The team behind our major exhibition Medieval Women: In Their Own Words has created a new animation (designed by animator Ivyy Chen) telling the stories of five of the exhibition’s extraordinary leading figures, women who carved out their own destinies in ways that would be remembered for generations to come. The full animation can now be viewed below!

Discover the stories of Empress Matilda, who battled to assert her claim to the English throne in the 12th century, and Shajar al-Durr who became the first Sultana of Egypt and defended her country from an invading Crusader army.

Learn about Margery Kempe, a visionary responsible for the first autobiography written in the English language, and Christine de Pizan, a professional female author who argued for the moral and intellectual equality of women in her writings. 

Explore the life of a military leader and patron saint of France, the young peasant girl Joan of Arc, who was inspired by a divine calling to rally the French army and save her country.

The animation’s design has been inspired by medieval manuscripts that are part of the British Library’s collections, many of which are also on display in the exhibition. How many references can you spot?

Medieval Women: In Their Own Words is on show at the British Library from 25 October 2024 to 2 March 2025. You can purchase your tickets online now. 

This exhibition is made possible with support from Joanna and Graham Barker, Unwin Charitable Trust, and Cockayne – Grants for the Arts: a donor advised fund held at the London Community Foundation. 

Calum Cockburn

We are entering the final two months of our fabulous major exhibition, Medieval Women: In Their Own Words. By now, we hope you may have already visited, or that you've booked your tickets, or alternatively that you've laid hands on a copy of the exhibition book. You may have seen Joan of Arc's earliest signature in person, as well as the first Valentine's letter, the oldest autobiography in the English language, Christine de Pizan's Book of the Queen, the lion owned by Margaret d'Anjou, and the manuscripts of Julian of Norwich's Revelations of Divine Love. But how much do you know about the women whose stories are told in the show?

Here is a little quiz to whet your appetites. We'll reveal the answers @BLMedieval on Sunday, 5 January.

1. Who wrote (or, more correctly, dictated) the first surviving autobiography in English?
2. Which female Welsh author is best known for writing erotic poetry?
3. Joan Astley, the wet-nurse of King Henry VI, wrote to the king in 1422 requesting what?
4. Which queen of England is commemorated by a series of crosses erected in her name?
5. Which lady (shown in the Benefactors Book of St Albans Abbey, above) was sentenced to life imprisonment for seeking to predict the king's death?

Medieval Women: In Their Own Words is on show at the British Library from 25 October 2024 to 2 March 2025. You can book your tickets online.

This exhibition is made possible with support from Joanna and Graham Barker, Unwin Charitable Trust, and Cockayne – Grants for the Arts: a donor advised fund held at the London Community Foundation.

Follow us @BLMedieval

We have an exciting opportunity for a permanent Curator of Illuminated Manuscripts to join our team, to work with our internationally renowned collection of illuminated manuscripts made in Britain and Europe before 1600.

A personification of Italy as a mourning woman, facing Robert of Anjou, King of Naples (1309–1343), sitting on his throne, from the Carmina regia, made in Tuscany c. 1335: Royal MS 6 E IX, ff. 10v–11r

Does this sound like you? You will help to develop, manage and interpret the Library’s collection of illuminated manuscripts. You will be responsible for cataloguing these manuscripts and presenting them to a variety of audiences, through online resources, writing blog posts, answering specialist enquiries, and contributing to exhibitions and the public programme. You will oversee digitisation projects, including the selection of manuscripts to be digitised. You will also contribute to fundraising initiatives, and strategic communications with our stakeholders.

To be successful in this role, you will have a doctoral degree or its equivalent in medieval art history, history, literature or another closely-related discipline. You will have specialist knowledge and strong research experience relevant to the illuminated manuscripts collection of the British Library. You will have strong knowledge of medieval Latin, and excellent palaeographical and codicological skills. You will have the ability to work with colleagues in other areas, and the ability to work independently and to a high degree of accuracy.

We welcome applicants from all backgrounds.

For more information and to apply for this position, please visit this link or the British Library jobs page https://www.bl.uk/careers, citing job reference R00000821.

Closing date: 9 February 2025.

Interview date: 25 February 2025.

