Seven top books about badass medieval women

Molly Aitken grew up on the south coast of Ireland. Her first novel, The Island Child, was longlisted for the Authors’ Club First Novel Award. Her short fiction has appeared in Ploughshares, for which she won the Alice Hoffman Prize for Fiction, and has been dramatized for BBC Radio 4. She is currently studying for a PhD in Creative Writing and History at Sheffield Hallam University.

[Q&A with Molly Aitken]

Aitken's "second novel, Bright I Burn, is about the loudest of ghosts: a wildly intelligent, ravenous and angry woman from history."

At Electric Lit the author tagged

a small list of fiction and non-fiction books about “badass” medieval women, so that you too, if you wish, can experience the middle ages through the eyes and ears and hearts and minds of women. Let’s remember these women, not as faultless, but complicated and messy, terrifying and clever, brilliant and badass.

One title on the list:

Femina: A New History of the Middle Ages, Through the Women Written Out of It by Janina Ramirez

‘I am the fiery life of divine substance, I blaze above the beauty of the fields, I shine in the waters, I burn in sun, moon and stars.’—Hildegard of Bingen

The pitch for this one really is in the title. Janina Ramirex highlights, in rare technicolor for a work of history non-fiction, many of the key women figures in medieval Europe: leaders, artists, scientists, spies, diplomats, entrepreneurs and outcasts. Reading this book will most likely fill you with a riotous rage that you’ve never heard of any of these brilliant women before. Ramirez explores all their wild and fascinating lives, but more importantly how they shaped the world we live in now. One brilliant example is Ramirez’s account of Hildegard of Bingen (1098 – 1179) who was a German Benedictine abbess and polymath active as a writer, composer, philosopher, mystic, visionary, and medical practitioner. Hildegard was also influential across Europe, giving counsel to all kinds of people including popes and kings. She is just one tantalizing example of the types of women you will find hidden within these pages. Yes, this is a history book, a widely and deeply researched one, but please don’t let this dissuade you. It is is vastly readable and enjoyable.

Read about another book on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue