medieval = misogynist

Though there are certainly treatments of medieval gender relations that deal a little less bluntly with the complexities of an age so different to our own, it’s something that is at the forefront of my mind at the moment.

The bulk of my research is spent exploring the experiences of early medieval women, with its current phase reading late-twentieth-century feminist re-examinations of monastic women; this necessarily entails some time spent working out whether primary sources display a misogynist bias.

Outside work, however, I’m reading A Woman’s Work: Reclaiming the Radical History of Mothering by Elinor Cleghorn. I have a lot of thoughts about this book, which I’ll share soon. Most relevant for this post, though, is the writer’s obvious conviction that medieval (or, rather, simply historical male) = misogynist.1

Take the following quote, for example.

‘In the Roman Empire, during the early centuries CE, midwives and other female healers continued to be women’s most vital health caregivers. But, since men were able to study and write, they were poised once again to claim authority in medical discourse about women’s bodies during pregnancy and birth.’2

It’s subtle here, the phrase ‘once again’ betraying the author’s growing frustration, but it slips in increasingly as the discussion goes on. We read phrases such as ‘Procopius, a misogynistic sixth-century historian’,3 and see men and women pitted against one another:

‘Unlike men who exploited humoral theory and biblical myths to denigrate women’s bodies and minds, Hildegard valorised the contribution of female difference to nature’s grand scheme … She also flipped the misogynistic script on female sexual desire.’4

The point here isn’t to debate the details; I’ll save that for another post. It’s simply to state that the author has a very clear conviction about the men of the past that she is writing about: they were deeply misogynistic, and thank goodness for the women who worked tirelessly to do the real work that men often received the credit for.

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I think this book might have been what got me truly interested in the mythology of Britain.

Having picked up another of Amy Jeffs’ books, Wild, upon its publication in 2022, I was still working as a teacher and desperately keen to leave my sensible career. I’d begun a masters in History at Cambridge University, part-time, and the confluence of history and nature in Wild appealed to me deeply (I was also a country girl trapped in London…), offering bedtime reading that would enable me to escape what felt like a very humdrum, mid-pandemic life.

I snapped up Storyland, which had been published the previous year, upon finishing Wild, and you can bet that I had Saints on preorder when it was released in 2024.

Will you join our group read?

If you are interested in the history and mythology of early Britain, particularly if you find the expansive corpus of material a little overwhelming and unwieldy, then this might just be the book for you.

As we read Storyland over the next three months, Amy Jeffs’ expert hand will guide us carefully through multiple millennia of storytelling, drawing us in through her masterful words and beautiful, original, linocut drawings. We’ll explore how all this relates to the history of early medieval Britain, our focus here at , covering individual themes each month in our essays, reading lists, and discussions.

Previous Book Clubs

Entire Book Club Archive HERE

• The Dark Queens, by Shelley Puhak [non-fiction]

• Dark Earth, by Rebecca Stott [fiction]

• Lost Realms, by Thomas Williams [non-fiction]

• Hild, by Nicola Griffith [fiction]

Here’s what the blurb of the book has to say:

Soaked in mist and old magic, Storyland is a new illustrated mythology of Britain, set in its wildest landscapes.

It begins between the Creation and Noah’s Flood, follows the footsteps of the earliest generation of giants from an age when the children of Cain and the progeny of fallen angels walked the earth, to the founding of Britain, England, Wales and Scotland, the birth of Christ, the wars between Britons, Saxons and Vikings, and closes with the arrival of the Normans.

These are retellings of medieval tales of legend, landscape and the yearning to belong, inhabited with characters now half-remembered. Told with narrative flair, embellished in stunning artworks and glossed with a rich and erudite commentary.

We visit beautiful, sacred places that include prehistoric monuments like Stonehenge, mountains such as Snowdon and rivers including the story-silted Thames in a vivid collection of tales of a land steeped in myth.

How will the Book Club work?

We will read Storyland on a schedule across the months of July to September 2026, shared behind the paywall of this post, though do feel free to read on through the book if you find yourself captivated.

Each month, readers will receive:

• a brief post in the first week reminding us all of the chapters to read that month, the theme to be mindful of, and selected readings for additional study.

• an in-depth post devoted to Storyland, which will contain: a themed essay; discussion questions; a reader response section for you to share your thoughts; and an edited list of additional readings related to the next month’s section.

I am also offering a self-study/pre-reading list behind the paywall of this post, for those who want to go deeper. This is a mixture of primary and secondary source material of a more academic flavour, which will help readers to grasp better the references of the book. By no means do you need to engage with this in order to understand the book; it is simply an additional offering for those who want to explore the history further.

Ready to join us?

Behind the paywall (as the Book Club is a paid subscriber exclusive), I’ll be sharing the reading schedule and self-study/pre-reading list, so that those who want to join us can get started on sourcing a copy and reading, ahead of the first in-depth post on Saturday 25th July.

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A hush descends.

Everyone watches.

Slowly, assuredly, she steps towards the edge of the dais and takes the cup held out to her by one of her husband’s men. She drinks deeply, pauses, then descends to the main floor of the hall.

There is one man in her sights, one whose faithfulness to his king needs to be tested and secured.

Invisible to all is the racing of her heart, pounding away in her chest. She works hard to keep her hand steady as she holds out the cup; no one must know of her fear that her hospitality might be rejected, in front of everyone.

The seconds draw out long as he matches her stare. Her mouth grows dry.

Her husband, watching from his own ornately carved chair, depends on her to secure this alliance.

Her gasp is almost audible as the warrior takes the cup from her hand, drains it, and raises it high above his head to a roaring applause. It is done.

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Storyland by Amy Jeffs

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For those who are new to the Medieval Musings Book Club, it runs like this:

• We read a book over three months. A few weeks before we get going, I’ll email out the reading schedule, key themes, and optional self-study, pre-reading list.

• At the start of each month, I’ll email out a short reminder of the pages for that month, the key theme to look out for, and a few discussion questions.

• At the end of each month, I’ll email out a deep-dive post, with an extended thematic essay and space to reflect on what we’ve read.

• At the end of the three months, we’ll join together for a Substack Live Q&A to chat about the book.

