Betwixt The Sheets: The History of Sex, Scandal & Society - Medieval Women: Beauty, Work & Pubic Hair

Episode Date: March 14, 2023

How would a medieval woman achieve a Brazilian bikini line? Why can’t you trust a nun in the night time? And what were women doing at Medieval universities? Kate is joined for the THIRD time by Eleanor Janega to talk about how women were expected to be in the medieval era, and how they actually were. From biology to appearance to careers, it’s time to shed light on this half of the medieval population.Eleanor has just released a new book, ‘The Once and Future Sex: Going Medieval on Women's Roles in Society’.*WARNING there are adult words and themes in this episode*Produced by Charlotte Long and Sophie Gee. Mixed by Sophie Gee.Betwixt the Sheets: The History of Sex, Scandal & Society. A podcast by History Hit.For more History Hit content, subscribe to our newsletters here.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Sign up to join me in locations around the world and explore the past. Just visit historyhit.com forward slash subscribe. Paper Twixters, it's me, Kate Lister. I am here with your fair dues warning, or specifically for this episode, ye oldie, fair dozy warning. I don't think that's right at all. But I am here to give it to you anyway.

You have to be warned that this is a podcast dealing with adult themes, where adults talk to each other about adulty things. And the adult that I am talking to in today's episode is Eleanor Yenega. If you know anything about Eleanor, you'll know that quite frankly she lowers the tone considerably, that she has got a real potty mouth and generally is just obscene and naughty, and there's nothing I can do to stop her.

So we will be talking about sex, we will be swearing, there's quite a long discussion about pubic hair as well, you know, and none of this is my fault because I'm very easily influenced and Eleanor is a terrible influence. But if you can stomach all of that, then let's get into it. Okay, betwixtas, close your eyes and picture a medieval woman. What have you got? What have you come up with? What's she doing? Is she churning butter? Is she tending to livestock? Is she singing romantically out of a tower window while a bluebird rests on her hand?

Is she doing housework? What colour hair does she have? What do her teeth look like? What about her body? Is she hairy? Or can medieval women get Brazilian waxes in your imagination? Is she educated? Here's a thing, I don't know what you came up with,

but medieval women tend to have a pretty bad rap in the public imagination. And today we are going to find out what it actually meant to be a proper medieval woman. What was a woman expected to be in this time? How easy was it to live up to these expectations? And of course, how hairy were they? Let's get into some fresh woolen blankets to find out. What do you look for a man? Oh, money, of course.

You're supposed to ride. when an adult speaks to you. I make perfect copies of whatever my boss needs by just turning it up and pushing the funny. Yes, social courtesy does make a difference. Goodness, my beautiful time. Goodness has nothing to do with it, Derry.

Hello, and welcome back to Betwixt the Sheets, the History of Sex Scandal and Society. With me, Kate Lister. At the time of recording, it is Women's History Month. A time when historians and multinational corporations alike consider how women's roles have changed throughout history. Posts on LinkedIn and Twitter and everywhere else

talk about women from the 20th century, they talk about Tudor women, Cleopatra often gets a look in, but there's a regular absence of medieval women. And I think it's because we don't think of them as being very feminist, do we? We think of them as being locked away in towers, wearing chastity belts and waiting for Prince Charming to pull his finger out. Well, in order to try and dispel some of these myths, and to find out what it really meant to be a medieval woman.

I am overjoyed to have met up with the legend that is Eleanor Yenega, and she is here to talk about her new book, The Once and Future Sex, Going Medieval on Women's Roles in Society. This is her third time on the show. We can't keep her away. Check out her other episodes on Ghosts and Medieval Sex, wherever you manage to find this podcast. She's just far too much fun.

She really is, and I hope that you enjoyed this episode. as much as I enjoyed recording it. Welcome back to Betwixt the Sheets. It's only Eleanor Janega. Again! I love here now. I know you. There's no one else I'd rather have in my bed.

You and Jason Mamoa. Yeah, okay, no, that's fair. That's fair. You'd bring the history, though. There's room for all of us. I think so. Yeah. I thought he'd have an interest in medieval history.

But anyway, enough of Jason. We are here because it's your book launch, babes. I know. How excited is that? I'm really excited. It's my... baby, I've been working on it, you know, for years now. Yeah, now it's out in the world.

And she's very beautiful. She is. This is a sexy book. The Once and Future Sex. Where does that title come from? It's kind of a reference to the Once and Future King, which is about Arthuriana. So essentially what it's doing is flagging people up to the fact that this is a book about medieval things, but also what it's kind of hinting at is the fact that I'm talking about

medieval women in the book, but also the idea that if we really really, you really, you know, dig into ideas about gender from the past. We can understand our own as well and then hopefully make a more equitable future, ha ha ha. Nice. Yeah. Nailed that. So that process can go on for a fucking while, can't it? Yeah. And that's the thing is that and then they're going to like have something really straight-laced. Because you now have a lot of trouble publishing anything with the word sex. Yeah, absolutely. So and it has maybe, it might hinder things a little bit to be honest because there are a lot of controls about literally selling anything that involves the word sex online because people don't think

before they make laws. No they don't. Yeah and it's quite interesting because even if it's something like this which is very much like a feminist book it falls under these like really kind of draconian measures that are you know really about keeping women in their place right because they fall foul of Sesta Fosta which is basically about keeping sex workers offline. Yeah, kind of sex on the internet. Exactly and so but it's a really interesting kind of way of thinking about how people like to that sex work and sex workers is something that happens over there and this is like a bad group of women that you don't need to worry about but actually you know their struggle

affects all of us absolutely it does so this is definitely your brain baby this is a labor of love I want to ask you like where did it come from what was the inspiration for this but I think I just know it's because you're a committed pervert oh that's true it kind of like started out like from being you know a committed pervert or gossips about dead people's sex lives for a living and one of the things that I you know continuously notice when you tell people, oh yeah, I work on medieval history and sex, is they are so confounded by the way that medieval people think about women and sex because medieval people are like, oh, women are just these insatiable, horny sex monsters.

All they want to do is have sex. And people are like, oh, that's so silly because everybody knows that ladies hate sex, actually. And I find that really interesting and important to talk about because really the point of the book is that we are constantly changing what it is that we think women are all the time. You know, we explain what women are like constantly. And we then come to the conclusion, well, women are bad and they're less than men, right? So men are the good one and like women are bad. And the reason women are second class citizens is because all these silly things about them. But we're constantly changing what's bad about women all the time. Because in the medieval period, it's like, oh, well, women are massively horny. So,

like, you can't have them in public life because they'll just be humping chairs. Where did that idea come from? I mean, were medieval women just masturbating friends? fantastically all over the place. I mean, I wouldn't put it past them. I'd like to believe, yes. But it's actually a really, really old idea. So it comes to us really through the transmission from the classical period. So you ask anybody like Plato, Aristotle.

Oh, I knew they'd be involved. Every time. And they're like, yeah, women are massively horny. And it's because even for the ancients, sex in and of itself is considered bad. And so the idea here is that sex basically overrides all of your kind of intellectual. I mean, it kind of does, I'd have to agree with them now. I've done some really dumb things before. Well, see, there you go, because you're just an average woman, you know. It's my lady brain. It's my poor lady brain, right? And so the way that Aristotle looks at it,

he says that women are kind of like inside out or deformed to men. Right, he's losing me a bit now. Yeah, he's a bit of a dick, right? And so women are kind of just the opposite of everything that a man is. But opposite in a bad way? In a bad way. Right. So men are like stoic and logical, and they can be ideal citizens and they can contribute to, you know, the Athenian discourse or whatever the hell. But women are stupid, horny lizard people who, you know, are basically just trying to fight all the time and also hump things. So the idea is that, like, men can overcome this, but women can't, right? Right. And so medieval people then, you know, they're just massively hard for any ancient, right, especially.

Yeah, they never updated their medical text, did they? It was very much about digging out the classics. You just look to the classics and then you kind of do this thing where you go, oh yeah, and Jesus on top of it. So, and when you add the Bible in, things are also like really point to, oh, well, women are horny because you just go and you look at the Garden of Eden. Yeah, but men are fucking aren't in the Bible too. Solomon with his 850 wives. Yeah, but like that's fine. That's all right.

Yeah, but it's really interesting because you see all this kind of like mental gymnastics around that, right? Like even in the conception of medieval sex work, right? where it's like, oh yeah, well, sex work has to exist because, you know, if men don't have an outlet to have sex, then they'll just, like, riot and burn the city down. So you better have sex workers for unmarried men. So clearly men are, like, horny enough that they might, like, burn shit to the ground if they don't have access to sex, but women are the horny ones. You still see that rhetoric raising its head from time to time, especially around modern in-celled assholes. Like, I occasionally see somebody saying, oh, can't sex workers have sex?

can't they pay to have sex? Yeah. And he's like, kind of like, don't offer sex workers or for some kind of buffer for insane men. It's like, oh yeah, that violent guy. That violent guy who murders people. Why don't you have sex with them? Yeah, and this is the really interesting thing,

because whenever you hear people say that, it's like, that's a genuinely medieval view. That is, isn't it? Yeah. I'm constantly losing my rag because someone is like, oh, that's so medieval, like whenever just something is bad. And I'm like, this is the case where that's medieval. That is actually, unfortunately, yeah.

Medieval, right? So I'm trying to get like to the, bottom of what did medieval people think are women? And this is actually, it's a huge question because medieval, it's actually about a thousand years of history, isn't it? It's a vast sway. Yeah, and obviously we know a little bit more about kind of the later period because, you know, it's just closer to us than, you know, further in the back. Like, you know, the 8th century is a really long time ago, but it's interesting because you can see kind of kernels of things in there that go along. But there's certain things. So, for example, I really talk about beauty standards a lot in this. Yes. And we spend a

long time, like in the earlier medieval period where we just don't really talk about what we think a hot woman is. And that's really much closer to the kind of ancient Greek way of thinking about things. So if you go back and look at like ancient Greek texts when they talk about what a hot woman is, which is what medieval people were doing, right? Because medieval people are like, I can't possibly think a woman is hot if Aristotle didn't think she was hot. Like I wouldn't, how would I ever? So they go back and look at all these texts and they're like, okay, well, let's go see how they describe Helen of Troy. Right. Because she's the hottest. How do they describe Helen of Troy? She's blonde. That's it. That's it. That's a lot. That's it. That's a lot. That's it.

That's it. And also sometimes they're like, she's the cutest. And like that is it. And so that's all we know. And then like, you know, in descriptions of the Trojan Wars, like sometimes Braseas or Polyzania, they will get described. And they're like, well, Briseas is tall. Polysena, she's not tall. Right, so lots of detail. Yeah, so there's like nothing at all to go on. And it's quite interesting because it's very much like a beauty is in the eye of the beholder type of situation.

And then when you're in the earlier medieval period, when people describe women as being beautiful, they're just like, oh yeah, she's beautiful. And they're like, that's it. And then that's that. No detail, right? Right. Then from the 12th century forward, they're like, no, guys, like, we've got to get this down. And they kind of, like, come up with what a beautiful woman is. And it becomes really ossified.

So they scan from the head down to the toes. Who's scanning? Who's doing this? He's writing this. So there's, like, this guy, Jafri of Vinsaf, who's like, he writes this whole, basically guidebook on how to write poetry. And he's like, hey, if you want to describe a sexy woman, this is what a sexy woman is. What did he say is a sexy woman?

Okay, so she's got blonde hair. Check. A high hairline, you've got to have like... I do have a high forehead. Okay, you're in, you're in baby. Right, okay. You got to have arched eyebrows, preferably black. I could nip to boots, yeah.

Okay, so, gray eyes. Blue eyes. Yeah, like blue's okay, gray's better. A nose that is neither too big nor too small. I think I'd do that. Okay, yeah, that's fine, yeah. White skin. I did fake tongue the other night.

