'Medieval Women: In Their Own Words'… Sort Of
- EPOCH
- May 19
- 5 min read
Updated: Jun 3
Anne Moorhouse | The Warburg Institute
'Medieval Women: In Their Own Words', The British Library, 25 October 2024 – 2 March 2025
The recent exhibition at the British Library, 'Medieval Women: In Their Own Words', is captivatingly immersive and visually enthralling. A rich display of paintings, illuminated manuscripts, musical scores and hand-written documents attests to the astonishing visual legacy of medieval Europe and its continuing capacity to enchant. However, perhaps distracted by modern sensitivities, the exhibition risks losing sight of the unique historical focus that it claims to possess: the medieval female voice.
Medieval Europe was no fairground for women. In realms both private and public, sacred and secular, stories of female experiences during this period have been largely obscured by the male voice, so this exhibition contends. It therefore attempts to uncover the otherwise stilled voices of women through a selection of 140 objects spanning the period 1100-1500. Ranging from an example of Joan of Arc’s signature, shown outside of France for the first time, to pots containing perfume recreated from surviving recipes written by women, this presentation at Britain’s most renowned library is unmissable. Yet, as one snakes through the narrative detailing the private, public and spiritual lives of women, one feels the curators’ waning grip on crafting an exhibition governed by the strapline ‘In Their Own Words’.
Whether their place in life was considered in terms of class or determined by Christian dogma, the role of women in medieval society was by no means equal to that of men. Yet, neither their influence nor the range of activities that engaged them should be understated. Queen Isabella I of Castile and Queen Margaret of Anjou, for example, not only held royal titles but also made sure they exerted their resulting power. Whilst Isabella spearheaded Spain’s exploration of the New World, not least in providing crucial support for Christopher Columbus’s voyage to the Caribbean, Margaret inherited the title ‘She-Wolf of France’ for her ruthless leadership during the Wars of the Roses (due to illness, her husband Henry VI was unable to undertake this duty).
The testimonies displayed in this exhibition offer a new insight into the perhaps surprising impact of women in the otherwise male-dominated spheres of economy, culture and politics. Women authors left behind a wealth of poetry, manuals, philosophical treatises and historical texts. Christine de Pizan, the court writer for King Charles VI of France, produced several works of poetry and prose, a number of which articulated her views on gender relations and female virtue. In her most famous work, City of Ladies, De Pizan argues that women are in no way morally or intellectually inferior to men, but rather their equal. A true highlight of this exhibition is Julian of Norwich’s The Revelations of Divine Love; published in 1395, this is the first work in English to have been written by a woman.
An important theme of the exhibition is the female saint and the power such figures exerted for centuries over women and men alike. Notable among these is Lidwina, the Dutch mystic and Catholic saint, who occupied the attention of no fewer than four biographers in the decades following her death. She is represented by Johannes Brugman’s Vita Lijdwine – his ‘Life of Lidwina’ – written in 1456, which contains what is thought to be the oldest image of ice-skating in the Netherlands (depictions of ice-skating became hugely popular in Dutch art from the sixteenth century, with artists such as Pieter Bruegel the Elder pioneering the genre). Lidwina, who endured a serious injury whilst ice-skating at the age of fifteen, became the patroness saint of this popular activity. The presence of such extraordinary objects illuminates the exhibition, providing a rich opportunity for specialised learning.
The stories this exhibition relates are, however, not just medieval but, in several cases, recognisable within society today. A farmer’s account roll contains details of the gender pay gap between female and male workers on a large arable farm in the year 1483. Other manuscripts and surviving letters reference the limited access to healthcare and education for women, as well as accounts of the challenges felt by women in positions of leadership. These insights are supported by the highly interactive feel of the exhibition. Screens divide the various sections, evoking the walls of a medieval abbey. Passing between them, the visitor is transported. Earpieces provide a compelling sense of intimacy by enabling the listener to experience music extracted from medieval songbooks, whilst the display of recreated bottles of breath-freshener used by contemporary women renders the overall experience thoroughly visceral and animates the stories being told.
It is remarkable that the objects in this exhibition have survived for us to marvel at today. Broadly speaking, male authors, artists and musicians supply the majority of what remains from this period. It is therefore all the more astonishing that this exhibition promises the visitor a glimpse into the medieval period as told entirely by contemporary women. Whilst the opening wall text indeed acknowledges that 'most medieval sources […] from the period were written by and about men', we are assured in the final statement that 'This [exhibition] is the story of medieval women, told in their own words'.
Yet, as texts by male authors creep into the narrative and eventually equal the number of documents by women, might this story of medieval women ‘in their own words’ have been a touch overzealous? A section on female healthcare is largely dominated by the male voice. Whilst the respective interpretation labels claim that women devised methods to promote fertility, only those expedients made by men are provided. Admittedly, the texts by male authors in this exhibition provide context and useful comparisons to those written by their female counterparts. Yet, when such non-female voices are presented in such abundance, can the exhibition really sustain its assertion that it narrates the lives and experiences of medieval women ‘in their own words’?
Similarly unconvincing – even though the exhibition organisers describe it as a highlight – is the object titled ‘Margaret’s lion’ (in other words, the one that belonged to Margaret of Anjou). Only in the last line of the accompanying caption are we informed that this is an anonymous lion skull. For any visitor who overlooked this crucial information, their impression will remain that this was unequivocally the skull of Margaret of Anjou’s lion. Carbon-dated to the period, the head almost certainly belonged to a lion from the fifteenth century, but the claim that we are looking at Margaret’s lion is unsubstantiated. Have the curators oversold this object?
Also unnecessary, and frankly irritating, are those trigger warnings of potentially offensive content that are sprinkled throughout an otherwise captivating display of marvellous objects. For example, one ‘Content Warning’ cautions that some visitors may take offence at glimpsing a video depicting a skeleton, something that every child by the age of seven has seen. To charmingly set the mood, the first thing to greet the visitor in the exhibition is a warning alerting you that the contents of the entire display may be viewed as potentially harmful. I cannot imagine that this is much use to visitors after they have paid the £17 entrance fee.
Visually, this exhibition in no way disappoints, and the experience it conveys reframes established narratives about the actions and words of women in medieval Europe. The beauty of the selected objects is staggering. Yet – warning – this is an experience that does not escape the voices of male members of society at the time, and, indeed, these voices are heard in almost equal measure. Given its evident anxiety about causing offence, it seems ironic that an exhibition so devoted to liberating the human voice should be so self-effacing.
Further Reading:
Sam Riches and Sarah Salih, Gender and Holiness: Men, Women and Saints in Late Medieval Europe (Routledge, Taylor and Francis Group, 2011).
Judith M. Bennett and Ruth Mazo Karras, The Oxford Handbook of Women and Gender in Medieval Europe (Oxford University Press, 2016).
Henrietta Leyser, Medieval Women: Social History of Women in England 450-1500 (Phoenix Press, 1996).
Prior to completing her MA in Art History, Curatorship and Renaissance Culture (1300-1800) in September 2024 at The Warburg Institute, London, Anne Moorhouse studied Art History for four years at the University of St Andrews, Scotland. As part of her postgraduate degree, Anne undertook Italian Language and English Palaeography and wrote her final thesis on the subject, ‘‘Baroque Theatricality’ Illuminated: Light as a Tool of Performance and Persuasion in the Churches of Rome’. She now lives and works in London.
