MEDIEVAL WOMEN IN THEIR OWN WORDS

My favourite things from the British Library’s outstanding new medieval women exhibition

The most important medieval exhibition of the year opened in London a couple of weeks ago at the British Library in London. It is called Medieval Women: In Their Own Words. I’ve been laid low - long story, I’ll tell you at some point - so it has taken me until today to go and see it.

Everyone has been saying that the show is amazing. The brat in me wanted to think otherwise. But the brat in me has nothing. The show is indeed amazing. More or less every famous literary woman of the later Middle Ages gets a look-in, and the range and calibre of exhibits the BL have brought out for the show (or in some cases, brought in via loans) is sensational.

Many, many of the items on display would be the centrepiece of entire exhibitions on their own. It’s just smash hit after smash hit.

Here are a few of the items that caught my eye as I looked around this morning. If you make it to London before March 2025, I urge you: go see for yourself.

Medieval Women: In Their Own Words is open now at the British Library. You can get tickets here.

---

Isabella of France invades England

This fifteenth century Belgian manuscript is a lavishly illustrated edition of Jean de Wavrin’s chronicle. The scene depicted is of Edward II’s queen, Isabella of France, in military garb, storming England with her lover, Roger Mortimer. In the background, there’s a miniature of Hugh Despenser the Younger being hanged, drawn and quartered.

The actual Book of Margery Kempe