It’s summer for Janina Ramirez (1980) too, and that’s why she’s on the road in a camper van, right through the north of Great Britain. This is land that was once conquered by the Vikings: a people who were not only made up of fierce, bearded and uncivilized men, but also women who sometimes had remarkable power and prestige, who could be buried with a kind of chess game in reference to their exceptional military-strategic insight, and who, for example, accounted for the majority of trade.
Soon Ramirez, a cultural historian, researcher at the University of Oxford and documentary filmmaker, will travel on to the Isle of Skye and perhaps even Lewis, through harsh stony landscapes. She follows in the footsteps of Unn the Deep, a woman who and her crew were one of the first to colonize Iceland – and also one of the women Ramirez describes in her new book, Femina.
‘A new history of the Middle Ages, by the women who have been deleted from it’, is the subtitle of the book. It is a great success in the United Kingdom: it has been in The Sunday Times Bestsellers List. The reviews are also enthusiastic. Not so much because of Ramirez’s somewhat wooden writing style, but because of the surprising version of the history she presents to her readers.
The title of the book refers to the designation Ramirez often encountered when flipping through catalogs of medieval books. It referred to texts written by a woman, and thus considered less worth preserving. Like writings on “witchcraft” or “heresy,” they disappeared from the libraries. Now Ramirez tries to bring the powerful women of the Middle Ages back to life, in a journey that crisscrosses Europe.
Why did you find it necessary to rewrite the history of the Middle Ages?
“Over the past five to ten years I have become increasingly concerned about people who have been excluded for a long time and are now trying to make their voices heard. There have been such important movements: #MeToo, #BlackLivesMatter, Trans Rights. My feeling was: I can’t keep my distance. So I wanted to show how we can write about history in a different way.
“Ten years ago I couldn’t have made this book. I wouldn’t have gotten the stage for it, but I also wouldn’t have had the tools, the science and technology. Archaeologists are constantly making new finds and we can now examine them more closely than ever. We can look not only at buckles, beads, or jewelry, but also at the bones, and see if those bones belong to women. We can do DNA analysis. And we have access to many archives via the Internet. Because of all that, we now have a chance to rectify what went wrong.
‘It’s all happening so fast! Just two years ago, for example, an article was published about the racial diversity of London in the 14th century. DNA analysis revealed that medieval London was almost as ethnically diverse as it is today. I thought: if before I had closed my eyes and thought of medieval London, I would not have imagined a city full of people of different colors. Even my own ideas have been changed by the writing of this book.’
The way we see the Middle Ages, Ramirez argues, is strongly colored by the centuries that followed. Out Femina: ‘When soldiers were needed, ready to die for king and country, the historian gave them heroes and warriors. When society favored male dominance and female submission, the historian provided a male-oriented history.’
Is there really an evil plan to erase women from history?
“When I started writing this book, I thought so. But as my research progressed, I saw: a lot has also been accidentally lost.
‘Nevertheless, sometimes there really is talk of rewriting history with a propagandistic purpose. Take, for example, Aethelfled, a 10th-century English queen. Her brother and successor tried to change the annals by removing her name from documents. Yet her diplomatic skills made her very important to the formation of Britain today.’
The book begins with Emily Wilding Dickinson, a 20th-century woman who fights for women’s suffrage, and who finds inspiration in the women of the Middle Ages. According to her, the medieval world was rich in diversity, with men and women as equals. Were the Middle Ages really a woman-friendly time?
‘Yes I think so. There was no equality, but it was female-friendly. We may think that medieval women lived during the witch hunts, but that is something later, from the 16th and 17th centuries. In the Middle Ages there are just mystical, secular women, like the Margery Kempe mentioned in my book, who had a group of men and women around them who said: they are independent, they are different, they are interesting.’
You also describe how Christianity initially benefits women.
‘If you look at Germanic religions, it revolves around a male elite of warriors. The Romans know a world of gods where the male gods dominate the female. But in the Christian church, every individual counts. And there are characters like Mary: she is almost more powerful than Jesus, because she is the mother of God.