The official start of the Book Club read will be 7th July, when the first monthly schedule post will be sent out, and our first deep-dive post will be on 25th July. You might, however, want to get your hands on a copy of Storyland in the meantime! (I know that shipping can take a very long time in some regions)

I can’t wait to read and discuss Storyland with you!

Make sure to subscribe if you aren’t already, so that you don’t miss out on any of the launch posts.

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Previous Book Clubs

NOT YET JOINED US?

If you are not yet a member of the Book Club but are curious about the theme of Hild and how the Book Club works, you can find all the details you need in the post linked below.

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Welcome back to another month exploring the medieval world!

For June 2026, we’ll be wrapping up the theme of women’s history that we began in April. This is my first ‘proper’ month back after the birth of my daughter in April and I’ve got some of my most favourite topics lined up, which I can’t wait to share with you! If you’re new and want to get a flavour of what we share here at Medieval Musings, you can catch all of the past month’s essays at the end of this post. Make sure to hit subscribe if you haven’t already!

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What’s On This Month

🔓 Denotes material available for free

🔒 Denotes material exclusively for paid members

🔒📚 Tuesday 2nd June. Schedule and Monthly Theme [Book Club]

Many new faces joined our paid membership after the launch of our latest Book Club read of Hild by Nicola Griffith (you can find all the details HERE if you’re interested but not yet on board). As I’ve switched up the posting schedule to allow us to read the chapters before the monthly post is shared at the end of the month, this brief post reminds us of the chapters we’ll be reading, and shares discussion themes to have in mind while reading, a space to submit your own questions, and an opportunity to introduce yourself to other Book Club members.

🔒🖋 Saturday 6th June. Women, Mead Halls, and Gossip.

Hospitality was a means of wielding political power in early medieval England - and it was one restricted almost wholly to women. Using literary sources such as Beowulf and Bede’s Ecclesiastical History, this essay will explore the ways that elite women employed such tactics on behalf of their fathers and husbands, contributing to the networks and narratives that more commonly foreground the actions of men.

📚🔓 Monday 8th June. Book Club LAUNCH.

We haven’t finished voting for our next Book Club read yet (make sure to cast your votes before Thursday 4th June!) but when we do, this post will share a full breakdown of everything you can expect from the group read. Included will be a reading schedule, overview of key themes to watch out for, a space to introduce yourselves to other readers, and a pre-reading/self-study reading list for those who want to take their research that little bit further.

If you haven’t joined us before, do check out the archive of Book Club posts. So far we’ve read…

• Dark Queens, by Shelley Puhak [non-fiction]

• Dark Earth, by Rebecca Stott [fiction]

• Lost Realms, by Thomas Williams [non-fiction]

• Hild, by Nicola Griffith [fiction]

🔓🖋 Saturday 13th June. The Surprising Truth About Early Medieval Misogyny.

I couldn’t resist rounding out our deep-dive into women’s history without addressing a pretty big topic. For so many, medieval = misogyny and while I spend a lot of time talking about how that’s an oversimplification (and we all know it), the pivotal shift from acceptance to repression happened during the early medieval period we love so much. In this post, I’ll be sharing particularly the developments that took place from the end of the seventh century onwards, enshrined in the lesser-known writings of Bede and some of his associates. From this, we’ll see how the shining contributions of women in the earliest days of medieval Christian England were gradually pushed aside and erased from the Church.

⛰️🚗 Saturday 20th June. No post this week.

I’ll be on holiday with my family this week so will take a break from posting. Usual service will resume the following week!

🔒📚 Saturday 27th June. Obsessions with Female Purity: The Problem of Royal Saintly Widows [Book Club]

In the third deep-dive post for our Book Club read of Hild by Nicola Griffith, we’ll be responding to the final chapters of the book, which continue to explore the protagonist’s experiences after her forced baptism, and the historical context for her inspiration, the real Saint hild (d. 680AD). The main bulk of the post will feature an essay exploring the early English Church’s obsession with female purity, particularly the problem of royal, saintly widows. The essay will be primarily historical, but will weave throughout comparison and reference to the chapters of Hild we’ve read this month. Finally, there will be a space for Book Club members to share their own reflections and answer discussion questions; as noted in the launch post, there will be no weekly chat discussion threads as with previous Book Club reads, so this will be the main space to reflect on the book together.

🔓📹 TBD. Book Club LIVE

At some point this month I hope to do a Substack Live to celebrate the end of our group read of Hild by Nicola Griffith, as well as answer any questions about the next book. Do join us if you can! They tend to take place in the evening GMT, and I just need to work out a new childcare situation before I confirm the date and time. I’ll make sure to give at least a week’s notice!

Join us!

To make sure that all these posts land directly in your email and/or Substack inbox, make sure to subscribe now.

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Here’s a roundup of May’s posts to give you a feel for what we’re about.

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Welcome to the second monthly post for our current Book Club read, Hild by Nicola Griffith.

Between the months of April and June 2026, we are reading one of the best works of historical fiction I think I have ever picked up.

It’s a bold claim, but I truly mean it.

Hild tells the origin story of my historical heroine, Hild of Whitby, a seventh-century Northumbrian abbess who achieved extraordinary status through her femininity in what was very much a man’s world. Using fiction to fill in the gaps in the historical record, Hild explores what might have happened before the abbess enters the pages of Bede’s narrative, the primary narrative source for this period. She is 33 years old when we first learn about her; so where did she come from?

NOT YET JOINED US?

If you are not yet a member of the Book Club but are curious about the theme of Hild and how the Book Club works, you can find all the details you need in the post linked below. The Book Club is designed to be evergreen, meaning you can join at any time without missing out.

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This time we will stay in the realm of non-fiction and, as always, stick to the early medieval period (c.410-1066).

The four books to choose from are:

• Storyland, Amy Jeffs (2021, 384 pages)

• The Private Lives of the Saints, Janina Ramirez (2015, 352 pages)

• The First Kingdom, Max Adams (2021, 480 pages)

• How England Began, Nicholas J. Higham (2026, 386 pages)

All you have to do to vote is enter your choice into the poll below, which will close in one week, on 4th June 2026. For those who want a little more information on each of the books, I’ve included the cover art and blurb for each below the poll.

