Many of the manuscripts on display in our exhibition Medieval Women: In Their Own Words portray medieval nuns as holy creatures, devoting themselves to prayer, contemplation and good works. Ancrene Wisse, a 13th-century guide for female anchoresses sets out rigorous expectations for those women who chose lives of permanent enclosure and isolation in cells attached to churches. Notably, anchoresses must ‘never [be] idle’, ‘think about God all the time’, commit to a vegetarian diet, and ‘be as little fond of your windows as possible’, avoiding distraction from the outside world. The fact that the author of Ancrene Wisse felt obliged to write out these strict guidelines suggests that religious women did not always act in ways befitting their holy houses. It raises the question: where are the badly behaved nuns in the Middle Ages?

Anchoresses are warned not to keep any animal ‘bute cat ane’ (except one cat): Cotton MS Cleopatra C VI, f. 193r

We find plenty of them in the art and literature of the period. Then, as now, the ‘naughty nun’ seems to have been a popular trope. In William Langland’s Piers Plowman, ‘Wrath’ speaks about the behaviour of the nuns at his aunt’s abbey:

And dame Pernele a preestes fyle,
Prioresse worth she nevere,
For she hadde child in chirie-tyme,
Al our chapitre it wiste.

Dame Parnel, a priest’s mistress
she'll never be a prioress
For she had a child in cherry-time:
all our chapter knows it!

In the 15th-century satirical poem ‘Why I Can’t Be a Nun’ (Cotton Vespasian MS D IX), a would-be bride of Christ is aghast to discover that many convents are ‘not well governed’, but are instead populated by figures like ‘Dame Disobedient’, ‘Dame Hypocrite’, ‘Dame Lust’ and ‘Dame Wanton’. And who can forget the infamous image of a penis-harvesting nun from a 14th-century copy of the Roman de la Rose, illuminated by the Parisian artist Jeanne de Montbaston (active c. 1325–1353)?

A penis-harvesting nun from a 14th-century copy of the Roman de la Rose: Bibliotheque nationale de France, ms fr. 25526, f.106v

While these examples owe more to lewd fantasy than to historical reality, other evidence suggests that their portraits of convents in chaos  contain a grain of truth. Medieval bishops regularly surveyed monasteries and nunneries in their dioceses, and many kept detailed records of their visitations. Eudes Rigaud, archbishop of Rouen, visited several convents between 1249 and 1265, and was not pleased with what he found. He wrote up nuns for faults ranging from ‘singing the hours with too much haste’, wearing costly pelisses of ‘the furs of rabbits, hares and foxes’, to drunkenness and sex with priests and chaplains.

A dancing nun in the margin of the Maastricht Hours: Stowe MS 17, f. 38r

English visitation records give examples of whole convents in disarray. At Cannington in 1351, in addition to poor leadership from a cash-hungry prioress and a lazy, Matins-shirking sub-prioress, a nun called Joan Trimelet was found pregnant—‘but not indeed by the Holy Ghost’, as the bishop’s commissioners wryly remarked. Joan Trimelet’s pregnancy was not unique. The convent of Amesbury was dissolved in 1189, following reports that the abbess had given birth three times, and that many of the sisters were living in ‘infamy’.

The misbehaviour of individual nuns could put a strain on their entire community. Bishop Alnwick’s 1442 report of Catesby Priory gives an insight into the disorder that could arise in a poorly governed convent. Through Alnwick’s documentation of the nuns’ voices, we find hints of a quarrel between the prioress Margaret Wavere and sister Isabel Benet, who accused each other of sexual misconduct with local knights. While other nuns commented on Benet and Wavere’s impropriety—one accuses Benet of having ‘passed the night with the Austin Friars at Northampton... dancing and playing the lute with them... until midnight’—they seem more upset by the prioress’s poor management of convent finances, and her tendency to ‘sow discord among the sisters’. Under such conditions, it is understandable that some nuns could not keep to the high standards of behaviour set out in their monastic rules. Most medieval convents were small and poor in comparison to equivalent men’s houses. It is no wonder that underfed, underfunded nuns living together in close quarters didn’t always abide in holy harmony.

 A flirtatious nun with a male companion from the margins of the Maastricht Hours: Stowe MS 17, f.226r

Is it a surprise that some nuns wanted to call it quits entirely? Medieval ecclesiastical records give several examples of nuns on the run, attempting to leave their orders for reasons ranging from trying to reclaim an inheritance, running away with a lover, to simply having had enough of convent life. Sometimes convents would see flights of multiple nuns at once: in 1300, Isabella Clouvil, Matilda de Thychemers and Ermentrude de Newark all fled Delapré Abbey in Northampton, much to their bishop’s disappointment.