Yeah, see that here right out. I don't know. Yeah, and then you got to have like a cheeks like roses. Yeah, no. A mouth like a rosebud, white teeth. They could be white teeth. Yeah, well, they always could, right. A neck like a swan.

Definitely not, no. Yeah, small shoulders. No. Small high breasts. No. A pot belly. Yes. A dump truck ass.

Yes. Okay, yeah, thick thighs. Yes. Feet. I have feet. There you go. So, you know, like your, the checklist's pretty good, right? Right.

I'm medieval hot. Yeah, there you go. So. I'd be on tapestries all over the ancient world. Yeah, and it's like, that is what it is. Really, they like a fat ass in a pot belly? Oh god, yeah. They are like pear-shaped baby. They're like they don't want to see titties. They're like, those titties better be up by your armpits. You do see that in medieval

paintings when it looks odd, it looks like the breasts are trying to go in different directions. Yeah, and they're like meep, right? That's what they got to be like. So like they're looking for that pair shape and they are hardcore about it to the point where you know, if I remember online and like posting pictures of like, you know, a hot medieval babe who's naked, people are like, why is she pregnant? And I'm like, that's her luscious little belly. Wow. That's what they, and, you know, so now we just don't think that's hot at all.

My God, it's not that I'm not hot. I was born hundreds of years too late. You know, well, what I would argue, babe, is that perhaps creating an archetype that is really rigid of being like, the only way to be hot is this one thing is a social construct. Oh, that's right. We're not doing that. Okay. Because like, don't take that away from me.

I was really excited then. But this is like the thing, right? Because now when you see like women that we call hot, there'll be like all these nerd-ass nerds who are like, actually it's ephosycology and we evolved this way to think that this particular woman is hot. I'm like, oh really? Because for 700 years they wanted like chicks

that were just like packing a booming system in the back and like that's all they wanted. So it can't possibly be evolutionary. This is just social and like that's fine. Is there anything that has been constant? I suppose being healthy probably. Cleanliness and good skin. Sparkly eyes, probably.

Yeah, and that is always universal. So even now, there's only like a couple of universals in terms of what everybody finds attractive and it's like cleanliness and good skin. But so even in the medieval period, washing yourself, very important. And if you can just say a public service... Public service mountain, medieval people bathe,

oh my God, please leave me alone. Medieval people washed. And they were really fastidious about it. Yeah, because it's very much a cleanliness as an extra godliness sort of thing. keeping clean is, well, A, really comfortable and everyone gets that. And B, it's kind of like seen as keeping yourself pure in the same way that it is now, really. It can't have been as easy to keep yourself clean.

Because I rolled out my hotel bed this morning and pretty much rolled into the shower and there was free soap and like this anti-back on hand. Medieval people, they didn't even have like running sewers. So like how, if you, because we're in London right now and if you're a medieval person in London, and do you want to keep clean? It must be quite tricky, so how do they do it? So what you would do when you rolled out of bed in the morning is you'd probably go stand in a wooden tub and you would just take some water

and just give yourself a good wipe down. A hose wash, that's what we used to call up. So you would like soap yourself up, you'd wash, and like really quick wash down. Did they have soap? And in fact, it's one of these things where soap massively kind of like expands as an industry in Europe,

specifically during the Middle Ages. What did they make soap? They make it out of ash, lie and oil. Does that work? It does, yeah. So it's like, it's pretty much the same recipe for soap from time. No, not time in memorial.

Memorial, yeah. Yeah, so like, you know, big centers of soap productions still exist. So, like Marseille and France, like they were making soap then, they're making it now. Castile, where the steel soap comes from. They would have smelled French. Yeah, they would have. But here's two things, right? So rich people probably have that French soap.