Happy voting!

Storyland, Amy Jeffs

Soaked in mist and old magic, Storyland is a new illustrated mythology of Britain, set in its wildest landscapes.

It begins between the Creation and Noah’s Flood, follows the footsteps of the earliest generation of giants from an age when the children of Cain and the progeny of fallen angels walked the earth, to the founding of Britain, England, Wales and Scotland, the birth of Christ, the wars between Britons, Saxons and Vikings, and closes with the arrival of the Normans.

These are retellings of medieval tales of legend, landscape and the yearning to belong, inhabited with characters now half-remembered. Told with narrative flair, embellished in stunning artworks and glossed with a rich and erudite commentary.

We visit beautiful, sacred places that include prehistoric monuments like Stonehenge, mountains such as Snowdon and rivers including the story-silted Thames in a vivid collection of tales of a land steeped in myth.

The Private Lives of the Saints, Janina Ramirez

Skulduggery, power struggles and politics, The Private Lives of the Saints offers an original and fascinating re-examination of life in Anglo-Saxon England, as Oxford art historian and BBC presenter Dr Janina Ramirez explores the real lives of over a dozen seminal saints.

This landmark book provides a unique and captivating lens through which to explore the rich history of the Dark Ages.

The First Kingdom, Max Adams

Somewhere between the departure of the Roman legions in the early fifth century and the arrival of Augustine’s Christian mission at the end of the sixth, the kingdoms of Early Medieval Britain were formed. But by whom? And out of what?

The First Kingdom is a skilfully wrought investigation of this mysterious epoch, synthesizing archaeological research carried out over the last forty years to tease out reality from the myth. Max Adams presents an image of post-Roman Britain whose resolution is high enough to show the emergence of distinct political structures in the sixth century - polities that survive long enough to be embedded in the medieval landscape, recorded in the lines of river, road and watershed, and memorialized in place names.

How England Began, Nicholas J. Higham

In 410 CE, Roman rule of Britain collapsed, bringing a centuries-long occupation to an end. A hundred years later, Britain was splitting into two areas with contrasting cultures, a shrinking Celtic west and north, and an expansive ‘Anglo-Saxon’ south and east created by Germanic incomers. What drove this division? And why, when migrants landed in England, did their customs prevail over those of Rome - unlike anywhere else in the former empire?

In this deeply researched history, Nicholas J. Higham draws on archaeological evidence and contemporary literature, including the writings of sixth-century cleric Gildas, to challenge existing understandings. He highlights the importance of culture, warfare and language - as the arrival, spread and dominance of outsiders irrevocably changed the country. This period marked the beginnings not just of Englishness, but also of Welsh and Cornish identities.

Rich in inspiring new insights, Higham provides a fascinating account of how, as Roman Britain ended, Anglo-Saxon England emerged.

Instinctively we know that she was a ‘bad’ person who did horrible things (even if we aren’t quite able to put our finger on what it was that earned her that reputation…).

Living almost three millennia ago, the story of Israel’s most wicked queen is recorded for us in the historical texts of the Bible, chronological narratives that record the fanstastical alongside the mundane. Though many today are sceptical of the Bible and its contents, it is one of the best-attested historical texts known to us today, with a manuscript tradition to rival most ancient (and medieval) texts.

What we think of the Bible doesn’t matter though, when it comes to Jezebel. Because whether we think she was real or fictional, the story presented by the Bible’s writers solidified one of the most enduring literary tropes of all time.

Comparing a woman to Jezebel could mean only one thing: that she was very, very wicked indeed.

During the early medieval era, it became popular to lash out at particular women, in writing, by portraying them as Jezebel. And it might not surprise you to learn that there was something very specific that wound up the male ecclesiastics who told their tales…

The OG Wicked Queen

Jezebel was the wife of Ahab, king of Israel, living in the ninth century BC.

Except she was already on the back foot there. The king of Israel was supposed to marry from within his kingdom, tasked by God and his prophets with upholding the holiness of his people. Jezebel, however, was daughter of the king of the Sidonians and, therefore, worshipped Baal (i.e., not God). It didn’t take long for her to lead her new husband astray:

‘He [Ahab] set up an altar for Baal in the temple of Baal that he built in Samaria. Ahab also made an Asherah pole and did more to arouse the anger of the Lord, the God of Israel, than did all the kings of Israel before him.’1

She made things worse for herself, however, by killing off God’s prophets and committing more murder to get her own way.2 She would, for her crimes, eventually be condemned to a hideous death:

‘As for Jezebel, dogs will devour her on the plot of ground at Jezreel, and no one will bury her.’3

Queen Brunhild

Brunhild will be familiar to those who took part in our group read of Dark Queens by Shelley Puhak last summer. Born in Spain around 543 AD, she was the wife of Sigebert of Austrasia (a subsection of the Frankish kingdom), who was assassinated by his brother Chilperic while himself plotting the death of this same brother.4 Sigebert was succeeded by their son Childebert, who died young and was succeeded in turn by his own sons, Theudebert and Theuderic.

Outliving both her husband and son, Brunhild ruled as regent for a time while her grandsons were young, and this was where she began to incur the wrath of the eminent missionary churchman Columbanus. Theuderic, ruling in Burgundy where Columbanus resided, struggled with fidelity and was criticised by Columbanus for this. Brunhild was not happy and expressed her feelings, with the incident being reported by Columbanus’s hagiographer as follows:

‘When, however, the king agreed to comply with the man of God’s command and said that he would put an end to all his irregular relationships, the ancient serpent entered the mind of his grandmother, Brunhild – a second Jezebel.’5

Columbanus did not, it would seem, respond well to being contradicted.

Queen Balthild

Balthild was born a little over half a century after Brunhild, in very different circumstances: she was probably sold into slavery when she was young. Despite her humble origins, she became queen of Neustria and Burgundy as the wife of Clovis II and, upon her husband’s death, ruled as regent during her son Clothar III’s minority. Later she would retire to the monastery at Chelles, long home to Frankish queens.

Earlier in her life, however, she was not quite so holy, and it was her clash with the bishops that would lead to her being tarred with Jezebel’s brush.

