance to it a political, economic, and religious power struggle.
“Bit on the side” — accounts of extramarital affairs: so often the sexual misconduct of a woman was given as the reason for a man’s misfortune. The focus, religious and social, on women’s sexual behaviour was, frankly, obsessive.
“Wanderlust” — the desire to travel: in the case of Margery Kempe, her wanderlust got her to Jerusalem, journeying without her husband, imagine, in the teeth of continuous hostility and opposition.
“Hustling” — engaging in business: when Christine’s husband died, he left her almost penniless and with three children to support. Instead of marrying again, which she had no desire to do, she picked up her pen and made her living by writing, showing immense business perspicuity as she did so, ensuring that her manuscripts were dedicated to those who could bring her fame or fortune or both. “Making friends” remarks on the dearth of material, then as now, about female friendship forged not in order to discuss men, but for its own sake.
“Influencing people”: Marie of France signed every piece of her writing with her own name, ensuring knowledge of authorship, and clearly used her writing to influence, inter alia, the political troubles of France. “Having it all?” looks at how these writers juggled the many calls on them and managed to prioritise the most important, a perennial challenge for women.
“Death” and the writers’ visions of heaven: Marie’s was the end of quest, full of chivalric love, like her poems; Julian’s was an end of suffering, where “all shall be well”; Christine’s was effectively a library (that’s my heaven), and Margery’s was a place of acceptance, community, and good will. In the concluding chapter, “Afterlife”, Howes discusses the legacies of these four women and comments on the ways in which there are surprising similarities, some good, some not good, for women today.
This is a valuable contribution to our understanding.
Dr Claire Gilbert is the author of Miles to Go before I Sleep (Hodder & Stoughton, 2021). Her latest book, I, Julian: The fictional autobiography of Julian of Norwich (Books, 6 April 2023), is available in paperback.
The author Hetta Howes will be speaking at the Festival of Faith and Literature in February 2025. Tickets can be purchased from faithandliterature.hymnsam.co.uk, with a discount for Church Times subscribers.
Poet, Mystic, Widow, Wife: The extraordinary lives of medieval women
Hetta Howes
Bloomsbury £22
(978-1-3994-0873-8)
Church Times Bookshop £19.80