Church authorities often exerted considerable force to haul such nuns back to their houses. In the 14th century, Agnes de Flixthorpe, a nun of St Michael’s in Stamford, ran away from her Order at least three times, once dressed in a man’s gilt embroidered robe. She claimed that she had never been legitimately professed as a nun and was legally married to a man she refused to name. Bishop Dalderby of Lincoln responded by branding Agnes an apostate, sending secular authorities to imprison her, and eventually excommunicating her. The last reference to her case is in 1314, when Agnes was still at liberty, and we don’t know whether Dalderby’s forces managed to catch her again.

The greatest escape artist of all was surely Joan of Leeds, a nun of St Clement’s by York. In 1318, Joan slipped the convent’s net by ‘simulating a bodily illness’ and then faking her own death. She made a dummy ‘in likeness of her body’, which was buried in ‘sacred space’, leaving Joan free to ‘wander at large to the notorious peril to her soul and to the scandal of all her order’, as Archbishop Melton of York put it. Exactly what motivated her to leave is unclear. In 2020, researchers at the University of York discovered another 1318 letter from Melton, in which he reports that Joan had come to another priest, ‘Brother John’, ‘with great sorrow in her heart’. She apparently described how ‘as a girl and being under the age of personal discretion she was forced to enter the Order... by her father and mother... she both never consented to this and continually protested and also never uttered any vow of profession’.

A specific mention of ‘Johana de Ledes’ in Melton’s Register. Archbishop of York’s register, 9A f. 326v, entry 2

Joan’s story is not just one of ingenuity and bravery, but also reflects a harsh reality of medieval monastic life. Many nuns were professed at a young age, compelled to the religious life not by a legitimate calling, but by their parents’ desire to keep them out of trouble, be rid of an inconvenient second or third daughter, or even deprive them of an inheritance. Convent life was a rich tapestry, in which nuns of various levels of commitment lived and worked together: as the author of ‘Why I Can’t Be a Nun’ writes, ‘some are devout, holy and obliging’, while ‘some are feeble, lewd and forward’.

The procession of nuns to the mass: Yates Thompson MS 11, f. 6v

For more stories of complicated, daring medieval women, visit our exhibition Medieval Women: In Their Own Words, which runs until 2 March 2025. Tickets are available to order 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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On 8 July 1458, Ippolita Maria Sforza (b. 1445, d. 1488) completed work on a manuscript, a handwritten copy of Cicero’s Latin treatise De senectute (On Old Age), which she made for her tutor, the Renaissance humanist Baldo Martorelli (d. 1475). At the time, Ippolita was only 14 years old and living in her childhood home of Milan. The small volume (Add MS 21984) is currently on display as part of our major exhibition, Medieval Women: In Their Own Words, running between 25 October 2024 and 2 March 2025.

The opening of Cicero’s De senectute (On old age), written by Ippolita Maria Sforza at the age 14: Add MS 21984, f. 3r

Ippolita Maria was born into the influential Sforza family, then rulers of the duchy of Milan. At the age of 20, she married Alfonso II (d. 1495), Duke of Calabria, who would go on to become King of Naples. Like many members of the nobility at this time, Ippolita was the beneficiary of a privileged education. From an early age, she showed an aptitude for learning and letter-writing, pursuits actively encouraged by her father, Francesco I (d. 1466). She studied Latin and Greek alongside her older brother Galeazzo, the pair having at least three tutors in addition to Baldo, who wrote a Latin grammar for them to study. She also learned to read the works of some of the most famous classical authors, as well as compose her own Latin orations, one of which she delivered to Pope Pius II at the Diet of Mantua in 1459.

A reproduction of the bust of a young woman, believed to be Ippolita Maria Sforza: Victoria & Albert Museum, Repro 1889-94

Ippolita’s handwritten copy of De senectute was probably the result of a homework exercise, in which she was instructed to copy out famous works of Classical poetry and rhetoric. The volume is finely illuminated. Its opening page features a beautiful decorated border which encloses her emblem (a palm tree and a pair of silver scales) and an abbreviated form of her name (‘HIP, MA’), written in chrysography, or gold lettering. Her Latin motto runs alongside these illuminations, an extract from Psalm 91:13: ‘Iustus ut palma florebit et sicut cedrus libani multiplicabitur’ (The just will flourish like a palm tree and multiply like the cedar of Lebanon’).

Ippolita’s abbreviated name (‘HIP, MA’), Latin motto and emblem, painted into the border of her handwritten copy of Cicero’s De senectute: Add MS 21984, f. 3r

We know that Ippolita wrote the manuscript herself, because of a Latin colophon inscribed at the very end of the text. It reads:

Hippolyta Maria Vicecomes filia Illustrimi principis Francisci Sforciae ducis Mediolani exscripsi mea manu hunc libellum sub tempus pueritiae meae et sub Baldo praeceptore anno a natali christiani MCCCCLVIII octavo idus julius'

I, Ippolita Maria Visconti, daughter of the most illustrious prince Francesco Sforza, Duke of Milan, wrote this little book in my own hand around the time of my childhood and under my tutor Baldo, 8 July 1458.