Follow us @BLMedieval

In August 1372, a woman had an extraordinary experience that changed the way that people pictured Christmas. Birgitta Birgersdotter (or, as she is better known, St Bridget of Sweden) was a Swedish widow who had moved to Rome and made a name for herself as a holy woman. When she was around 69 years old, Birgitta made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. There, at the Grotto of the Nativity, the subterranean cave in Bethlehem traditionally believed to be the birthplace of Christ, she experienced a spiritual vision in which she saw the events of the first Christmas. Of the many visions she experienced in her life, Birgitta’s vision of the Nativity is probably the most famous and influential, going on to profoundly shape the way the scene was depicted in medieval art.

St Birgitta writing with her vision of the Nativity appearing above her head, a woodcut print from The Myrroure of Oure Lady, 1530: British Library, C.11.b.8.

Before Birgitta

The descriptions of the Nativity in the Bible are light in detail. The gospels of Matthew and Luke recount that Jesus was conceived through the power of the Holy Spirit by a virgin named Mary, who was betrothed or married to a man called Joseph. They state that Jesus was born in Bethlehem, with Luke explaining that Mary and Joseph had travelled there for a census and that Mary “wrapped him [Jesus] in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn” (Luke 2:7).

In order to create vivid and compelling images of the Nativity, medieval artists desired more information. They drew extra details from Old Testament prophecies, apocryphal gospel accounts and medieval childbirth practices. The standard image of the Nativity in Western Europe until the 14th century showed the Virgin Mary reclining in bed, as was normal for medieval mothers. Jesus is usually lying in the manger, being adored by an ox and ass. Joseph and sometimes midwives accompany the scene, as in the example below. In the 14th century, however, a new type of Nativity scene began to appear, due in a large part to Birgitta’s vision.

Nativity scene, showing the Virgin Mary in bed (above), with midwives bathing Child (lower left), and Christ lying in a manger (lower right), North-East France or Flanders, 12th century: Cotton MS Caligula A VII/1, f. 5r

Birgitta’s vision of the Nativity

Birgitta described her vision at the Grotto of the Nativity in her magisterial visionary work, the Liber celestis revelacionum (heavenly book of revelations), which was widely read throughout Europe. She described seeing the pregnant Virgin Mary enter the cave with Joseph, the ox and ass. Joseph lights a candle and fixes it to the wall, then leaves. Mary takes off her shoes, mantle and veil, spreading her long golden hair. After preparing cloths in which to wrap the baby, she kneels facing east and begins to pray. According to Birgitta,

“While she was thus praying, I saw the infant in her womb move, and at that very moment, in the flash of an eye, she gave birth to her son... The birth of the child was so instant and sudden that I was unable to see or discern how or even with what part of her body she gave birth. And yet I immediately saw that glorious infant lying on the ground, naked and shining”.

(Liber celestis, book VII, chapter 21, translation by Denis Searby, 2012, p. 251).

Birgitta (on the right) witnesses the Nativity, from a copy of her Liber celestis, Northern England, 1400-1425: Cotton MS Claudius B I, f. 270r

Birgitta’s vision is rich with details, two of which are particularly important for medieval art. First, the Virgin Mary gives birth instantly while kneeling, with Christ supernaturally transported out of her womb and onto the ground. As the mother of eight children, Birgitta was fully aware of the realities of childbirth. Birgitta’s description of this miraculous birth is her way of explaining how Mary could give birth without damaging the virginal intactness of her body. Additionally, since the Bible presents painful childbirth as a punishment inflicted on womankind for Eve’s disobedience (Genesis 3:16), Birgitta’s description of the painless birth implies that Mary was free from Original Sin inherited from Eve.

The other distinctive feature is that the newborn Christ shines. The idea that the birth of Christ was accompanied by a bright light originated in apocryphal gospel accounts, probably referring to the idea of Christ as “the light of the world”. Birgitta specifies that light radiates from the body of Christ and that his brightness outshines both the sun and the candle that Joseph had brought in:

“Such indescribable light and splendour went out from him that the sun could not be compared to it. The candle that the old man had placed there was giving no light at all, for that divine lustre completely outshone the material lustre of the candle”.

(Liber celestis, book VII, chapter 21, translation by Denis Searby, 2012, p. 251).

Within only a few years, these elements from Birgitta’s vision began to appear in medieval depictions of the Nativity.

