Review: Women in the Medieval Court by Rebecca Holdorph

Synopsis: While the courts of medieval Europe ate up tales of knights in shining armor and damsels in distress, the reality for the elite women who inhabited those courts could be very different. Medieval society might expect the noblewomen who decorated its courts to play the role of Queen Guinevere, but many of these women had very different ideas.

In a society dominated by men, women who stood out from the crowd could experience great success - and greater failure. Great queens, who sometimes ruled in their own right, fought wars and forged empires. Noblewomen acted behind the scenes to change the course of politics. Far from cloistered off from the world, powerful abbesses played the role of kingmaker. And concubines had a role to play as well, both as political actors and as mothers of children who might change a country's destiny. They experienced tremendous success and dramatic downfalls.

Meet women from across medieval Europe, from a Danish queen who waged political war to form a Scandinavian empire, to a Tuscan countess who joined her troops on the battlefield. Whether they wielded power in battle, from a convent or throne room, or even in the bedchamber, these women were far from damsels in distress.

Holdorph's book is divided into four sections - noblewomen, consorts, reigning queens and concubines - and she peppers her narrative with the biographical details of a number of historical women.

In Section One - Noblewomen - Holdorph undertakes a chronological look at the lives of these women from childhood to motherhood, widowhood, remarriage and political life. The details for the section are lifted from the lives of Matilda of Tuscany, Anna Comnena, Marie de France, Alice de Lacy and Cecily Neville.

Section Two - Consorts - looks at queenship from the process of selecting a suitable candidate, potential alliances, the role of king's wife and mother of the heir, to the role of queen on both the domestic and international political field. In this instance, Holdorph looks at Anne and Eupraxia of Kiev, Eleanor of Castile, Maria de Luna, Isabeau of Bavaria and Margaret of Anjou.

Reigning Queens are covered in Section Three, where the importance of behaviour and reputation are explored, in addition to the problems of marriage and the right to rule. Historical subjects used as the examples for this section include Urraca and Berenguela of Castile, Joanna of Naples, Margaret of Denmark, Caterina Cornaro, with a few others dotted throughout.

Finally we reach Section Four - Concubines. Here Holdorph discusses the definitions of marriage for context, whilst looking at the role and status of the mistress. This section also explores the "good" and "bad" mistress, and the ultimate price that many had to pay - the author notes that the death rate for mistresses was unnaturally high! Some of featured ladies include Agnes Sorel, Katherine Swynford, Alice Perrers, and Ines de Castro.

Holdorph finally concludes that regardless of status and social position, men still had the upper hand when it came to control over women and their lives, that marriage was an important part of a woman's life, and that there is very limited information on medieval women with which to craft a truly detailed narrative.

What I did conclude from reading this work was there was nothing new for me personally - I didn't take away anything from this. All examples were already well known to me, as I have studied the lives of many of these women and have read extensively in this area.  There were many times I wanted to give up on this book, however, the hope that I might find some nugget worthy of my time kept me going.  There was no pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

Secondly and most notably, the cast of characters is very Eurocentric - there were no examples from the history annals of Asia, Africa, or Eurasia - and the women selected were decidedly Christian in religion, with no Hindu, Muslim, Shinto or other religion being included.

Another thing that annoyed me the most was the use of names or rather a strange variant of name - if you are going to introduce your reading public to lesser known historical figures, then stick with the common usage of their names, or you will lose your reader that much more sooner.

I will say this, however, Holdorph's book could be considered more of a primer for someone just cutting their teeth on this subject - however, there are many other worthy tomes out there that have covered this subject matter of much more effectively and efficiently.