‘At that time there was an evil-hearted queen named Baldhild [sic] who persecuted the church of God. Even as of old the wicked Queen Jezebel slew the prophets of God, so she, though sparing the priests and deacons, gave command to slay nine bishops.’6

Queen Iurminburh

Our final wicked queen comes from the same hagiography which recorded the curious portrayal of the otherwise-saintly Balthild: a Life of Bishop Wilfrid. Active in the later part of the seventh century, Wilfrid was a deeply divisive figure who polarised the church both in England and further afield.

One of those he incurred the wrath of was Iurminburh, queen of the Northumbrians. Married to King Ecgfrith, very little is known about her other than that she was his second wife, married at some point in the later seventh century.7 Like Balthild, she too would reform her ways and retire to a monastery in her old age; the same hagiographer who called her a Jezebel would, in turn, praise her monastic life.

His earlier description, however, is perhaps the most vile of all the Jezebel comparisons we’ve considered so far:

‘Taking his usual weapons he [the devil] sought the weaker vessel, the woman, by whom he has constantly defiled the whole world. For Ecgfrith’s queen, named Iurminburg [sic], was, at that time, tortured with envy owing to the persuasions of the devil, although, after the death of the king, from being a she-wolf she was changed into a lamb of God, a perfect abbess and an excellent mother of the community. Forthwith this sorceress shot poisoned arrows of speech from her quiver into the heart of the king, as the wicked Jezebel did when she slew the prophets of the Lord and persecuted Elijah.’8

The Perils of Defying Power

Taking these descriptions together, it becomes easy to spot the pattern: Brunhild, Balthild, and Iurminburh were labelled as Jezebels because they had the audacity to contradict a man of God. It wasn’t necessarily that Jonas of Bobbio and Eddius Stephanus (and the male ecclesiastical literary background they represent) had an issue with all women. Rather, they had an issue with strong queens who stood up to their heroes.

The eminent historian Janet Nelson eloquently put it as follows:

Brunhild clashed with Columbanus over the validity of her grandson’s relationships, specifically the children that resulted from them. A century later, Balthild was involved with the murder of a number of bishops. Her near-contemporary Iurminburh’s crime was to counsel her husband to be suspicious of Bishop Wilfrid.

All three women fulfilled the literary trope of Jezebel as the wicked queen by opposing God’s holy men. This was, for the churchmen who wrote of them, the worst possible crime deserving of comparison with the worst possible woman.

What do you think?

💬 Is the trope of Jezebel as the archetypal wicked queen one that you’ve seen used in other times or places? What other literary tropes have been used to smear the reputations of powerful women and/or queens in the periods you love to read about?

Leave a comment

Want to dig deeper?

Here are a handful of suggestions for those wanting to read more about the queens we’ve explored today.

• Eddius Stephanus. ‘Life of Wilfrid’. In The Age of Bede, edited by D. H. Farmer, translated by J. F. Webb. Penguin Books, 1998.

• Gregory of Tours. ‘The History of the Franks’. Translated by Lewis Thorpe. Penguin Books, 1976.

• O’Hara, Alexander, and Ian Wood, trans. Jonas of Bobbio and the Legacy of Columbanus: Life of Columbanus, Life of John of Réomé, and Life of Verdast. Liverpool University Press, 2017. Online resource.

• Dailey, Erin T.. Queens, Consorts, Concubines: Gregory of Tours and Women of the Merovingian Elite. Vol. 381. Mnemosyne Supplements: Late Antique Literature. Koninklijke Brill, 2015.

• Nelson, Janet. ‘Queens as Jezebels: The Careers of Brunhild and Balthild in Merovingian History’. Studies in Church History 1 (1978): 31–77.

• Wemple, Suzanne. Women in Frankish Society: Marriage and the Cloister 500-900. University of Pennsylvania Press, 1981.

‘Based on a masculine ideology that usually presents itself as neutral, literary history has generally excluded, minimized, or appropriated the roles of women in language … The standard literary histories for the Anglo-Saxon1 period do little to acknowledge the presence and tremendous importance of women in Anglo-Saxon culture, as authors, characters, or voices.’

— Marilynn Desmond, ‘The Voice of Exile’ (1990: 575)

In the scant surviving written record for the early medieval period in England, no texts are known to have been authored by a woman.

And yet, two poems written in Old English, the Germanic-derived language of those who lived between the fall of Roman rule (c.410 AD) and the Norman Conquest (1066 AD), make use of the female voice for their protagonists: The Wife’s Lament and Wulf and Eadwacer.

Preserved today in the Exeter Book, a large collection of Old English poetry collated in the late tenth century, these poems are unique in their use of a female narrator and yet much modern literary discussion argues that they must have been penned by a man.

But why?

With very different attitudes towards authorship during this early period, many poems have been handed down in manuscripts that do not contain the names of their original ‘writers’. Indeed, many of them may never have been originally ‘written’ in the way that we might do today; rather, they were performed by a scop, an often-itinerant professional. It was these performances that mattered most to the poems’ original audience, not their creator.

And so the poets, on the whole, have remained anonymous.

This post will explore the work of medieval literary historian Professor Marilynn Desmond, particularly her essay ‘The Voice of Exile: Feminist Literary History and the Anonymous Anglo-Saxon Elegy’.2 I came across this piece while researching my big writing project and found it transformational for the way that I frame my own understanding of the anonymous corpus of Old English literature and the way that it has been understood by later writers.

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Shakespeare presents her to us as a woman consumed with rage, bitterness and grief. She rages, screams and weeps but, ultimately, she is shown as nothing more than a passive victim of the men who used and exploited her.

This, however, is not the case.

Born into one of the most powerful dynasties in medieval England, Anne knew her worth, and her power. She was a great survivor, emerging with a crown on her head.

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Apologies that this was supposed to go out earlier this week. It completely slipped my mind!

NOT YET JOINED US?

If you are not yet a member of the Book Club but are curious about the theme of Hild and how the Book Club works, you can find all the details you need in the post linked below.

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You know every so often when you meet someone online who instantly feels like someone you’ve known forever, IRL?