The Nativity in a Book of Hours, France, around 1430-50: Add MS 28784 B, f. 2v

Nativity scenes in Books of Hours

One place where medieval Nativity scenes often appear is in Books of Hours. These prayer books, often described as the “best-sellers of the Middle Ages”, contain sets of prayers for reading at the eight canonical hours of the day. The most important of these, the Office of the Virgin, often begins each hour with a picture from the life of the Virgin Mary, where the Nativity usually accompanies the hour of prime (first daylight). An examination of Books of Hours in the British Library reveals many examples of Nativity scenes depicting elements from Birgitta’s vision.

The Book of Hours shown below was made in Italy in 1412 for Neapolitan nobleman and diplomat Antonio Carafa. Nativity scenes inspired by Birgitta’s vision first appeared in Italy, where she spent the latter part of her life and had many supporters. Although the Western artistic tradition usually sets the Nativity in a stable, this image depicts the birth of Christ taking place in a cave, corresponding with Birgitta’s description of the Grotto of the Nativity. The Virgin Mary kneels and the infant Jesus lies on the floor emitting light, outshining the sun above and the candle that Joseph holds up. Behind them, the ox and the ass wait by the manger and in the background an angel announces the birth of Christ to the shepherds.

The Nativity from a Book of Hours, Italy, 1412: Add MS 17466, f. 34r

More often, artists transported the key elements from Birgitta’s vision to a stable or a classical ruin. The idea that the Nativity took place in a stable was a logical inference based on biblical references to a manger and animals, and the ruin was a symbol of paganism crumbling with the birth of Christ.

The Nativity from a Book of Hours, Paris, c. 1530: Add MS 35318

The image of the Nativity shown below includes a pilgrim’s bag and staff lying on the floor in the foreground, perhaps referring to Birgitta’s pilgrimage to the Holy Land. We can imagine that we are seeing the scene through Birgitta’s eyes, with her belongings laid down in front of her.

The Nativity in a Book of Hours, Southern Netherlands, late 15th century: Sloane MS 2916, f. 45v

It is questionable whether the artists who created these images and the book owners who admired them were always aware of Birgitta’s vision. Most medieval images were based on other images rather than texts, so once the vision became an image, it took on a life of its own. The kneeling Virgin, the shining Infant on the ground, the sun's rays and Joseph holding a candle all became part of the visual tradition of the Nativity, and they can still be found in many Nativity scenes to this day.

The Nativity in a Book of Hours, France, late 15th century: Add MS 14803, f. 37r

 

The Nativity in a Book of Hours, Southern Netherlands, 1460-75: Harley MS 2853

 

Manuscript illustration of the Nativity, written by a nun named Modesta, northwest Germany, late 15th century: Harley MS 2975

You can see manuscripts of Birgitta’s Liber celestis and learn more about her incredible legacy in the British Library’s exhibition Medieval Women: In Their Own Words, from 25 October 2024 to 2 March 2025. Tickets are available to purchase online now. 

From everyone in the Medieval Manuscripts team, we wish you a very Merry Christmas!

Eleanor Jackson
Follow us @BLMedieval

This exhibition is made possible with support from Joanna and Graham Barker, Unwin Charitable Trust, and Cockayne – Grants for the Arts: a donor advised fund held at the London Community Foundation. 

Translations

The Revelations of St. Birgitta of Sweden: Volume III: Liber Caelestis, Books VI–VII, trans. by Denis Searby, ed. by Bridget Morris (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), pp. 250-51.

An old waterlogged vellum book, with sand and seashells still stuck to its cover, which bears the words ‘My Secrete Log Boke’. Inside, an English account by Christopher Columbus of his second voyage to the Americas in 1493, written in his own hand. A preface explains that Columbus had sealed the log in a box and threw it overboard during a storm that he feared would take his life and that of his crew. Almost 400 years later, a Cornish fisherman had found the box off the coast of Pembrokeshire and rescued it. In 1946, this volume was offered to the British Museum Library by a hopeful private seller as a unique source for the history of European contact with the New World. Unfortunately for her, the Keeper of Manuscripts replied that he’d already got one.

My Secrete Log Boke: L.R.408.g.7.

The Log Boke was in fact a well-known literary forgery (that it was written in English being something of a clue). It had been offered many times before. The Keeper, Eric Millar (1944–1947), told the seller that it was ‘constantly brought in here’, including earlier that year, when Millar had advised the owner to stop by the next time they were in London and look at the Museum Library’s own copy. The volume was a creation of the German artist Carl Maria Seyppel, who designed and printed it in Düsseldorf in 1892.