And rich people are probably like having, you know, the nice soap that comes from Italy and stuff. If you are a normal person, you probably make your own. But it's totally. something that you can make and something that they do. So they make their own soap. You just give yourself a good washdown. Then like maybe once a week you'd go for like the full bath. That's because they're public bathing, didn't they? Mm-hmm. So. My students are always really surprised when I tell them that. Like how many friends have you had that you've got in the bath with? Yeah. And for them, it's just like, this is like a leisurely thing to do. You'd be like, come on, everybody, we're going down to the bathhouse

and you just like, pick it. And, you know, it's just like, it's spa day. And you know, it's just completely fine. But you got a really different understanding of kind of what privacy is in the middle ages like the idea of privacy is just like not there you know like you sleep kind of in a room with six other people and you and the homies go get naked down the baths yeah it's just not considered the same sort of way that we do now okay so there is soap mm-hmm where would they get water from if you live in a city so in the city there are wells and fountains and places that you would get that here often to people do get Thames water like you'll you can go down to the

Thames and do it but a lot of the times it's wells and springs and stuff so you have like fountains and stuff around okay so that definitely exists So you've given yourself a bit of a horse wash until you can go with your mates and get in the tub, with your neighbors as well, apparently. What about things like bad breath or combing your hair or makeup or anything like that? Like, how do you put your face on in the middle ages? So they do brush their teeth. They've got like little kind of twigs and stuff that they brush their teeth with. And interestingly, that's kind of as good as it gets until the 1960s.

Because it's not until we started adding fluoride to toothpaste. The toothpaste did anything. Like it might make your breast smell. but it's like it is not fighting like it's like the actual scrubbing is what cleans your teeth before then so fine so you know it's pretty much exactly same level and probably they have better teeth than a lot of us do anyway because they just don't have as much access to sugar yeah like they are not eating cane sugar like constantly because we're living that good life baby so there's that a lot of makeup girls will make their own and we have lots of really cool recipe books about this

a big famous one is called the trotilla and it was allegedly written by trotto of salerno but trot of salerno we know definitely wrote this bit that is like about midwifery and it's like here's how you like birth babies and stuff and then what medieval people do is like when they want to get their cosmetic guide out they just like start putting it together oh that's clever and then they're like yeah Trots of Salerno wrote this thing and there's all sorts of things that you can do so they make like face whitening powders they've got regular old powder just kind of like get the blot off they make lipstick they make blush they have

various kind of like washes that you can put over your face and even people like a Hildegart of Bingen had like oh yeah She was like a skincare girlie and she was all like, oh yeah, here's my like... Is she like, a nun? Yeah, she's a nun. Oh, okay. And she was all like, oh, here's like a really good, like, skin softener for if you've got like wind chapped softener. What was her skin softener?

It was like a, like, a barley water thing where you kind of like boil down barley with some varying flowers and stuff. And apparently that works because I think there's like some glucose or something that kind of like comes off the barley. Nice. So yeah, so, you know, they have these things. Some of them get quite wild though. So for example, like, depellatory creams, like in order to get rid of hair because... Oh, fuck off. because they really want that, you know, and they're doing their legs and they'll like do their pubs as well.

Like it goes all the way. Oh, no. Yeah, but they make some de pelletory creams and baby is bad. What do they put in there? Like some of them are like literally kind of like caustic. And so they'll be like, oh yeah, and it's like this will definitely get rid of your hair. And then they're like, here's what you put on afterwards on like them. And so like some of them are like nasty, nasty, right?

Come on hit me. Yeah, so it like, it starts out pretty nice and it's like, oh, there's iris root. And you're like, okay. Like, iris roots and everything, I don't know why. So there's like, oh, there's iris root and there's camphor. Okay, okay. And then they're like carbolic acid. And you're like, girl, what?

And like, hey, where am I coming up with this? But like, apparently they're like, that's around the joint. Did they have Brazilians then? Yeah. I mean, you know, burnt flesh, but Brazilians. Apparently they're like just straight up waxing and stuff like that big in the Italian lens. I have read that, actually. There was a lot of people coming back from Italy commenting on the fact that their cortisans didn't have pubic hair.