I first connected with when she joined Substack a while ago and although our research periods are separated by close to a millennium, we ‘clicked’ straightaway. Perhaps it’s our shared passion for uncovering the stories less commonly told (especially those that lie behind the most famous figures), or perhaps it’s more down to our shared obsession with history. Either way, Amy has firmly become one of my Substack ‘friends’, and I’m truly grateful for the support and expertise she shares on here.

While I take some time away from Substack following the birth of my daughter a couple of weeks ago, I’m grateful for friends like Amy stepping in to continue providing weekly essays for subscribers. This week, I’m delighted to share a conversation we had recently exploring the education of early Tudor women (and the different opportunities they experienced compared with their late medieval forebears), figures who had been overshadowed in studies of the period, and the source materials available for studying early Tudor women.

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Welcome back to another month exploring the medieval world!

For May 2026, we’ll be continuing with the theme of women’s history that we began in April (you can catch all of April’s posts at the end of this schedule). As a number of Substack friends and colleagues hold the fort while I take the first couple of weeks off in May for parental leave, we’ll take a detour to the later medieval world (full details in the schedule below), before returning to the early medieval period towards the end of the month as I return to regular writing. I’ve got some of my most favourite topics lined up, which I can’t wait to share with you!

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What’s On This Month

🔓 Denotes material available for free

🔒 Denotes material exclusively for paid members

🔒🖋️ Saturday 2nd May. Crossing the Medieval Threshold: Education, Opportunities, and Overshadowing.

You know every so often when you meet someone online who instantly feels like someone you’ve known forever, IRL? I first connected with when she joined Substack a while ago and although our research periods are separated by close to a millennium, we ‘clicked’ straightaway. Perhaps it’s our shared passion for uncovering the stories less commonly told (especially those that lie behind the most famous figures), or perhaps it’s more down to our shared obsession with history. Either way, Amy has firmly become one of my Substack ‘friends’, and I’m truly grateful for the support and expertise she shares on here. In this essay, I’m delighted to share a conversation I had with Amy recently, when we discussed her four books on early Tudor history, taking a particular deep dive into the opportunities for women as they crossed from medieval to early modern.

🔒📚 Monday 4th May. Schedule and Monthly Theme [Book Club]

Many new faces joined our paid membership after the launch of our latest Book Club read of Hild by Nicola Griffith (you can find all the details HERE if you’re interested but not yet on board). As I’ve switched up the posting schedule to allow us to read the chapters before the monthly post is shared at the end of the month, this brief post reminds us of the chapters we’ll be reading, and shares discussion themes to have in mind while reading, a space to submit your own questions, and an opportunity to introduce yourself to other Book Club members.

🔒🖋 Saturday 9th May. Anne Neville: Queen at the Close of the Medieval Age

For this second and final guest post in April, I’m delighted to hand over the reins to fellow archaeologist , the other half of (the Substack publication she hosts with Amy McElroy). In this essay, she shares her wealth of knowledge about one of England’s final medieval queens, offering a counterpart to Amy’s essay on the other side of the early modern border.

🔒🖋 Saturday 16th May. Frauenlieder and the erasure of women’s voices from Old English poetry.

I’ll be returning from parental leave to explore one of my passions, and a perennial problem in early medieval literature: the deliberate exclusion of women writers from the surviving corpus of material. For the early medieval period, in England, it seems as if everything was either written by men (usually monks) or by anonymous writers (assumed to be men). Building on the work of scholars such as Diane Watt, however, I’ll be sharing the ways in which we can identify female voices in a very heavily male canon, however difficult that might be.

🔓🖋 Saturday 23rd May. Queens as Jezebels: how the trope of the wicked wife crept into early medieval narratives

For this month’s free essay, I’ll be sharing another of my women’s history passions (can you tell I’m excited to get back writing so have chosen my favourite topics to begin with?!). Comparisons with the biblical character of Jezebel became a familiar literary trope in the sixth and seventh centuries, in both England and Francia (roughly what is now France). Used to signify that a woman, usually a queen, had become irredeemably wicked in her behaviour towards holy men, it forms a startling counterpoint to the saintly imagery used of many other women in the narrative sources of the time. We’ll be looking at a handful of premier examples where this trope was used to explore how it polarised the descriptions of women in early medieval narratives.

🔒📚 Saturday 30th May. Royal Women and the Expansion of the Early English Church.

In the second deep-dive post for our Book Club read of Hild by Nicola Griffith, we’ll be responding to the middle chapters of the book, which explore the protagonist’s experiences after her forced baptism, and the historical context for her inspiration, the real Saint hild (d. 680AD). A synopsis video will cover the chapters read this month [though forgive me if, in the haze of early newborn days, I don’t quite manage to film this!]. The main bulk of the post will feature an essay exploring the role of royal women in the expansion of the early church, including women such as the historical Hild. The essay will be primarily historical, but will weave throughout comparison and reference to the chapters of Hild we’ve read this month. Finally, there will be a space for Book Club members to share their own reflections and answer discussion questions; as noted in the launch post, there will be no weekly chat discussion threads as with previous Book Club reads, due to my parental leave, so this will be the main space to reflect on the book together.

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New to Medieval Musings?

Here’s a roundup of April’s posts to give you a feel for what we’re about.

• ‘The Fallibility and Fragility of Mankind’: Helen Carr on medieval women and her latest book, ‘Sceptred Isle’

• Book Club: Schedule & Monthly Theme (April 2026)

• Why Feminism Didn’t Exist in the Medieval World: Kate Wagner, aka 15thCenturyFeminist, on challenging dominant narratives

• How ‘Today’s Binaries and Limits Are So Recent and Brittle’: Review and Author Interview of Dear Monica Lewinsky by Julia Langbein

• Book Club: The Making of Female Saints

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Welcome to the first monthly post for our newest Book Club read, Hild by Nicola Griffith.

Between the months of April and June 2026, we are reading one of the best works of historical fiction I think I have ever picked up.

It’s a bold claim, but I truly mean it.

Hild tells the origin story of my historical heroine, Hild of Whitby, a seventh-century Northumbrian abbess who achieved extraordinary status through her femininity in what was very much a man’s world. Using fiction to fill in the gaps in the historical record, Hild explores what might have happened before the abbess enters the pages of Bede’s narrative, the primary narrative source for this period. She is 33 years old when we first learn about her; so where did she come from?