The opening page of the Log Boke

Several such forgeries were offered to the British Museum Library between 1904 and 1954. In 1935, a private seller offered a letter by George Washington but Keeper H. Idris Bell (1929–1944) found that the signature was a deliberate imitation and the body of the letter was a clumsy forgery. He also noted that Christie’s just so happened to have a genuine Washington letter on display at the same time, writing dryly that ‘it is certainly a coincidence that they should have it at this moment’.

Fakes were not limited to the correspondence of the famous. In 1953, a well-meaning county archivist sent the Museum Library a set of Egyptian papyri but these turned out to be ‘forgeries of the kind usually manufactured by Egyptians for sale to tourists. They are made of small scraps of genuine, but blank, papyrus, pasted together to give them the rough appearance of scrolls, and covered with meaningless scrawls which, it was hoped, would be mistaken for Greek cursive handwriting’.

When a letter of Confederate General Robert E. Lee was discovered to be a forgery shortly after it was acquired in 1917, Keeper Julius P. Gilson (1911–1929) recommended that it be given to a professor at the University of Virginia who was interested in it as a literary curiosity. He wrote that this was possible ‘as it has not actually been incorporated in the collections’, referencing a peculiarity of the British Museum’s statutes.

Choosing the right acquisitions, and avoiding forgeries, was even more consequential at the Museum Library than at many rival institutions, as the Trustees could not normally remove items from the collection except by Act of Parliament. Under the British Museum Act (1769), they were authorised to dispose of duplicates of ‘Printed Books, Medals, Coins, or other Curiosities’; the Act of 1807 also allowed for the sale or exchange of items deemed ‘unfit to be preserved’ in the collection. Several such sales did occur but, after this policy caused Richard Fitzwilliam, 7th Viscount Fitzwilliam, to leave his library and art collection to the University of Cambridge in 1816, establishing his eponymous museum there instead of at the British Museum, the Trustees decided that no gifted or bequeathed item could be removed from the collection. If a Keeper chose poorly by accepting a manuscript that was later found out to be a fake, it would sit on the Department's shelves forever, occupying precious space. Keepers therefore had good reason to be cautious about which manuscripts they chose to accept.

Richard Fitzwilliam (1745–1816), 7th Viscount Fitzwilliam, whose collections founded the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge

These forgeries were just some of the manuscripts turned down by the Department of Manuscripts at the British Museum Library, one of the British Library’s precursors, in the first half of the 20th century, as recorded in the archives of the Department of Manuscripts. Since October, this archival material has been used in a research project investigating rejected acquisitions and offers of manuscripts to the British Museum Library between 1904 and 1954, to see what these can tell us about collecting policy in the period. As the  project progresses, future blogposts will highlight new discoveries and stories.

This research has been made possible by the award of a British Library Coleridge Fellowship.

Rory MacLellan

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The involvement of nuns in creating beautiful medieval manuscripts is often underappreciated. It is very exciting, then, to discover a new example of their work. While searching for items to include in our Medieval Women exhibition, we came across a mysterious illuminated leaf that has a fascinating story to tell.

Opening leaf from a Gradual: Add MS 35069, f. 11r

The mystery leaf

The leaf was once the first page of a gradual, a manuscript containing the chants sung during the Mass throughout the Church year. It features the opening chants for the First Sunday in Advent, which begin ‘Ad te levavi animam meam’ (To you I lift up my soul). The text starts with an impressive historiated initial showing King David lifting up his soul to God, flanked by Sts Catherine of Alexandria and Clare of Assisi.

But the reason it caught our attention was because of a small figure in the lower margin. Not the huntress who is apparently unable to persuade her hawk and hound to chase a rather smug looking hare, but a diminutive nun. She kneels and hold her hands up in the same posture as King David. Immediately above her is an inscription in red ink:

'Sister Isabella of Guelders, who gave 20 marks to complete this book; pray for her and for all those who gave their alms for the writing of this book’

(Soror ysabela de gelria, quae dedit .xx. marcas ad librum istum complendum orate pro ea, et pro omnibus quae elemosinas suas ad hunc librum scribendum dederunt).