Ippolita’s Latin colophon in which she states that she wrote the manuscript herself: Add MS 21984, ff. 71r-v

The manuscript is a window into Ippolita’s learning at such an early age, as well as the close relationship she had with her tutor. Throughout the volume, pointers (known as manicules) have been added in the margins to indicate important maxims or meaningful passages to remember. On this page, for example, a manicule has been added next to a Latin sentence, emphasising the importance of thought and reflection as a means of achieving great deeds:

Non viribus aut velocitate aut celeritate corporum res magnae geruntur, sed consolio auctoritate sententia

It is not by strength, speed, or physical dexterity that great things are achieved but by reflection, force of character, and judgement.

A manicule drawn into the margin to indicate a memorable passage in the text: Add MS 21984, f. 16v

Baldo’s hand appears in several places as well, where he made discreet corrections to her work, either adding a marginal comment alongside the text, inserting a letter in a word she had missed out during the copying, or to indicate a mistaken spelling.

Corrections made to Ippolita’s work, including a missing ‘u’ in the Latin ‘uiuendi’ and ‘gati’ in the word ‘defatigationem’: Add MS 21984, f. 71r

Ippolita’s love of learning persisted throughout her later life when she became Duchess of Calabria and left Milan for Naples, following her betrothal to Alfonso in 1465. In a letter to her mother, Bianca Maria Visconti (d. 1468), written on 6 January 1466, only four months into the marriage, Ippolita reported that she had built a study in her new Neapolitan home, the Castel Capuano, a place for her to read and write in private contemplation. In a particularly moving section of the letter, she asked to be sent portraits of her mother, father, and all her brothers and sisters, so she could hang them around the room to provide her ‘with constant comfort and pleasure’. The study seems to have been a room of her own in a place that was still alien to her, a space dedicated to the pastimes and people that mattered most in her life.

Portraits of Ippolita’s parents, Francesco I Sforza and Bianca Maria Visconti, painted by the Italian artist Bonifacio Bembo: Milan, Pinacoteca di Brera

To learn more about women’s education during the medieval period and see Ippolita’s manuscript and bust in person, visit our major exhibition Medieval Women: In Their Own Words, which runs from 25 October 2024 until 2 March 2025, at St Pancras in London. Tickets are available to order 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

Follow us @BLMedieval

In our major exhibition, Medieval Women: In Their Own Words, we find evidence of women undertaking a wide variety of roles across all levels of society. While many women had to do unpaid household chores, they also engaged in paid employment in agriculture, trade, domestic service and textile production. They acted as notaries and financiers, contributed to their family businesses or ran businesses of their own. Some even became professional authors, musicians, artists, printers and bookmakers.

Agricultural labourers bringing in the harvest, from the Luttrell Psalter; Lincolnshire, 1325-40: Add MS 42130, f. 172v

Here is a selection of some of the occupations that were available to women during the medieval period and that'll you find when you visit the exhibition:

Weaver

A female artisan weaving on a loom, from the Egerton Genesis Picture Book; England, 14th century: Egerton MS 1894, f. 2v

Domestic Servant

A domestic servant cleans her master's bedchambers, from the Hours of Joanna of Castile; Bruges, 1486-1506: Add MS 18852, f. 1v

A servant combs her mistress's hair, from the Luttrell Psalter; Lincolnshire, 1325-40: Add MS 42130, f. 63r

Book illuminator

Jeanne de Montbaston and her husband Richard writing and illuminating manuscripts in their workshop, from the margin of a copy of the Roman de la Rose; Paris, 14th century: Bibliotheque nationale de France, ms fr. 25526, f. 77v

Silkworker

A group of noblewomen spinning silk, from Les Fais et les Dis des Romains et de autres gens; Paris, 1473-80; Harley MS 4375/3, f. 179r

A woman spinning silk, from the Luttrell Psalter; Lincolnshire, 1325-40: Add MS 42130, f. 193r

Wet nurse

A woman selects a potential wet nurse, from Aldobrandino of Siena's Régime du corps; France, 1265-70: Sloane MS 2435, f. 28v

Teacher

A schoolmistress with a ferule (wooden paddle), a tool of discipline, teaching for young girls in a classroom, from a Latin primer probably made for a girl; Bruges, c. 1445: Harley MS 3828, f. 27v

Medical Practitioner

A female medical practitioner caring for a patient and performing a cupping treatment, from a collection of medical treatises in Middle English; England, 15th century: Sloane MS 6, f 177r

Ale-Seller

An ale-seller, from the Smithfield Decretals; Southern France and London, c. 1300-40: Royal MS 10 E IV, f. 114v 

Writer

The professional writer, Christine de Pizan working in her study, from the 'Book of the Queen'; Paris, c. 1410-14: Harley MS 4431/1, f. 4r

To find out more about the working lives of medieval women, 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.  

