October Additions

As the last of the September additions arrived in the post a couple of days ago, October's list has been sent off. Here are the tomes for October:

Elfrida by Elizabeth Norton

Contrary to popular belief, Anglo- Saxon England had queens, with the tenth-century Elfrida being the most powerful and notorious of them all. She was the first woman to be crowned Queen of England, sharing her husband King Edgar's imperial coronation at Bath in 973. 

Cnut: England's Viking King 1016-35 by M.K. Lawson

King Cnut ruled England from 1017 to 1035 and left behind him a legacy of peace, law and order. However, the beginnings of his kingship were less auspicious. He was a cruel and vicious warrior, who invaded England with his father Swegen Forkbeard, perhaps at a tender age.

The Military Leadership of Matilda of Canossa, 1046-1115 by David J. Hay

This is the first account in English of the entire, forty year military career of one of the most powerful women of the Middle Ages. Challenging the boundaries between military and gender history, it explains how one famous noblewoman rose to the defense of the reforming papacy, defeated the Holy Roman Emperor and turned the tide of the first great war between Church and State.

Jack the Ripper's Secret Confession by David Monaghan

While Jack the Ripper spread fear throughout the East End of London in 1888, another man stalked the streets hunting flesh. He called himself Walter. Walter printed up his memoir of sex under the title "My Secret Life". This book shows how this notorious work of Victorian pornography reveals that its author had the means to be Jack the Ripper. (Yes, I am an avid Ripperologist)

The Byzantine Lady by Donald M. Nicol

A lively collection of ten biographies of aristocratic women of the Byzantine empire in its final years.

Women Who Run with Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estes

Within every woman there is a wild and natural creature, a powerful force, filled with good instincts, passionate creativity, and ageless knowing. Her name is Wild Woman, but she is an endangered species. Though the gifts of wildish nature come to us at birth, society's attempt to "civilize" us into rigid roles has plundered this treasure, and muffled the deep, life-giving messages of our own souls. Without Wild Woman, we become over-domesticated, fearful, uncreative, trapped. 

The Anarchy of Stephen and Matilda by Stephen M. Taylor

Join Matilda Plantagenet in her violent struggle to overcome sexism in medieval England. Share her aspirations as she attempts to balance love and motherhood with the ultimate political career. Experience her frustrations as she battles sins of the flesh, dogmas of the Church and her archnemsis, the beguiling Stephen of Blois. (I am seriously hoping that this is not a novel but  non-fictional account of this period).