Though we are already through our first month of reading Hild, the Book Club is designed to be evergreen, able to be picked up whenever readers find us. Below you can find full details of the schedule and first month’s readings, including additional materials for self-study, PLUS a special paid upgrade offer marking a very significant recent event in my own life (given a day ahead of its ‘official’ launch on 1st May).

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Of course, it’s every book lover’s dream to be offered a preview of an upcoming release by a big publication house, but the topic of this one seemed a bit … well … weird.

Growing up in the 1990s, I wasn’t too aware of the scandal surrounding Monica Lewinsky and Bill Clinton; somewhat understandably my parents kept me shielded from that news. But Monica’s was a name that always felt familiar, even if I couldn’t quite grasp why. It was only as an older teen that I began to learn a little more about their story.

Dear Monica Lewinsky was pitched to me by the publisher as deeply inspired by the author’s love for medieval history, particularly medieval female sanctity. Though my research interests lie primarily in the earlier medieval period, I passionately believe that it’s important to read widely, including fiction, plus I support wholeheartedly any attempt to take a well-known topic and approach it from a different, even unusual, angle.

So I decided to take the plunge… ‘Yes please!’ my email reply read. ‘I’d love to read a copy!’

You’ll be pleased to know that I wasn’t disappointed. Dear Monica Lewinsky was funny, heartbreaking and, at times, deeply relatable in ways that I could never have anticipated. I’ll go into more detail below about what I particularly enjoyed but suffice to say here that if you pick up a copy during publication week (this week!), you won’t be disappointed.

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TEENAGE AWAKENING

Dear Monica Lewinsky is written from the perspective of its protagonist, Jean, as she works through memories of a teenage summer abroad twenty years in the past. After receiving an email inviting her to a party in honour of her former academic supervisor, Jean collapses mentally and emotionally, finding herself eventually calling upon ‘Saint Monica’ for aid. Through the narrative that follows, the reader travels with Jean back to the raucous, heady days of 1998, when she travelled to France in order to study medieval church architecture. We encounter her increasing infatuation with one of the trip’s supervisors, alongside modern Jean’s dialogue with Saint Monica as she seeks to make sense of what she remembers. Punctuated with the reimagined vitae of medieval female saints, Jean’s memories explore her own sexual awakening and coming of age, the journey ending with a tragic realisation and freedom from the past.

TRANSFORMED INTO A SAINT

Though very different from my usual reads, what I really enjoyed about Dear Monica Lewinsky was the unique framing of its subject. Despite my childhood naivety, as adults we have almost all heard of Monica Lewinsky - and probably not altogether positively. But reimagining her as a saint coaching a young woman through her reflections on her own (slightly embarrassing) sexual encounters? It casts a whole new light on a drama that has been remembered in a very one-dimensional way.

Much like her medieval saintly predecessors, after all, Lewinsky’s story has been taken out of her own hands and allowed to morph wildly through the words of others. As headlines and stories splashed across newspapers and TV screens, she lost personal control of the narratives being portrayed about her. In a similar way, the female saints of medieval Europe have not been remembered in their own words, but in the often sensationalist stories written by others.

‘SAINT MONICA … SHE’S THE BEST.’

If you are looking for a fun romp through a tale of teenage awakening and the enduring frustrations of womanhood, combined with a searing undertone that underscores the latter theme, I cannot recommend this book highly enough. I am sure that, just like me, you’ll find the pacy narrative tough to put down, finishing the book in a matter of days as you speed through each page, eager to discover the next twist in Jean’s tale.

And don’t just take my word for it! To celebrate the publication of Dear Monica Lewinsky just this week, I sat down with author Julia Langbein to discuss her reasons for writing the book as well as some of the medieval inspiration that sits behind it. I am delighted to share our conversation below.

Interview with author Julia Langbein

Firstly, thank you so much for agreeing to answer a few questions for us here at ! It was such an honour to read your upcoming book, Dear Monica Lewinsky, ahead of its publication this week.

Before we dive into the book, would you be able to introduce yourself briefly to subscribers?

I’m a writer who came to fiction through a winding road which went through a PhD in Art History and a bunch of performance and comedy and general nonsense, none of which I regret. I live in the Paris suburbs, I have two kids—what else can I tell you. I’m looking at my desk and there’s a post-it from my daughter that says “UNDERPANTS = YOU” next to a reproduction of Raphael’s 1506 Lady with the Unicorn. So that’s pretty much my vibe.

We’re here to talk about your new book, Dear Monica Lewinsky. Without giving away too many spoilers, could you give us an overview of the book and why you felt it was a story that needed to be told?

I found an old diary from 1998 in which I, a snotty teenager, was cruel about Monica Lewinsky – I had called her stupid or crazy or something. Reading this diary entry as an adult woman, 20 years later, I felt such remorse that I found myself clasping my hands, closing my eyes and praying to “Monica Lewinsky” for forgiveness, and then afterward, thinking how strange it was that I had prayed to a living woman. The former medievalist in me knew that this instinct to pray was not an individual quirk, but a vision of something collective, an understanding of Lewinsky’s vita as one that paralleled those of the martyrs, and therefore to which a private individual could connect emotionally. That’s the special ability of fiction, to tell truths that are truer than fact, but it gave me a crazy fiery sense of purpose to feel that I had a grasp on a collective public truth truer than fact.

Though it is set in the near-contemporary world, Dear Monica Lewinsky draws heavily on medieval female saints. Where did your interest in medieval history stem from, and why did you choose to frame your female leads through the lens of female saints?

As an art historian I was a nineteenth-century specialist but of course the nineteenth century was obsessed with the medieval. I remember when I was an undergrad, I was in an improv comedy group and we used to do this bonkers thing where we performed an improv show on the lawn in the centre of campus for 24-hours straight, so we had to bring a lot of source material and ideas, and one year I brought Butler’s Lives of the Saints. Already twenty years ago, I realised that the word “saint” is used colloquially to indicate a perfect person, it’s almost already a dull concept, but that the vitae possess a shocking narrative surplus of comedy, horror, violence, love, and desire. There is a built-in comedy of these male narrators, these holy church fathers, trying to warn people away from desire by telling stories that clearly make them super horny.