Follow us @BLMedieval 

There are many incredible items on display in the British Library's Medieval Women: In Their Own Words exhibition. One of the most special is undeniably a letter bearing the oldest known signature of Jeanne la Pucelle, known to English-speaking readers as Joan of Arc. Written on 9 November 1429, this letter has never previously left Riom, the town to which it was sent by Joan almost 600 years ago. We are immensely grateful to the Archives municipales de la Ville de Riom (Puy-de-Dôme) for entrusting us with their precious document, and to Jean-François Moufflet (Archives nationales, Paris) for helping to facilitate this loan.

Letter from Joan of Arc to the citizens of Riom, featuring the earliest surviving example of her signature (Moulin, 9 November 1429): Archives municipale de la Ville de Riom, AA33

Joan was born into a prosperous peasant family in the village of Domrémy during the Hundred Years' War between England and France. Urged by heavenly voices, she ran away from home to join the cause of the Dauphin Charles, son of the French king, to drive the English from France. Riding into battle with the French army at the siege of Orléans in May 1429, Joan inspired a spectacular victory, paving the way for Charles to be crowned King of France on 17 July. But Joan then experienced a downturn in fortunes. Leading an assault on Paris on 8 September, Joan was wounded and the French suffered over 1,500 casualties. Charles ordered a retreat, and Joan became increasingly isolated at the French court, without allies to support her.

When Joan sent her letter to the citizens of Riom in November 1429, she had been sent to recover an area of the eastern Loire from the clutches of the mercenary Perrinet Gressart, who was working for the Burgundian and English forces. On 4 November, a force under her command captured the town of Saint-Pierre-le-Moutier, prompting Joan to turn her attentions towards the town of La Charité-sur-Loire, also held by Gressart. In this letter, she requested gunpowder and other military supplies that would aid the assault. 

The text of the letter reads as follows:

Chers et bon amis vous sauez bien comment la ville de Saint-Pierre le Moustier a esté prinse d’assault; et, à l’aide de Dieu, ay entencion de faire vuider les autres places qui sont contraires au roy. Mais pour ce que grant despense de pouldres, trait et autres habillemens de guerre a esté faicte devant ladicte ville, et que petitement les seigneurs qui sont en ceste ville et moy en sommes pourveuz pour aler mectres le siége devant la Charité, où nous alons prestement. Je vous prie sur tant que vous aymez le bien et honneur du roy et aussi de tous les autres de par deça, que vueillez incontinant envoyer at aider pour ledit siége, de pouldres, salepestre, souffre, trait, arbelestres fortes et d’autres habillemens de guerre. Et en ce faictres tant que, par faulte desdictes pouldres et autres habillemens de guerre, la chose ne soit longue, et que on ne vous puisse dire en ce estre négligens ou refusans. Chiers et bons amis, Nostre Sire soit garde de vous. Escript à Molins, le nèufviesme jour de Novembre.

                                                                                                                                Jehanne

A mes chers et bons amis, les gens d’église, bourgeois et habitants de la ville de Rion.

 

'Dear and good friends, you know well how the town of Saint-Pierre-le-Moutier has been taken by an assault; and, with God’s help, it is my intention to empty the other places that are against the king. But because a large amount of gunpowder, projectiles and other materials of war were expended before the said town, and because I and the lords present in the town are poorly equipped to besiege La Charité, where we will be going soon, I ask you, in the name of the love you have for the honour and well-being of the king, as well as all the others who are here, to send us gunpowder, saltpetre [a type of early explosive], sulphur, arrows, arbalests [a type of crossbow] and other military supplies without delay to help with the siege. And do this well enough so that the siege does not drag on because of a lack of powder and other materials, and no one can accuse you of being negligent or unwilling. Dear and good friends, may Our Lord protect you! Written at Moulins, the 9th day of November.

                                                                                                                                Jehanne

To my dear and good friends the people of the church, the bourgeois and the citizens of the town of Riom.'

 

This is one of only a handful of surviving letters of Joan of Arc, and one of just three — the first, no less — to bear her signature. Joan dictated her letter to a scribe, but signed her own name at the end. You can almost see the pen held tightly in her hand, as she carefully inscribed the letters 'Jehanne'. Despite being illiterate, Joan of Arc (aged just seventeen) undoubtedly knew the value of the written word. We do not know whether Joan succeeded in persuading the citizens of Riom to come to her aid, and the assault on La Charité-sur-Loire certainly failed. But what we can witness in Joan's signature is an emotive physical link to one of the most inspiring figures in medieval European history.

In the British Library exhibition, the letter to Riom is displayed alongside copies of the proceedings of Joan's trial, which resulted in her burning at Rouen on 30 May 1431, followed by her rehabilitation trial in the 1450s, at which the charges laid against Joan were nullified. We are thrilled to be able to show this letter to the visitors to our exhibition, thanks to the generosity of the Archives de Riom.

