Point me at a book (or twenty)

[frogbeastegg]

I have decided I can't tolerate my ignorance any longer, I am branching out from armour and killing things with neat looking weapons to a bit of female history. Specifically Roman and English medieval, since those periods are usually the most interesting to frogs.

:winces: Er, thanks to numerous experiences with Victorian edited history (all women in the middle ages lived in towers and waited for knights to save them) and with feminist history (we were so oppressed Gah Evil Evil We were property and never did anything All men are pigs) I am rather embarrassed by the whole subject area. Where to start, I have no idea. The bits of 'real' information I have gathered by accident over the years are quite interesting really, and unlike some I can read that in the eyes of Norman law and society a woman was owned by her nearest male relative without blowing a gasket and declaring war on anything vaguely male Anyway things changed when the Normans got absorbed into English culture, but cheerfully that usually gets ignored in the interest of dumping that female in a tower and oppressing her.

So can someone point me at some good books, please? Nothing with Victorian crap in it, or with the word oppressed featuring anywhere at all. I have a very short list of known titles:
Terry Jones' Medieval Lives (read it, interesting but very basic and doesn't detail the evidence enough in any of its lives)
Women in the Days of Cathedrals (still waiting on the 6 week Amazon request list, supposed to be outstandingly fantastic)
Roman Woman: some subtitle goes here and is very long (good, but done as a semi story and again missing in the evidence department. Also very specific in its timescale and focus)

:sigh: Armour is so much easier to read up on. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-help.gif

[squippy]

Theres a book on the journey of a sicilian princess to marry the HR Emperor that looks interesting but which I have not read yet. Her itinerary survived so theres a fair bit of detail. You may have to look for French sources; more work has been done on the French lower orders than the English it seems. I can't think of anything else specific but I'll have a look.

[Michiel de Ruyter]

I'll ask around in among my classmates, a number of them have to write termpapers on Octavia, Livia and both Julia's, all women with ties to Augustus.

Will get you books, and articles if all works out.

[Mount Suribachi]

Froggy, as an archeology student I'm assuming you've read the Vindolanda letters?

I was at Vindolanda last year, it was *awesome* http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/bigthumb.gif

[frogbeastegg]

Thnaks everyone.

I have read some of the Vindolanda tablets, I doubt anyone could read them all without dedicating a few years of study to them. The ones I read are the more famous ones, asking for underpants and talking about party invites.

[Mount Suribachi]

I know its not quite what you are after, but I saw a book in Ottakers - I think it was called "courtesans". Anyway it was all about 17th Century mistresses I believe.

So not Roman or Medieval then http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wacko.gif

But I doubt it would be all about women being stuck in towers/oppressed. Might be full of cheap titilation tales though and knowing what a modest frog you are it might be a bit http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-surprised.gif

So forget I mentioned it really http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-oops.gif

[Pellinor]

Try looking at some of the Society for Creative Anachronism websites.

A lot of what the SCA does is seriously anchronstic, but a lot of people in it are pretty good researchers and have taken a good look at mediaeval life - although it does tend to focus on costume.

[Red Peasant]

You could try Women's Life in Greece and Rome, by M. Lefkowitz and M. Fant, which I saw recommended in the Journal of Classics Teaching.
Selections can be found at:

http://www.stoa.org/diotima/anthology/wlgr/wlgr-privatelife.shtml

[frogbeastegg]

Thanks Pellinor, I've found the site and I am slowly wandering around it. Nothing yet, but it has plenty of links to military history stuff which I will be reading later.

Nice site, Red Peasant, thanks. Plenty of good, strange, wierd, and enlightening stuff. Now to see if that book is available in the UK...


Quote[/b] ]There was a woman in labour who, when the pains were on her, kept saying to those who were trying to get her to bed 'What's the good of going to bed? It was by going to bed that I got this.' Plutarch, 'Moralia'
Now there's one you don't see in your every day Plutarch

[Orda Khan]

You may find a study of women in the Mongol society to be a refreshing change. They were treated with equality

....Orda

[meravelha]

Women in Purple
Three Byzantine Empresses that changed the world...


http://www.amazon.com/exec....froyalt (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0691095000/ref=nosim/theworldofroyalt)


Also in a medieval vein Google

Yolande of Anjou (aka Yolande d'Aragon)
and of course
Eleanor of Aquitaine.

I sure you would enjoy the extensive notes at the game site:

www.hyw.com (http://www.hyw.com)

[frogbeastegg]

Have you got any books/sites to recommend on Mongol women, Orda? All I can find at a quick search is Osprey style military history.

Thanks, meravelha. That Byzantine book looks very interesting, I will add it to my list to pick up when I finish my current crop of books. The HYW site looks very promising on a quick browse, it looks like it contains a lot of good stuff on many different topics.

For anyone who is interested I found the following two books:

Medieval women: A social history of women in England 450-1500 by Henrietta Leyser (very good, nicely written and plenty of proper evidence for once)

Women in medieval life by Margaret Wade Labarge (quite good, but focuses more on specific social classes of women, rather than lumping all the information together into one area, for example simple things like life expectanbcy is scattered through 10 chapters, rather than being all in one place)

[ah_dut]

If you live in London Froggy (or should I say Rachel?) You could go to Foyles Bookshop. They always have loads of Books on Anything. On Sundays I can have a Look for you if you like. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-jester.gif

[frogbeastegg]

ah_dut, use whichever name you like. I'm a few hours away from London, but I suppose I could try for a shopping trip sometime. Foyles...whereabouts are they?

[ah_dut]

Err sorry froggy but haven't been looking in the monastary for a few days, Foyles is on charing cross road near oxford street. The nearest tube station is Tottenham Court Road. something like 113-117 charing cross road, 2nd floor for history.
Bye ah_dut