Do you have a favourite medieval female saint, or is there perhaps a female saint who you feel isn’t given enough attention? If so, what is it about her that particularly pulls you to her?

I’m fascinated by the saints that move between genders like Mary of Egypt or Pelagia/Pelagius (I think there are thirty-something of these saints altogether). It’s amazing, in the context of contemporary discourse, to see that a person’s ability to undergo this kind of transformation was seen as a wonder, a marvel. This is what I love about opening up to a deeper history of ideas—you are reminded to think imaginatively, that today’s binaries and limits are so recent and brittle.

If readers wanted to find out more about the medieval women who inspired the framing for Dear Monica Lewinsky, are there any particular resources that you would recommend?

There’s a list of sources at the back of Dear Monica Lewinsky, but I would single out Caroline Walker Bynum’s Holy Feast and Holy Fast: The Religious Significance of Food to Holy Women. It’s just a fabulous book, very readable, and it has insights that resonate across our lived reality in the West. There’s this fundamental insight that holy men could show virtue by giving up property or status or power, but women possessed nothing but their bodies; they had control over almost nothing but food preparation, so of course, starving, making one’s self small, refusing to eat, these denials were associated with virtue for women.

Is there anything else about the book and its inspiration that you particularly want readers to know before they pick up a copy of their own?

Yeah: it’s funny. Yes, you will find plenty of incense in the hallways, and bleeding saints and pointed arches. But Saint Monica has what I would call ‘big Bugs Bunny energy’. She’s suffered enough, she’s got wisdom to spare, but she’s also got what you want from your sages: wit, steeliness, irony, detachment, a cool command of herself and a clarity of vision in this rotten world. She’s the best.

Thanks so much for chatting with us today, Julia! Where can readers find you online if they want to connect with you?

Thank you! Dear Monica Lewinsky is a book for everyone, but people who love medieval art will really have a rollicking good time, so I’m so glad we could connect. People can find me at julialangbein.com or on Instagram at @juliallangbein.

What do you think?

💬 Have you read other novels which, like this one, take a modern topic and reframe it through a medieval lens? Will you be picking up a copy of Dear Monica Lewinsky?

Leave a comment

Publication Details

• Publisher: Doubleday Books

• Publication date: 14th April 2026

• Language: English

• Print length: 320 pages

• ISBN-10: 0385551509

• ISBN-13: 978-0385551502

Want to dig deeper?

Here are a handful of suggestions for further reading into medieval women’s history, including medieval female sanctity (though do make sure to check out the list of recommended reads provided by Julia at the back of Dear Monica Lewinsky for a more detailed summary of reading on later medieval sanctity!).

• Ramirez, Janina. Legenda: The Real Women Behind the Myths that Shaped Europe. 2025. A popular-level treatment of medieval women, some of whom were saints.

• McNamara, Jo Ann, and John E. Halborg, trans. Sainted Women of the Dark Ages. With E. Gordon Whatley. Duke University Press, 1992. - This focuses on an earlier period, but gets to the heart of some of the gory and sexualised stories circulating holy women.

• Schulenberg, Jane Tibbetts. Forgetful of their Sex: Female Sanctity and Society ca. 500-1100, 1998. - Again, this has an earlier focus, but is helpful for tracking the trajectory towards fearing female sexuality and the relationship between that fear and sanctity.

Enjoyed this post?

Linked below are a few other book reviews I’ve shared that I think you might be interested in.

• ‘Little Kingdoms: An A-Z of Early Medieval Britain’, Alex Harvey

• ‘The Medieval Moon’, Ayoush Lazikani

• ‘Behold the Bird in Flight’, Terri Lewis

‘Women are … no longer in danger of being left out of history; but what is not yet clear is what precisely is their place within it. What are the grounds for the study of women as a separate topic? Should women’s history make way for gender history?’1

Women’s history seems to have become a pretty well-established facet of historical studies, and yet debate continues to rage (amongst academics and enthusiasts alike) about precisely how we approach the exploration of our female forebears’ lives.

For my own period of study, early medieval England, accounts of male heroics dominate the surviving sources, making it extremely challenging to reconstruct a narrative of their wives, mothers, sisters, and female friends. No accounts survive that are known to have been written by women, for example (though I’ll add a link in the footnotes here to a fascinating essay that argues for female authorship of some of the anonymous elegies, a topic we’ll explore together in more detail next month).2

Scholars of the past thirty or so years have worked hard to reclaim women’s place in the stories we tell of early medieval England, and I am grateful to stand upon their shoulders as I pursue my own PhD research into the networks forged by women in the seventh century. It would still be true to say, however, that for the years preceding the Norman Conquest of 1066, we are very much still muddling our way through what it means to research write women’s history.

This is not the case for the later medieval period, and I am delighted to share a conversation I originally had with Kate Wager, known to many as , in which we sat down to talk about her own research into the proto-feminist activities of those who lived almost a millennium after my own research period. We talked about both theory and history, unpicking the ways in which our own feminist agendas might warp our study of the past whilst identifying how ‘feminism’ might still have been present in a culture that did not have such language at its fingertips. We also explored individual women that particularly inspire Kate and, as usual, I share some recommendations for further reading and open up the floor for discussion amongst subscribers.

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So many new faces joined the paid membership here at after the launch post for Hild last month, and I can’t wait to read and discuss this book with you. This brief post reminds us of what we’ll be reading in April, to be best prepared for the discussion post and essay which will be shared at the end of the month.

NOT YET JOINED US?

If you are not yet a member of the Book Club but are curious about the theme of Hild and how the Book Club works, you can find all the details you need in the post linked below.

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‘By looking closely at the information available to us, asking questions of sources and ‘reading against the grain’, it is possible to access the emotions and humanity of people living in the fourteenth century … It is essential to consider history as human experience. If my readers come away from this book feeling they have come to know the characters as human beings and can reflect with empathy as well as intrigue upon the world they lived in, I will consider my job well done.’1

So ends the introduction to ’s masterful new treatment of the politics of fourteenth-century England, Sceptred Isle. And so is the scene set for what is to come: not a cold, distant account of the chronology of these relatively well-known years, but a deep exploration of the people who lived through them; a focus on their experiences as embodied souls, just like you and me.