Detail of the lower margin, showing a nun, a huntress with hare, hawk and hound, and a butterfly: Add MS 35069, f. 11r

We did not have to look far to find out where this leaf came from. Inside the volume that houses the leaf is a reading room slip on which a reading room superintendent has written:

“Folio 11 comes from a gradual written and illuminated for the Convent of St Clare at Cologne. Further leaves are in the Wallraf-Richartz Museum at Cologne, see the exhibition catalogue Rhein und Maas: Kunst und Kultur 800–1400, Köln 1972, pp. 88 and 91, no. VI 6.”

Although the identification is correct, whoever supplied this information apparently did not publish it. This leaf is not mentioned in the existing scholarship on the Poor Clares of Cologne, a convent known for being a major manuscript-producing centre in the 14th century.

The church of St Clare, the Poor Clares convent, Cologne, in 1670, after Justus Vinckenboon: Wikimedia Commons / CC-PD-Mark

The Poor Clares of Cologne

The Order of Poor Clares, initially led by St Clare of Assisi (d. 1253), is the women’s branch of the Franciscan Order, founded by St Francis of Assisi (d. 1226). The Rule of St Clare, authored by St Clare and approved by Pope Innocent IV in 1253, set out instructions for the nuns to live according to the Franciscan ideal of absolute poverty (owning no property). In 1263, however, Pope Urban IV sanctioned a milder version of the Rule that made allowances for communal property and incomes. Convents that followed the 1263 Rule are known as ‘Urbanist’ Poor Clares, or sometimes ‘Rich Clares’.

The convent of Poor Clares in Cologne, founded in 1304, was an Urbanist house. The nuns came from wealthy families of the urban elite and aristocracy, bringing with them generous dowries and powerful connections. It grew rapidly, and by 1340 housed almost sixty nuns.

With expansion came an increasing need for books. The nuns formed their own scriptorium, active between the 1320s and 1360s, producing beautifully illuminated liturgical manuscripts (containing texts and music for church services). Fifteen manuscripts and around forty decorated leaves survive from the convent, suggesting an impressive scale of output. We know the names of several of the nun-scribes and artists, the most celebrated of whom was Loppa vom Spiegel who was active around 1350.

Loppa vom Spiegel and a Franciscan friar, with the note that she wrote and notated the text © Wallraf-Richartz-Museum & Fondation Corboud, Cologne, Graphische Sammlung, Inv. M 23, photo Stanislaw Rusch

One of the characteristic features of manuscripts produced by the Poor Clares of Cologne are the depictions of small nuns kneeling in the margins, often inscribed with their names and prayer requests. In some cases at least, they represent the women who contributed to the manuscript’s production. As well as commemorating the sisters and encouraging prayers for their souls, these portraits were probably intended to foster a sense of community and shared identity among the nuns.

The convent was dissolved in 1802 and demolished in 1840. Around this time, its manuscripts were dispersed. Many were cut up and their decorated leaves were sold off separately. Today, they are housed in collections around the world.

The gradual reconstructed

Other illuminated leaves extracted from the same manuscript as the British Library leaf are now housed in the Wallraf-Richartz-Museum in Cologne. Each leaf introduces one of the major feast days in the Church year, and features a diminutive picture of a named nun.

Leaf from the opening of the Feast of St Andrew in the gradual, with the figure of Sister Bela de Nusia © Wallraf-Richartz-Museum & Fondation Corboud, Cologne, Graphische Sammlung, inv. Nr. M 5, Photo: Dieter Bongartz

Sabine Benecke grouped together the other leaves from this gradual and suggested the order in which they were originally arranged. She was not aware of the British Library leaf, however, which was the first in the manuscript. All together, the surviving leaves probably appeared as follows:

Item reference	Feast Day	Nun’s inscription
British Library, Add MS 35069, f. 11r	First Sunday in Advent	‘Soror Ysabela de Gelria...’
Wallraf-Richartz-Museum, Graphische Sammlung, inv. Nr. M 1	Christmas	‘Soror Margareta de Yota orate pro me’
Wallraf-Richartz-Museum, Graphische Sammlung, inv. Nr. M 22	Feast of St John the Evangelist	‘Soror Heylwigis orate pro me’
Wallraf-Richartz-Museum, Graphische Sammlung, inv. Nr. M 2	Epiphany	‘Soror Jutta orate pro me’
Wallraf-Richartz-Museum, Graphische Sammlung, inv. Nr. M 8	Ascension	‘Soror Christina de Porta orate pro me’
Wallraf-Richartz-Museum, Graphische Sammlung, inv. Nr. M 5	Feast of St Andrew	‘Soror Bela de Nusia orate pro me’
Wallraf-Richartz-Museum, Graphische Sammlung, inv. Nr. M 15	Feast of St Mary Magdalene	‘Soror Agnes Eese’
Wallraf-Richartz-Museum, Graphische Sammlung, inv. Nr. M 17	Feast of St Clare	‘Soror Clara de Valkensteyn orate pro me’
Wallraf-Richartz-Museum, Graphische Sammlung, inv. Nr. M 12	Death of the Virgin	‘Soror Agnes de Aldenhoven orate pro me’
Wallraf-Richartz-Museum, Graphische Sammlung, inv. Nr. M 10	Nativity of the Virgin	‘Soror Margareta de Valkenburg orate pro me’

The British Library leaf adds considerably to our knowledge of this manuscript because it gives valuable evidence about its patronage. While the other leaves are inscribed only with the names of the nuns and requests for prayers, the British Library leaf tells us that Isabella of Guelders, a major figure in the history of the convent, paid for it.

Isabella of Guelders

Beginning in the 1330s, the Poor Clares of Cologne received special patronage from two sisters, Isabella and Philippa of Guelders, daughters of Reginald I and Margaret of Flanders, count and countess of Guelders. In time, both sisters joined the convent and Isabella served as abbess from 1340 to 1343. They are associated with various projects, including rebuilding the convent church in 1336 and possibly commissioning the Altar of the Poor Clares now in Cologne Cathedral.

Altar of the Poor Clares in Cologne Cathedral: Ludwig Schneider / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 3.0

Additionally, a two-volume bible, now housed in the Archbishop’s Diocesan and Cathedral Library, Cologne, contains an inscription stating that Isabella of Guelders bought the manuscript for the convent of Poor Clares using the proceeds from selling jewellery that she had worn before entering the convent.

The Bible of Isabella of Guelders: Erzbischöfliche Diözesan- und Dombibliothek Köln, Cod. 1235 © Diözesanbibliothek Köln, 13.12.2024

Isabella died in 1354 and was buried with her sister Philippa in a grand tomb in the choir of the Poor Clares’ church. The newly discovered leaf adds to her legacy as a major supporter of cultural projects within the convent.

The British Library’s leaf from the Poor Clares of Cologne is on display in the exhibition Medieval Women: In Their Own Words, from 25 October 2024 to 2 March 2025. You can purchase your tickets online now. 

Eleanor Jackson
Follow us @BLMedieval

This exhibition is made possible with support from Joanna and Graham Barker, Unwin Charitable Trust, and Cockayne – Grants for the Arts: a donor advised fund held at the London Community Foundation. 

Further Reading

Sabine Benecke, Randgestaltung und Religiosität: Die Handschriften aus dem Kölner Kloster St. Klara (Ammersbek bei Hamburg, 1995).

Harald Horst and Karen Straub (eds), Von Frauenhand: Mittelalterliche Handschriften Aus Kölner Sammlungen (Cologne, 2021).

 

Exactly 630 years ago today, a woman called Eleanor Rykener found herself in trouble. On the night of 11 December 1394, on Soper’s Lane off Cheapside, she had agreed to go into a stall with a client named John Britby, having first demanded an unspecified amount of money for her services. Medieval London’s anti-prostitution laws made this a hazardous venture, but Eleanor was an experienced sex worker, and must have concluded that Britby’s money was worth the risk. Unfortunately, they were discovered by city officials while engaging in ‘that detestable, unmentionable, and ignominious vice’, and were hauled up before the Mayor of London for questioning. It was during the questioning that Eleanor, still wearing the dress she had been arrested in, was revealed to have been born John Rykener. We might describe her, in modern terms, as a transgender woman. Eleanor’s remarkable story is preserved in a single document: the record of her questioning held in the London Archives, currently on display in our exhibition Medieval Women: In Their Own Words.

‘Calling [herself] Eleanor’; the account of Eleanor Rykener and her arrest; London, 1395: The London Archives, Plea and Memoranda Roll A34, Membrane 2.

