Reading Room Radio: Medieval Women

Aleca shares her discoveries from non fiction and historical fiction reads centering on women in medieval times. 

Title: Femina: A New History of the Middle Ages, Through the Women Written Out of It 

Author: Janina Ramirez

Title: Eleanore of Avignon

Author: Elizabeth DeLozier

Reviewer: Aleca J.

Created by the Podcast Team at the Harris County Public Library.
www.hcpl.net

Podcast Team Members include: Beth Krippel, John Harbaugh, Mary Mink, Dylan Smith, Sadina Shawver, Alinda Mac, John Schaffer, Jennifer Finch, Katelyn Helberg, Darcy Casavant, Darla Pruitt and Nancy Hu 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to Harris County Public Library's Reading Room Radio, where your to be red pile gets a little more exciting one micro podcast at a time. Hi there, I'm Aleca Jarvis, and I work in HCPL's IT department. I'll read just about anything, but um I've always had a love of history, so I often find myself drawn to historical fiction and nonfiction. I also enjoy reading about the lives of women and also about people who weren't royalty in historical time periods, so regular people like you and I. These are all elements of two of my recommendations today. These books are Femina, a new history of the Middle Ages, through the women written out of it by Yannina Ramirez, and the other is Eleanor of Avignon by Elizabeth Delozier. We have these books in print, e-book, and e-audiobook formats at HCPL. Femina is a really interesting piece of research. It draws on advances in physical sciences and fields like archaeology rather than relying solely on written historical records. If we rely solely on written records from historical time periods, especially medieval times, women basically don't exist, and any mentions of them are filtered through so many contemporary lenses of society and religion and gender that we are left with basically a shadow of the actual woman. Femina seeks to reveal more about the truth of women's experiences and their roles in the medieval period while keeping them within the historical context. So each chapter revolves around a woman, whether she be named or unknown, and it travels between her contemporary life and modern revelations that have come as a result of those advances in the physical sciences. So it starts in seventh century England and it journeys onward through time and throughout Europe and Scandinavia. So centering each chapter around a specific person really kind of humanizes the information. It's easier for us to try and imagine ourselves in a single person's position rather than trying to draw that emotional connection from like just generalized knowledge about how things affected groups of people. Since it is historical nonfiction, there are a lot of dates and events mentioned, and it does have the slightly slower pace that you'll find in that genre. However, it's still a fascinating look at how scientific advancements can reveal so many nuances in historical findings. And those nuances often tell us so much more about the true day-to-day life of people, especially people who are written out of historical record. So if you're even remotely interested in the lives of women or nuanced looks at established historical record, please check this book out. The author also narrates the audiobook herself, and I think she did a great job. My second book, Eleanor of Avignon, is a fictional story of a young woman during the spread of the plague into France during the 14th century. Eleanor lives just outside the city of Avignon, and she also almost lives kind of like outside the bounds of society due to her skills and her knowledge of herbology and folk medicine. She learned these from her mother, who was an extremely skilled midwife and healer before she passed. So being a woman with too much knowledge, especially in areas under the purview of men or beyond what the Catholic Church held as acceptable, could be very dangerous. But through a series of events, Eleanor becomes an assistant to the Pope's personal physician. So this puts her in a unique position when the Black Death arrives in Avignon. She sees the difficulties in treating the plague and how intensely and cruelly people can turn against each other when faced with such a huge, looming, and existential threat. So this novel is not lighthearted by any means. This is often the case with historical fiction, especially when it's set in a period of such turmoil and upheaval as the medieval period. But what often draws people to historical fiction is the human element, the emotional connections between people as they experience terrible events. And this book has those in spades. While there is a quiet romantic element, this is not a romance. And so the bulk of these emotional ties are with Eleanor's family, especially her twin sister, and with her mentor. This is very much a book about an intelligent woman living in a difficult world, but it's the only world she knows. But she is someone who strives to know more and be more than society says women can be. So I find it to be a great follow up to Femina as it presents a fictionalized story of a woman who probably would have been written out of history. But as Femina shows, women like Eleanor, like me, like you, have always existed.