I’ve been reading through Sceptred Isle slowly for the past six months or so, dipping in and out when time allows me to escape from the early medieval period that dominates so much of my research. Prior to this, my last encounter with the fourteenth century was almost fifteen years ago, when I started my very first undergraduate module at Oxford University as a fresh-faced eighteen-year-old: British History III, 1330-1550. So, although many readers of are familiar with this period, particularly through the masterful work of historians such as , it is much less-trodden terrain for me. Nonetheless, Helen’s careful research and engaging narrative mean that even I am not left behind - and I’m sure other newbie late medievalists won’t be either.

As we open this spring season of exploring medieval women’s history here at , I am delighted to share a conversation that I had recently with Helen, in which we chatted about her own interest in history as well as some of the women who feature in Sceptred Isle. As usual, I also invite your own thoughts on the topics discussed, as well as share a few recommendations for further reading if you are particularly interested in finding out more.

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Welcome back to another month exploring the medieval world!

As the seasons roll from winter to spring,1 so too does our deep-dive focus.

For the months of January-March 2026 we explored the rise of kingship and political structures in early medieval England, with essays asking whether England really was invaded by the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes; what was the basis for early kingship and power; and how kings made use of myths to secure their grip on authority.

For April-June 2026, we’ll be shifting to the theme of women’s history. As a number of Substack friends and colleagues hold the fort while I take some time off for parental leave in April, we’ll take a detour to the later medieval world (full details in the schedule below), before returning to the early medieval period in May. I’ll be writing all the posts for our Book Club read of Hild by Nicola Griffith, as well as a review of an exciting new novel out later this month.

✨A PERSONAL NOTE✨

I just wanted to say, again, how grateful I am for your continuing support during the month of March, which was a difficult one for me personally. With ongoing illness that involved a few hospital admissions, all work (including Substack) had to take a backseat, and I wasn’t able to share all the posts I had planned and promised. It is a sign of the uniquely wonderful community here on Substack that our paid membership community actually grew during this month, and I am extremely grateful for each and everyone of you. I am slowly working through a backlog of draft posts that I hope to release throughout the month of April, related to our kingship theme!

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What’s On This Month

🔓 Denotes material available for free

🔒 Denotes material exclusively for paid members

🔒🖋️ Saturday 4th April. ‘The Fallibility and Fragility of Mankind’.

As we open this spring season of exploring medieval women’s history here at , I am delighted to share a conversation that I had recently with Helen, in which we chatted about her own interest in history as well as some of the women who feature in Sceptred Isle. I’ve been reading through Sceptred Isle slowly for the past six months or so, dipping in and out when time allows me to escape from the early medieval period that dominates so much of my research. As I’ve worked through the narrative, I’ve been struck by the repeated incidents of the harrowing experiences of the women around or adjacent to the throne during this turbulent century. Helen very kindly agreed to answer my questions, as well as point us in the direction of further reading!

🔒📚 Monday 6th April. Schedule and Monthly Theme [Book Club]

Many new faces joined our paid membership after the launch of our latest Book Club read of Hild by Nicola Griffith (you can find all the details HERE if you’re interested but not yet on board). As I’ve switched up the posting schedule to allow us to read the chapters before the monthly post is shared at the end of the month, this brief post reminds us of the chapters we’ll be reading, and shares discussion themes to have in mind while reading, a space to submit your own questions, and an opportunity to introduce yourself to other Book Club members.

🔒🖋 Saturday 11th April. Why Feminism Didn’t Exist in the Medieval World.

If you haven’t yet come across on Substack, then you are seriously missing out. One of my top reads on here, as well as a firm friend behind the scenes, Kate Wagner shares deeply researched and considered posts uncovering the experiences of women in the fifteenth century. I’m delighted to share a conversation we originally had last year where we talked about her feminist approach to studying medieval history as well as the stories of some of her favourite medieval women.

🔓🖋 Saturday 18th April. How ‘Today’s Binaries and Limits Are So Recent and Brittle’.

If you follow me on Substack Notes, you’ll know that I love discovering new books that take a familiar topic and approach it from a unique angle. When Doubleday by Penguin Random House reached out to me about collaborating around the publication of Dear Monica Lewinsky, a novel about that Monica Lewinsky portrayed through the lens of medieval female saints, it was an opportunity I couldn’t resist. To celebrate its publication, I’ll be sharing my honest thoughts about the book as well as a conversation with author Julia Langbein (who holds a PhD in Art History) about her medieval inspiration for the book and its unique framing.

🔒📚 Saturday 25th April. The Making of Early Medieval Female Saints [Book Club]

In the first deep-dive post for our Book Club read of Hild by Nicola Griffith, we’ll be responding to the early chapters of the book, which explore the protagonist’s early life and the historical context for her inspiration, the real Saint hild (d. 680AD). A synopsis video will cover the chapters read this month [though forgive me if, in the haze of early newborn days, I don’t quite manage to film this!]. The main bulk of the post will feature an essay exploring the the making of saints in seventh-century England, when the Christian church was still finding its feet and it is possible that pre-Christian ideas about women’s involvement in cult and ritual shaped their position in the new religion. The essay will be primarily historical, but will weave throughout comparison and reference to the chapters of Hild we’ve read this month. Finally, there will be a space for Book Club members to share their own reflections and answer discussion questions; as noted in the launch post, there will be no weekly chat discussion threads as with previous Book Club reads, due to my parental leave throughout April, so this will be the main space to reflect on the book together.

Join us!

To make sure that all these posts land directly in your email and/or Substack inbox, make sure to subscribe now.

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New to Medieval Musings?

Here’s a roundup of March’s posts to give you a feel for what we’re about.

• Join Our Next Book Club Read! LAUNCH of Hild by Nicola Griffith.

• ‘Lost Realms’ Live Q&A

• The Fragile Myth of the High King: What was a ‘bretwalda’, really?

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