For centuries, the image of a monk hunched over a desk, painstakingly copying manuscripts by candlelight, has dominated our perception of scholarship in the Middle Ages. But what about the women? A ...

A team at the University of Bergen in Norway have determined that a minimum of 1.1% of medieval manuscripts from around 800 to 1626 CE were copied by female scribes, with a probable total exceeding ...

Those inclined to see our era as a feminist golden age will find a timely corrective in “The Once and Future Sex,” medieval historian Eleanor Janega’s accessible and entertaining study of how women ...

In popular imagination, scribes and manuscript illuminators of the Middle Ages were men: Monks hard at work in candlelit scriptoria, busy copying the world’s knowledge onto parchment pages. “It’s ...

Medieval women viewed birthing girdles, or long pieces of parchment inscribed with religious invocations and drawings, as protective talismans. Courtesy of the Wellcome Collection Giving birth during ...

Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent every weekday. Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. Every book was a laborious project during the Middle Ages. And ...

This is a preview. Log in through your library . Abstract Domestic slaves and servants were ubiquitous figures in the late medieval Mediterranean world, whose health and physical condition were ...

WASHINGTON — About 1,000 years ago, a woman in Germany died and was buried in an unmarked grave in a church cemetery. No record of her life survived, and no historian had reason to wonder who she was.