The manuscript and its account are not immediately eye-catching—a dense block of unadorned, bureaucratic text written on a parchment roll, bookended by many other accounts—and, indeed, it went almost entirely unnoticed for several centuries. This is partially due to deliberate censorship: a 1932 summary of the Plea and Memoranda Rolls completely obscured Eleanor’s gender-nonconformity, describing the case as an ‘examination of two men charged with immorality’. The truth of the case was eventually uncovered by Ruth Mazo Karras and David Lorenzo Boyd in 1995. Since then, it has generated a huge amount of scholarship and popular interest, pivoting around fascinating and complex questions: what does it mean to describe a fourteenth-century individual as ‘trans’?  Was Eleanor’s supposed ‘crime’ sodomy, sex work, gender nonconformity, or something else entirely? And—perhaps the most conspicuous gap in the record—what happened to her after this one recorded moment of her questioning?

It’s not possible to answer all those questions today, but we can focus on what we do know of Eleanor’s story, as recorded by a court clerk. Even though her narrative was doubtless filtered through the preconceptions and prejudices of the court that sought to judge her, it remains one of the most detailed accounts we have of a medieval sex worker in something close to her own words.

Eleanor’s early life—the period in which she was, presumably, still known as ‘John’—is completely obscure to us. Her story in the record begins at some unspecified point in time before her arrest with Britby, when a woman named Anna, also a sex worker, ‘taught’ Eleanor how to have sex ‘in the manner of a woman’. It is worth noting that, while the courtroom must have been dominated by men, Eleanor begins her account with a moment of intimacy, knowledge-sharing, and perhaps even friendship between herself and another woman. This theme of feminine community continues when Rykener describes herself being ‘dressed in women’s clothing’ and employed in sex work by a certain bawd called Elizabeth Brouderer (‘Embroiderer’).

Joan of Arc chases away a group of sex workers from her army camp, from Martial d’Auvergne’s Vigiles de Charles VII: Bibliothèque nationale de France, fr. 5054, f. 60v

Eleanor practiced more than just sex work with Elizabeth. It may well have been in her house that she picked up the embroidery skills she put to work while she was living in Oxford. Eleanor’s employment history—she worked for stints as an embroideress and barmaid alongside sex work—indicates that her feminine self-presentation was not confined to sexual role-playing. She positioned herself, and was apparently read, as a woman in almost all aspects of her daily life, including in the courtroom, where she insistently ‘call[ed herself] Eleanor’ and retained her feminine attire. This cannot have been easy. Existing as a woman—let alone a trans woman—in the world of medieval England was often a gruelling business. The fact that Eleanor chose to do so suggests that there were reasons, known only to her, because of which she felt more comfortable as a woman. A trans identification, or something like it, is one plausible explanation for the shape of Eleanor’s life.

The Assyrian king Sardanapalus dressed in women’s clothing spinning silk with a group of noble women, from a 15th-century copy of Valerius Maximus’ Facta et Dicta Memorabilia:  Harley MS 4375/3, f. 179r

There are still more complexities to Eleanor’s story. While she had sex ‘as a woman’ with several named and unnamed male clients (she preferred taking on priests, she explains, because they tended to pay better), she also had sex ‘as a man’ with ‘many nuns’ and ‘many women both married and unmarried’: too many, apparently, for Eleanor to keep count. Several aspects of this part of the story are unclear. Were the women also clients, or did Eleanor have sex with them without financial motive? Did she genuinely desire these women—was she possibly, to use more modern terms, bisexual or queer?

We can never know the answer to these, and countless other, questions about Eleanor. As mentioned above, this is the only known surviving record of her life, and will remain so, barring another remarkable discovery in the archives. We don’t even know if she was found guilty of any crime or faced punishment. What we do have is a glimpse into the life of an exceptional, resourceful woman making her way in the medieval world, one of many on display in our exhibition Medieval Women: In Their Own Words.

 The roll bearing the account of Eleanor’s case on display

To see Eleanor Rykener’s account in person, visit our exhibition Medieval Women: In Their Own Words, on show at the British Library from 25 October 2024 to 2 March 2025. You can purchase your tickets online now. 

This exhibition is made possible with support from Joanna and Graham Barker, Unwin Charitable Trust, and Cockayne – Grants for the Arts: a donor advised fund held at the London Community Foundation. 