The exhibition Medieval Women: In Their Own Words 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.

 

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At a time when women’s work was often undervalued, one woman petitioned for a raise in her salary. Her name was Joan Astley and she was nurse to Henry VI (r. 1422-1461, 1470-1471), who became King of England at only eight months old. She made her petition to the king and his council on 14 January 1424, when Henry had just turned two, asking for her annual salary to be doubled from £20 to £40, equivalent to around £35,000 in modern currency. The petition, written in Middle French, now survives on a single leaf in the British Library’s collections (Stowe Ch 643), and is currently on display in our exhibition, Medieval Women: In Their Own Words.

The petition of Joan Astley to Henry VI, asking for a pay increase; 14 January 1424: Stowe Ch 643

Joan came from a well-connected family. Her father, Sir Thomas Gresley (d. 1455) was a Lancastrian nobleman and landowner in Derbyshire who had fought in recent military campaigns in France. Meanwhile, her husband, Sir Thomas Astley (d. by 1432) was a relative of Richard Beauchamp (d. 1439), Earl of Warwick, a figure at the very heart of the English government. Upon her appointment in 1422, Joan entered a household that was principally based at Windsor and almost wholly composed of women. It included two additional nurses, Elizabeth Ryman and Matilda Fosbroke, a chamberwoman by the name of Agnes Jakeman, a laundress named Margaret Brotherman and at least two other female attendants.

As the king’s nurse, Joan had an essential role to play. The high infant mortality rate during the period meant that, even with the wealth and privilege that befitted his status, the king needed to receive the best care if he was to survive to adulthood. Joan would have been expected not only to breastfeed the young Henry, but also take responsibility for his general health and well-being, his daily life, and his education in his formative years.

A mother chooses a potential wet nurse, from Aldobrandino of Siena’s Regime du Corps: Sloane MS 2435, f. 28v

Joan’s role was even more significant considering the sudden death of Henry VI’s father, Henry V (r. 1413-1422), in 1422. Henry VI was the sole surviving heir from his father’s marriage to the French princess Catherine of Valois (d. 1437). When the infant king ascended to the throne, England had to be ruled by a regency council until he came of age. If Joan had failed in her care and Henry had not survived into adolescence, the whole country could have been plunged into a major succession crisis.

The birth of Henry VI, showing Catherine of Valois with her nurses and attendants, from the ‘Pageants of Richard Beauchamp’: Cotton MS Julius E IV/3, f. 22v

When Joan submitted her petition to the king and his council in January 1424, the two-year-old king was too young to answer her request. Yet the council evidently felt that Joan had done her job well because an inscription on the back of the document indicates that the increase in her salary was not only granted but given to her for life, a fact corroborated by the pipe rolls (a collection of financial records maintained by the English Exchequer). The same year, the composition of the royal household began to change. In April 1424, a governess called Alice Butler was appointed to teach Henry courtesy, manners and discipline. A few years later, at the age of seven, the young king had all but transitioned away from the community of women who had looked after him, spending most of his time under the care of the Earl of Warwick and with other boys from noble and royal families. He no longer had any need for a nurse and Joan’s time in the household ended altogether.

However, this was not the end of her story. After her husband died in the early 1430s, Joan remained in the king’s favour. Further grants and annuities were awarded to her in the following years, probably as a reward for her service. Most notably in 1446, she was one of three founders given a royal license to establish a fraternity and chantry for St Botolph’s without Aldersgate, a parish church in the Smithfield area of London. Joan lived nearby, one of a number of widows who rented properties within the lands owned by St Bartholomew’s Hospital during this period. A rental for the hospital, compiled in 1456 by Brother John Cok (and now known as SBHB/HC/2/1) lists her as the resident of a tenement above the Smithfield Gate and tenant of a small garden in the vicinity. She probably remained there until her death (sometime after 1463), when she was said to have been buried in St Botolph’s Church. Though Joan’s home no longer exists, in 1907 a plaque was installed to commemorate the site, serving as the foundation stone for a new building in the complex of the hospital.  

A plaque marking the site of Joan Astley’s home in the grounds of St Bartholomew’s Hospital

You can see the petition of Joan Astley in person by visiting our major exhibition Medieval Women: In Their Own Words, which runs from 25 October 2024 until 2 March 2025, at St Pancras in London. Tickets are available to order 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

Follow us @BLMedieval

A monumental manuscript is on display in our Medieval Women exhibition. Harley MS 612 measures 54.5 x 38 cm, weighs over 15kg, and usually requires at least two British Library staff members to place it back onto its shelf. It is a compilation of Latin material by and about Birgitta of Sweden (d. 1373), copied in the mid-15th century for the Birgittine brothers of Syon Abbey. With its gorgeous, illuminated initials, wide margins, and elegant script full of decorative flourishes—courtesy of Thomas Colyngbourn, the manuscript’s scribe—one can easily imagine the awe of the Syon brothers on seeing it lying open on a lectern to be read aloud during the evening meal.  

