Poet, Mystic, Widow, Wife

‘A fascinating book about four women – it tells us so much about their world, and about our own… What jumps off the page is the liveliness of the women, their passion, their courage and their own way of being…’ PHILIPPA GREGORY, author of The Other Boleyn Girl and Normal Women

‘A celebration of female ambition and endeavour… enormous fun’ The Sunday Times

A spectacular, vivid, groundbreaking work of history which takes us into the minds and lives of medieval women.

What was life really like for women in the medieval period? How did they think about sex, death and God? Could they live independent lives? And how can we hear their stories?

Few women had the luxury of writing down their thoughts and feelings during medieval times. But remarkably, there are at least four extraordinary women who did. Marie de France, a poet; Julian of Norwich, a mystic and anchoress; Christine de Pizan, a widow and court writer; and Margery Kempe, a “no-good wife”. In their own ways these four very different writers pushed back against the misogyny of the period. Each broke new ground in women’s writing and left us incredible insights into the world of medieval life and politics.

This mesmerizing book is an unforgettably lively and immersive journey into the everyday lives of medieval women through the stories of these four iconic women writers, some of which are retold here for general readers for the first time.

Author Biography

Dr Hetta Howes is a Lecturer in Medieval and Early Modern Literature at City, University of London, and a BBC/AHRC New Generation Thinker. She regularly contributes to broadcasts on BBC Radio 3 and 4, as well as writing for publications such as The Times Literary Supplement and BBC History Extra. She has a BA and MPhil from Cambridge University and a PhD from Queen Mary, University of London.