Women in the Middle Ages: The Lives of Real Women in a Vibrant Age of Transition
About this audiobook
Reissued for the first time in decades, this ambitious work of Medieval scholarship by bestselling historians Frances and Joseph Gies traces the stories and fates of women in Medieval Europe over the course of a millennium.
Medieval history is often written as a series of battles and territorial shifts. But the essential contributions of women during this period have been too often relegated to the dustbin of history. In Women in the Middle Ages, Frances and Joseph Gies reclaim this lost history, in a lively historical survey that charts the evolution of women’s roles throughout the period and profiles eight individual women in depth.
We learn of Hildegarde of Bingen, an abbess who was a noted composer and founded two monasteries; of Eleanor de Montfort, a thirteenth-century princess of Wales who was captured by Edward I and held as a political prisoner for three years; and women of somewhat more modest means, such as the spouse of an Italian merchant and a peasant’s wife.
Drawing upon their various stories, talented historians Frances and Joseph Gies—whose books were used by George R. R. Martin in his research for Game of Thrones—offer a kaleidoscopic view of the lives of women throughout this tumultuous period.
About the author
Frances Gies (1915–2013) and Joseph Gies (1916–2006) were the world’s bestselling historians of medieval Europe. Together and separately, they wrote more than twenty books, which collectively have sold more than a million copies.
Anne Flosnik is an accomplished, multi-award-winning British actress, with lead credits for stage, television, commercials, industrials, voice-overs, and audiobooks. Anne has garnered three AudioFile Earphones Awards, an ALA Award, and four Audie Award nominations. Her narration of Little Bee by Chris Cleave was chosen as one of the Best Audiobooks of the Year 2009 by AudioFile magazine and one of the Top 40 Best Audiobooks of 2009 by Library Journal.