A monumental copy of the works of Birgitta of Sweden, made for the brothers of Syon Abbey: Harley MS 612, ff. 164v-165r 

The text begins with a Latin translation of Birgitta’s Revelations, her visions and teachings originally written down in Swedish, but Birgitta’s voice peters out over the course of the manuscript. Considerable space is devoted to defences of Birgitta by male ecclesiastical authorities, posthumous accounts of her miracles, and even lives of other saints. As you move through the volume, it becomes more of a ‘Birgittine book’ than it is ‘Birgitta’s book’: less a document of the Swedish saint’s mysticism, and more of a grand testament to the cementing of her cult in England—and to the wealth of the community whose order bore her name.  

So, amid all this institutional grandeur, what’s this doodle doing in the margins?  

A marginal figure marking an addition to the text: Harley MS 612, f. 118r 

Or what about this cheeky little face that peers out from the letter ‘h’ in the Latin word ‘humiliter’?  

Peekaboo: Harley MS 612, f. 138r 

The manuscript is full of these surprises. Marginal images are dotted throughout—some glossing the text, some marking additions, and some of them seemingly just for fun. Where they came from is something of a mystery. The volume’s exemplar (the model from which it was copied) has not been identified, so we can’t tell whether the scribe was copying them out from a manuscript sitting open in front of him, or making them up as he went along. Some patterns of marginal images seem to suggest the scribe was working with a planned programme in mind, such as the concentration of images on ff. 78v-82v, all illustrating bits of text next to which they appear. They include a trussed-up corpse head with a banderole warning about the spiritual death of worldly souls:  

‘For just as they died a bodily death’ (Sicut enim illi morte corporali moriebantur): Harley MS 612, f. 78v  

… and this yapping creature, a fox in a shell, seemingly representing the ‘serpent-born’, devil-suckled beast described in the text as seeking to supplant its superiors:  

‘Tending towards treasons’ (proditiones tendere): Harley MS 612, f. 80v 

But other marginal images seem less integral to the manuscript’s design. Instead, they are like little Easter eggs, visual treats tucked into the pages to delight any reader willing to look closely enough. This tiny critter, buried in the gutter, playfully glosses the Virgin Mary’s words to Birgitta about bad bishops being as flashy and insubstantial as butterflies: 

A butterfly buried in the gutter: Harley MS 612, f. 32v 

On another page, what at first looks like a simple doodle to prop up an overflowing line reveals itself as a clever illustration of the accompanying text, in which Mary tells Birgitta that Christ is like a poor peasant carrying around brushwood:  

A wooden support illustrating an overflowing line of text: Harley MS 612, f. 50r 

My own favourite marginal images play with the manuscript’s physical dimensions, creating trompe-l’œil effects that turn the two-dimensional page into a playground of light, shadow, and depth. You feel as though you could almost step into this tiny door, which represents Christ’s promise to protect all those who enter the Bridgettine order from their enemies:  

Knock, and it shall be opened unto you (Qui in eam intraverunt): Harley MS 612, f. 164v  

Then there’s this addition suspended on a ‘rope’, which, when you turn the page, appears to be driven through the folio and attached on the other side. The scribe was clearly enjoying himself here. 

A real page-turner: Harley MS 612, ff. 232r-v 

Since this manuscript is on display in our Medieval Women exhibition, however, I would be remiss if I didn’t end this tour of the manuscript’s marginalia with what appears to be its only image of Birgitta herself, a small portrait peeking out between two columns of text. 

After all, even though this image appears alongside a male bishop’s words, defending and ‘authorising’ Birgitta’s sanctity, it’s the rich, strange, dizzying images of the divine in Birgitta’s own Revelations that must have inspired the scribe to create his gallery of wonders in the margins. However demure she looks in this portrait, Birgitta was a woman of remarkable force and intellect—just one of many whose stories are represented in our Medieval Women exhibition. 

Holy Birgitta, pray for us: Harley MS 612, f. 207v 

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.  

Rowan Wilson   

Follow us @BLMedieval  

It's time to test your knowledge about women from the Middle Ages, as featured in our major new exhibition Medieval Women: In Their Own Words. There are no prizes for getting the answers, just the warm glow of knowing you can tell your Eleanors from your Margarets, and your Isabellas from your Margerys. We'll be setting more quizzes over the coming months, so thinking caps on!