Rowan Wilson

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Our exhibition Medieval Women: In Their Own Words tells the story of the lives and experiences of medieval women not just through manuscripts, documents and printed books, but also works of art, paintings, jewellery, coins and sculpture. One of these precious artefacts is an ivory cross that once belonged to Sibylla of Anjou (b. c. 1112, d. 1165), Countess of Flanders, who for a time served as regent in her husband’s place and ultimately embarked on a journey to the Holy Land, where her life would change forever. We are delighted that the cross is on loan to the exhibition from the Musée du Louvre in Paris.

The ivory Cross of Sibylla of Flanders: Musée du Louvre, OA 2593

Sibylla was a noblewoman, the daughter of Fulk V of Anjou (d. 1143) and Ermengarde of Maine (d. 1126), and later the stepdaughter of Melisende (d. 1161), Queen of Jerusalem, a significant royal woman in her own right who also appears prominently in our exhibition. In 1134, Sibylla married Thierry of Alsace (d. 1168) and became Countess of Flanders. It was her second marriage, after her first to William Clito (d. 1127), Thierry’s predecessor as count, had been annulled by the Pope in 1124. Throughout much of their relationship, Thierry was away fighting on crusade, leaving her in Europe to rule as regent in his stead. Sibylla was clearly a formidable figure, able to take charge of the administration of Flanders effectively on her own. Notably, during one of her husband’s absences in 1148, the region was attacked by a rival lord, Baldwin IV, Count of Hainault, who intended to annex the territory for himself. Sibylla led her force in a counterattack that not only repelled the invasion, but also devastated Hainault and ultimately led to the negotiation of a truce between the two sides.

Sibylla’s father, Fulk V of Anjou, and stepmother, Melisende of Jerusalem, from William of Tyre’s Histoire d’Outremer: Yates Thompson MS 12, f. 82v

In 1157, Thierry embarked on his third journey to the Holy Land and this time Sibylla went with him. However, when they finally arrived, Sibylla decided to leave her husband altogether to enter the Convent of Sts Mary and Martha in Bethany, one of the wealthiest abbeys in the kingdom, situated less than two miles outside Jerusalem. The convent had an important familial connection for Sibylla, as it had been founded by her father Fulk and stepmother Melisende in 1138, and its abbess Ioveta of Bethany (b. c. 1102, d. 1178) was also her step-aunt, though the two were actually very similar in age. Despite initial opposition from both her husband and the Patriarch of Jerusalem (its leading bishop), Sibylla was successful in taking her vows and ultimately remained in the convent until her death in 1165. There she was able to work together with Ioveta to support Melisende in her ruling of the kingdom, particularly through their combined influence over appointments to positions in the Latin Church.

An itinerary map of the Holy Land, showing the city of Jerusalem, made by the Benedictine monk and artist Matthew Paris: Royal MS 14 C VII, f. 5r

The cross is one of only a small number of surviving objects and documents with any known connection to Sibylla. It is made from walrus ivory and was crafted in the Meuse Valley region, probably a few years after her marriage to Thierry. A small, veiled female figure appears lying flat at the foot of the cross’s base before the crucified Christ, who appears between allegorical representations of the Sun and Moon. An accompanying inscription in Latin asks for pardon and identifies the figure as Sibylla herself:

NATE. MARIS. STELLE. VENIAM. C[on]CEDE. SIBILLE.

You who were born of the Star of the Sea grant forgiveness to Sibylla.

Here, Sibylla addresses Christ, but references the Virgin Mary using her ancient title, the Stella Maris (or Star of the Sea). It is an interesting choice, one perhaps made with her journey across the sea to the Holy Land in mind. The cross probably formed part of the decorative cover of a book, though it is unclear what happened to its original manuscript or if it even came with Sibylla on her journey. Nonetheless, its devotional symbolism remains a testament to a noble and politically influential figure, who ultimately found the greatest strength and happiness in the religious life and the community of women it provided her.

Sibylla kneeling at the base of the ivory cross, with an accompanying inscription in Latin: Musée du Louvre, OA 2593

Medieval Women: In Their Own Words is on show at the British Library from 25 October 2024 to 2 March 2025. You can purchase your tickets online now. 

This exhibition is made possible with support from Joanna and Graham Barker, Unwin Charitable Trust, and Cockayne – Grants for the Arts: a donor advised fund held at the London Community Foundation. 

Calum Cockburn

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