Celebrated women
of the
7th to 14th Centuries
7th Century
St Etheldra
(Audrey) ..... born 630 died
23rd June 679 ..... Queen, foundress and abbess of Ely, she was the daughter of
the King of East Anglia. She was married twice but remained a virgin and lived
an austere life on the Isle of Ely. She ate only one meal per day, wore woollen
clothes and only bathed before great festivals, possibly only three times a
year. Her death was caused by a tumour on the neck through the plague and when
it was lanced by a doctor she said that it reminded her of her former necklaces.
Thereafter, on the anniversary of her death, cheap necklaces were sold at fairs.
From then comes the word "tawdry" ( St Audrey). Seventeen years after her death
her body was examined and it was found that the tumour had healed and the linen
clothes in which she was buried were still as fresh. Her body was placed in a
marble sarcophagus and she became the most popular of the Anglo-Saxon women
saints
10th Century
Adelaide - St
..... born 931 died 999 ..... Holy Roman Empress who enjoyed a
position of influence over three generations of rulers. She was crowned Empress
in 962 with her second husband the German King Otto 1 and in 973 their son
succeeded as Otto 11. She became Queen Mother and as such had considerable
influence. She later became joint regent with her daughter-in-law the empress
Theophano for her grandson Otto 111 and from 991 to 996 was sole regent
11th Century
Adela
..... born c1062 died 1137 ..... youngest daughter of William the
Conqueror, in 1080 she married Stephen, Count of Meaux and Brie. Her third
child, Stephen, became King of the English throne through his mother. She had a
flair for administration and was interested in ecclesiastical affairs and
supported the rebuilding of Chartres Cathedral in stone. When her husband went
to join the First Crusade in 1095 she became regent and after his death in the
Second Crusade she continued as regent until her son Theobald succeeded her
Anna Comnena
..... born 1083 died 1148 ..... the earliest woman historian, she
was a learned Byzantine princess, daughter of the Emperor Alexius 1. After a
life of political intrigue she retired to a convent to write a history in Greek
of the life and reign of her celebrated father. This work is an elaborate
compilation in nineteen books and displays considerable labour. Though
unscientific and affected it gives valuable information concerning the 1st
Crusade
Godgifu - Lady ..... Lady Godiva died in Warwickshire
c1086. She was a well known philanthropist, landowner and benefactor to the
church but is more famously remembered for her naked ride through the streets of
Coventry in 1057 to protest against the severe system of taxation imposed by her
husband Leofric on his tenants. He agreed to her demands
Mabel (or Mabella)
Tichborne - Lady ..... died 1150 and is remembered every in her
own parish of Tichborne, Cheriton and Lane End in Hampshire on Lady Day - March
25th. When she was dying she asked her husband to bequeath land to a charity to
provide the income for an annual distribution of bread to the poor. Her cruel
and mean-minded husband said that he would bequeath only as much land as she
could cross believing that she would not be able to travel any distance at all.
However, with the aid of her maid she climbed from her deathbed and crawled on
all fours over 23 acres of land and so every year the inhabitants of her parish
receive a measure of flour with which to bake bread. The bequest is called
the Tichborne Dole and is distributed at a public ceremony held in the grounds
of Tichborne House. She also prophesied that should the charity lapse, seven
sons would be born to the family, followed by seven daughters and that the title
would laps. She was not far wrong. The Tichborne Dole was stopped after 644
years but when the baronet had seven sons and his heir had seven daughters his
third son decided that something must be done to ward off the curse and so he
revived the Dole and changed his name to Doughty. The title became extinct in
1968 with the death of Sir Anthony Doughty-Tichborne, the fourteenth baronet but
the Dole continues
Queen Margaret of Scotland ..... died November 16th 1093 .....
she was the granddaughter of Edmund Ironside and went to Scotland after the
Norman conquest of England. In 1070 she married King Malcolm and during her time
as Queen supported hospitals, schools and orphanages. She built churches and
abbeys and brought Benedictine monks into Scotland. Refined and cultured she
made many changes including claiming the Sabbath as a day of rest. She offered
advice on etiquette and ceremonial matters and worked hard to bring about a
reconciliation between England and Scotland. After her death she was laid to
rest in Dunfermline abbey next to her husband
Events .....