The skull of a Barbary lion on display in the Medieval Women exhibition, kindly loaned by the Natural History Museum

 

1. Which medieval queen owned a pet lion?  Eleanor of Aquitaine/Isabella the She-Wolf/Margaret d'Anjou/Juana of Castile

2. The Trotula is named after which medical practitioner?  Trota of Salerno/Trota of Seville/Trota of Salamanca/Trota of Salisbury

3. Which medieval visionary was fond of hazelnuts?  Birgitta of Sweden/Julian of Norwich/Catherine of Siena/Hildegard of Bingen

4. Where would you wrap a birthing girdle?  Round your ankle/belly/wrist/neck

5. A letter written in 1429 bearing the first-known signature of which famous woman is on display in the UK for the very first time?  Margaret Paston/Margery Kempe/Eleanor Cobham, Duchess of Gloucester/Joan of Arc

 

We will post the answers @BLMedieval on Sunday, 3 November.

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

 

While we were developing our exhibition Medieval Women: In Their Own Words, the most common question we were asked was, “Will you be including witches?” Although many people think of the Middle Ages as a time when women were widely persecuted as witches, in fact witchcraft trials were rare before 1500. The European “witch craze” only reached its peak in the early modern period, during the late 16th and 17th centuries. Still, the late Middle Ages was the time when many myths about witchcraft first developed. We always aim to please, so this Halloween we’re pleased to announce: yes, we’re including witches!

Witches using magic to cause a storm, from Ulrich Molitor, De lamiis et phitonicis mulieribus (On Witches and Female Soothsayers) (1495)

In 1486, notorious inquisitor Heinrich Kramer published a book called Malleus Malificarum (Hammer of Witches). This guide to identifying and prosecuting witches codified many ideas about witchcraft that became influential in later witch trials: that witches are predominantly women, that they enter pacts with demons, that they use magic to cause impotence, crop failure, disease and death of livestock and people. Yet the Malleus Malificarum was the culmination of a development that took place throughout the 14th and 15th centuries, when several strands of thought about magic, spirituality and women came together into one disastrous stereotype. In this blogpost, we explore these various strands as well as the stories of some of the earliest accused witches.

Midwives and herbalists

From the earliest times, women were important healthcare providers. In the absence of any formal healthcare system, informal networks of female practitioners provided medical cures and assisted women during pregnancy and childbirth. Methods of treatment ranged from blood-letting to herbal remedies to magical charms. Sometimes they would use their skills for non-medical purposes, such as supplying love charms, finding lost objects and predicting the future.

A female medical practitioner performing cupping therapy on a man, Sloane MS 6

The male medical elite looked down on female practitioners. The English surgeon and medical writer John Arderne (d. c. 1377), for example, wrote dismissively of “þe medycinez of ladiez” (the medicines of ladies), which, he said, made patients worse. We can see how the woman healer whose practices spanned the medical and the occult became a figure of distrust and derision in John Lydgate’s The Pilgrimage of Man. In this moralising verse account of an allegorical journey, the pilgrim “everyman” meets an old hag who, it turns out, is the personification of sorcery. This unpleasant character is peddling inscriptions, images, ointments, herbs and astrological readings, which she uses for malicious ends. The pilgrim asks her, “Tell on without more tarrying, where learnest thou all thy cunning?” She replies, “Soothly as I rehearse can, I learned my cunning off Satan”.

The pilgrim meets the personification of Sorcery, in John Lydgate, The Pilgrimage of Man: Cotton MS Tiberius A VII, f. 69r

Sorceresses and the devil

In the Middle Ages witchcraft was not a secular crime, but from the 14th century it came to be regarded as a form of heresy making it punishable by the Church. The heresy trials of the Order of the Knights Templar beginning in 1307, designed by Philip IV of France as a means to destroy the powerful order, included trumped-up accusations of sorcery, devil worship and performing sexual acts with demons. Many Templars confessed under torture, the order was disbanded and the leaders burned at the stake. These trials set an important precedent for establishing sorcery as evidence of heresy and paved the way for the persecution of women associated with magic.

Burning of the Templars, from the Chroniques de France ou de St Denis, BL Royal MS 20 C vii, f. 48r

In 1324, perhaps inspired by the trials of the Templars, one of the earliest known witchcraft trials in Europe took place. The accused was Alice Kyteler of Kilkenny in Ireland, whose three wealthy husbands had all died mysteriously leaving her with a great fortune. Richard Ledred, bishop of Ossory, pursued the case after Alice’s stepchildren accused her of using sorcery to infatuate and kill her husbands. Seven lurid charges were made against her, including that Alice summoned demons, brewed potions and had a sexual relationship with a demon incubus named Robin Artisson. Alice fled to England and evaded punishment, but her maidservant Petronella of Meath was tortured and burned at the stake as an accomplice.

Visionaries and demons

The association between women and supernatural influences was also informed by their prominent role as spiritual visionaries in medieval religious culture. It was believed that visionaries were able to witness glimpses of the supernatural world and communicate with spiritual beings such as God, saints or angels to gain hidden knowledge. While visionaries could be male or female, women were particularly attracted to the visionary path as it was one of the few ways that they could claim individual religious authority. Some female visionaries recorded their experiences and created important works of religious literature, including Hildegard of Bingen, Bridget of Sweden, Catherine of Siena and Julian of Norwich.