‘Christianity begins as a cult, as a religion on the fringes. Christians challenge the state religion. Thus the state, which excludes women and keeps them in a submissive position, without the right to vote, without power, both in Rome and in the northern England of the 7th century. Then why not choose that independent, alternative path?
‘Monastery life also offers women opportunities. Suddenly they could turn away from the education of the children, from the domestic sphere, and immerse themselves in culture, in intellectual challenges, in prayer, in an environment of women who encourage each other. All they had to do was give up their inheritance and they would be part of an international organization in which they could lead and influence the entire Western world.’
In 2017, DNA was analyzed from the tooth of a Viking warrior buried with an axe, sword and spears. It turned out to be a woman.
“That was a really big event. The news went viral in a way I’d never seen in a discovery from the Middle Ages. A lot of people said: no, no, this can’t be, women can do a lot, but they can’t fight like men.
‘I thought: look at this, this is the last taboo. The physical strength of women. Whereas, if you look at war zones, what women have to do when circumstances force them to, they can fight just like men. This also applied to the Vikings, who lived under extreme conditions, in the Scandinavian cold. If you have a village with ten inhabitants, then everyone counts, then everyone has to participate.
‘And yet in the 21st century this turned out to be a taboo. So much so that the scientists had to hide because of the threats and the criticism they received.’
One of the exceptions in the book is Hildegard van Bingen, a cleric from the 12th century: she has never been forgotten. How is that possible?
‘In her time she was already admired, by popes, bishops, by Emperor Frederick Barbarossa. And in the eight centuries since, admirers have always remained. Because she was so brilliant, I think. She has written an awful lot, and she jumped from one genre to another very easily. Prophetic texts, poetry, natural history, astrology, letters – and she always manages to strike a different, appropriate tone. As a writer I can be jealous of that.’
On the cover of Femina is a representation of one of Hildegard’s visions: the universe in the form of an egg.
“This image had to be it, from the start. The illustrations in Hildegard’s works are incomparable. She probably had migraines: the silver and gold in the images is reminiscent of the aura people can see during a migraine attack.
‘Hildegard is a nun, but she doesn’t write anything purely theological, she doesn’t limit herself to the standard versions of what heaven or hell looks like. She creates something completely new, independent and radical.
“I also think she deliberately made this image look like a woman’s genitals. Everyone I show it to says yes, it’s a vagina. My publisher saw it, and so did the publisher in the US, which is why it shouldn’t be on the cover there.’
Something that was acceptable in the 12th century is no longer acceptable?
‘Yes, it’s too controversial. In 2022. Insane right?’
Hildegard also describes a concoction that allows a doctor to induce an abortion. Another thing that is controversial these days.
‘It shows that we cannot project Christianity of today onto the Christianity of the past. Back then popes and bishops and all kinds of clergy read Hildegard’s texts, and they had no problem with it.’
“Representing the past can affect the present,” you write. How do you hope this book affects the present?
There is a great quote that history is to nationalists what an opium grower is to a heroin addict. We historians are the driving force behind those in power, we give them the evidence, the data. And so it is my responsibility to provide evidence that reflects how I want to see the present and the future, namely: inclusive and diverse.
‘Often I have the feeling that we are ideologically hanging on a pendulum that can swing one way and the other. Of course I would like us to move in the direction of inclusion and progressiveness and diversity. Hopefully my book will give the debate a nudge in the right direction.’
The Middle Ages are surely not the only time when interesting women lived. What other periods cry out for rediscovery?
‘As far as I’m concerned, this book is a kind of mold that you can lay at any time. Also, for example, on the Netherlands from the Golden Age. I say take up the gauntlet, go to the local museum, to the church, to the nearest archeological site, and look at it your own way. Who are you looking for? Who are you interested in? Your great-aunt, who once lived in your house? Someone you ever met in a footnote of a book? We can all help bring the past back to life, because the past is as rich as our world today.’