1081 ..... Albania ..... Sikelgaita, the warrior wife of Robert Guiscard, led a battalion of soldiers in the fight to gain control of Byzantium. She had married Guiscard in 1058 and had been his adviser ever since. She was an accomplished swordsman and was well equipped to lead men into battle
12th Century
Eleanor of Aquitaine
..... born c 1122 died 1st April 1204 ..... Queen of Henry 11,
King of England. In 1137 she inherited a kingdom, Aquitaine, to rule in her own
right. She was married first to Louis V11, King of France and accompanied him on
his crusade to the Holy Land but they were temperamentally unsuited and
divorced. She then became the wife of Henry 11 and bore him eight children. She
was a strong political force and governed England in his absence, supervised
accounts and acted as regent. After Henry's death in 1189 she travelled
widely on behalf of her son, Richard the Lionheart, and after him, for her
younger son, King John. She was a woman who knew what she wanted, was not afraid
to break with convention in order to get it and refused to be shackled by the
medieval view of womanhood. Eleanor never felt herself subservient to men and
followed her own star dying at the age of 83 years, a remarkable feat for anyone
living in the Dark Ages. She was buried at the Abbey of Fontevrault, but during
the French Revolution, it was ransacked and her bones scattered.
The Tigress and The Rose : Eleanor of Aquitaine and the Fair Rosamond by Richard Cameron Law
Marie of Champagne ..... died March 1198 at Meaux, France .....
she was the daughter of Louis V11 of France and Eleanor of Aquitaine (see
above). She married Henry 1 of Champagne in 1164 and when he died in 1181 she
assumed the role of regent for her son Henry 11. However she is remembered more
as a supporter and sponsor of literature and spent most of her life promoting
ideals of love and charity
Event ..... King Henry 1 of England signed the Charter of Liberties which granted widows, either with or without children, to keep their dowries and marry again. They were also allowed to be guardians of any land left by their husbands
13th Century
Eleanor of Castile
..... born c1245 died 28th November 1290 ..... daughter of
Ferdinand 111 of Castile and Joan of Ponthieu she became the Queen of King
Edward 1 in 1254 and accompanied him on his crusades from 1270 to 1273. Edward
loved her dearly and when she died at Hadby in Nottinghamshire he decided to
mark the resting places of her body on its journey to London for burial in
Westminster Abbey. At each stop along the route a fine stone monument was
built at Lincoln, Grantham, Stamford, Geddington, Northampton, Stony Stratford,
Woburn, Dunstable, St Albans, Waltham and West Cheap and Charing Cross in
London. Each was a different design and finely executed and these symbols of his
love and grief became known as the Eleanor Crosses. Not many are left today
Events .....
1212 ..... Assisi, Italy .... Clare of Assisi (born July 16th 1194 died August 11th 1253) and Francis of Assisi founded a new order of religious women called the Order of Poor Ladies. The women agreed to live simply and in poverty and to rely on charity alone
1235 ..... Perugia, Italy ..... Elizabeth of Hungary was canonized by Pope Gregory 1X. She was the daughter of King Andrew 111 of Hungary and was married in 1221 to Louis of Thuringia. When he died she sold all her possessions and gave nearly everything away to those more needy than herself. She founded a Franciscan monastery in Eisenach and helped to establish a hospital at Marburg. After her death a series of miracles of healing occurred at her grave and steps were taken to have her canonized
1242 ..... Venice, Italy ..... a new law, Il Statuto Veneto, was enacted to formalise and regulate the financial status of wives and widows especially in regard to their dowries. The act specified that men must account to their wives on the way their dowries were used and that the capital must remain in the control of the woman and she could spend it as she wished. However if a wife was unfaithful then she had no legal recourse. The statute also provided for any children
1288 ..... Scotland ..... it is said that a law was passed by order of Queen Margaret allowing ladies to propose in a leap year and that any man declining such a proposal could be fined
1298..... Rome,Italy ..... Pope Boniface V111 issued a papal bull that enforced the strict enclosure of all nuns. The decree categorically stated that all nuns remained cloistered in their monastery, regardless of their order or their rank in the convent hierarchy. This curtailed their freedom to go into the communities to help the sick, needy and impoverished
14th Century
Events .....
1310 ..... France ..... on June 1st Marguerite Porete was burned at the stake after twenty one theologians had declared her work " Mirouer des simples ames" heretical and she refused to obey the bishops orders not to speak about her work
1317 ..... France ..... in January of this year the Salic law excluding women from succeeding to the throne was invoked following the death of Louis X
1322 ..... France ..... charges were brought against Jacoba Felicie by the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Paris for practising medicine when not qualified