A woman experiencing a spiritual vision, Yates Thompson MS 11, f. 29r

Yet a career as a female visionary could be risky. Many churchmen were concerned that holy women might be receiving visions not from God but from the Devil. They considered that women were particularly susceptible to supernatural influences, including those of a more malevolent nature. As Heinrich Kramer explained in the Malleus Malificarum:

“Women are naturally more impressionable, and more ready to receive the influence of a disembodied spirit; [...] when they use this quality well they are very good, but when they use it ill they are very evil” (translation by M. Summers, 1971).

Church authorities developed elaborate systems to determine whether a reported vision was truly from God. Those whose visions were deemed to be from the Devil, especially those who gained power and knowledge from him, could be accused of witchcraft and heresy.

One of the most famous visionary women to be accused of witchcraft was Joan of Arc. During the Hundred Years War between England and France, the illiterate peasant girl received visions of saints and angels who told her to help the Dauphin Charles accede to the throne of France. She became the hero of the French army at the siege of Orleans, before being captured by the Burgundian-English alliance and tried for heresy. During the trial, the inquisitors accused her of visiting a “fairy tree” near her village of Domrémy, where she supposedly danced and adored the fairies. They concluded that Joan’s visions were not of saints but of evil spirits, such as Belial, Satan and Behemoth. She was found guilty and burned at the stake in 1431.

A decorated initial with an armoured knight, perhaps Joan of Arc, from the Rehabilitation Trial of Joan of Arc: Stowe MS 84, f. 2r

The English were particularly keen to remember Joan as a witch. The Brut chronicle, one of the most popular accounts of English history in the medieval and early modern periods, refers to Joan as “the wicche of Fraunce” (the witch of France), and claims that “By her crafte of sorserie alle the Frensshe men and her compeny trystid for to haue ouyrcome alle the Engelisshe pepull” (By her craft of sorcery, all the French men and her company trusted that they would overcome all the English people).

Political witches

Political motivations also underlie many of the other high profile witchcraft accusations of the period. Perhaps the biggest witchcraft scandal in medieval England centred on Eleanor Cobham (d. 1452), Duchess of Gloucester. Eleanor rose from a position in the lower gentry to become one of the most powerful women in England as the mistress and then wife of Humfrey, Duke of Gloucester. Humfrey was the uncle and heir of King Henry VI of England, meaning that he and Eleanor could have become king and queen if Henry had died young.

Eleanor Cobham and her husband Humfrey, Duke of Gloucester, from the St Albans Benefactors’ Book, Cotton MS Nero D VII, f. 154r

Eleanor fell victim to court politics in 1441 when she was accused of encouraging a group of scholars to make horoscopes predicting the untimely death of the king, and employing a woman named Margery Jourdemain, “the Witch of Eye”, to perform sorcery for her. At her trial, Eleanor denied plotting against the king, although she did admit to buying fertility remedies from Margery Jourdemain to help her to conceive a child with Humfrey. Both Eleanor and Margery were found guilty of heresy. Eleanor was made to perform humiliating public penance, divorce Humfrey and spend the rest of her life in imprisonment. Margery, who had been in trouble with the authorities for witchcraft before, was burned at the stake as a relapsed heretic.

Horoscope of Henry VI, Egerton MS 889, f. 5r

Eleanor Cobham was not the only woman connected with the English royal family who was accused of witchcraft in the 15th century. Earlier in the century, Joan of Navarre (d. 1437), widow of King Henry IV of England, was accused of witchcraft as a thin excuse to confiscate her money and lands to help pay for Henry V’s war with France. Later, the Titulus Regius of 1484 justified Richard III seizing the throne of England from his young nephew by claiming that the marriage of Edward IV and Elizabeth Woodville came about through “Sorcerie and Wichecrafte, committed by the said Elizabeth, and her Moder” (sorcery and witchcraft committed by the said Elizabeth and her mother).

These accusations show the great fear directed at women who were active in English politics, particularly those who challenged the status quo by marrying into the royal family for love rather than diplomacy, and — in the case of Eleanor Cobham and Elizabeth Woodville — climbing the social ladder from relatively obscure backgrounds. In each of these examples, including Alice Kyteler and Joan of Arc, accusations of witchcraft proved to be a convenient tactic for discrediting an ambitious and influential woman in a way that was impossible for her to disprove.

Elizabeth Woodville from the Book of the Fraternity of the Assumption of Our Lady of the Skinners of London, The London Archives, CLC/L/SE/A/004A/MS31692

Women healers, visionaries, heretics and accused witches all feature in our Medieval Women exhibition. You can encounter unique historical manuscripts relating to Joan of Arc, Eleanor Cobham and Elizabeth Woodville, and you can even have a go at our digital interactive “Are You a Witch?”, based on criteria from the Malleus Malificarum.

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.

Eleanor Jackson

Follow us @BLMedieval