Yeah, yeah. must have been a thing. It was a really big thing. And so like it specifically talked about as things that women do to please their husbands and it's you know kind of like right in there. Yeah. Actually while we're talking about this and I know that your book is like it's focused a lot on women. Was anybody writing about what a fit man is in the medieval period? Do they have pop bellies and big asses? Interestingly there's these you're well I say interestingly because you're not going to be surprised. So the way of kind of thinking about the ideal woman and the ideal man is like really different in that like the ideal woman is a maiden. Mating kind of

describes this sort of liminal zone, kind of like we talk about teenagers. Yeah. So yeah, you are a virgin in theory, but it also is kind of like expressing this time of life where men think you're hot, but you haven't done anything about it. So it's kind of like the promise of sexuality without like all of the, oh, now she's a slut. Right. So that's like it for women, so the ideal woman is kind of younger to the point where, you know, you will see things like if somebody's child dies, like in the Pearl poem, which is about a father who kind of like goes and sees his dead,

child in heaven and she like dies when she's two. In heaven she's a maiden and she's like 20 because that's the ideal body and that's what you get. For men, middle age is ideal. Which is like in the four in your 40s that's like what the ideal man is. That's so unfair. And it's really sucks right where it's kind of like yeah you just kind of like get there and so this is a really interesting thing if you ever see for example the last judgment paintings that you get from the medieval period when everyone's getting up out of their grave to like go see St. Michael and be like, do I guess to go to heaven? And everybody's naked because that's their little souls.

And all the women look the same, like the ideal hot woman. And all the men are in their 40s. And it's just like, right? It's just so on the nose about what these things are. Because they realize that teenage boys aren't. Yeah, it cannot possibly be ideal. And that's kind of actually part of it because they're considered like so hot and dry, right?

In humoral theory, it's like they're burning too hot. They're too wild with it. Right. And like they need to settle down a little bit. Whereas women, because they're colder and wetter start out colder and wetter. You're just becoming colder and colder and wetter all the time. And that is kind of like what leads to death. It's thought so like aging is thought of as a process of becoming colder and wetter over the life cycle.

God, that's right. Okay. So, you know, it's nothing that you won't hear from some in-cell now. I mean, you get that. If you look at most Hollywood films, like the guy is years and years older than his leading lady. Yeah, it's like, you know, the minute you turn like 26, it's like, all right, spinster. Tick-Tick-Tick-Tick-Tick-Tick-L. Get in the closet with that. You're not too cold and west.

Exactly. Like we're not having it. So, you know, we haven't really come that far on that way. Oh, we really haven't. Have we? God, that's depressing. Right, okay. So middle-aged men are hot in the medieval period.

We're back with Eleanor after this short break. I'm Professor Susanna Lipscomb. And on my podcast, not just the Tudors from History Hit, I try to make sense of everything that baffled our early modern ancestors. Like, what do you do with your waist? If you put your dunghill up against your neighbour's wall, you're going to cause rising damp. Would Henry the 8th ever consider executing his wife, the Queen of England, and Berlin? I'm not even sure if the Billins took it seriously, because why would they have any reason to suspect Henry the 8th would really get rid of his queen?

And why do men grow beards? During puberty, the male body heats up and a smoke rises in the body, pushes out the hair in the face. So the beard is actually a form of excrement. In other words, not just the Tudors, but most definitely also the Tudors. Twice a week every week. Listen and follow on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Right. One of the most interesting things about your book, and there's a lot in it that I really liked,

but you actually uncover a lot of jobs that women did, because we don't tend to think about, like when you think about what jobs do people have, women have in the medieval period, and you kind of, you might think, none, possibly. wife, harlot. And that's your three. And that's your three, right? That's you three. That's you three. That's what you've got. And like, don't get me wrong. Those are all available jobs. But the thing that we have to remember is that all those moms are also working. And, you know, there's a whole feminist point that we can make here about how like being a mom, rather a lot of work. Oh my God.

Yeah. Please help. Especially in, you know, the medieval period when like you're probably going to die in childbirth in the first place. Man, that's grim. Which is grim. It's grim. And then it's like, when you have to make your own bread and like manually wash. all of the stuff in your household, you know, and you are... And make your own soap. Make your own soap. You're cooking dinner over an open fire. Like, you know, household work is just like so much more difficult. But you're still also doing other work.

So, you know, obviously 80% to 85% of the European population are peasants. So you're also farming. Did they know they were peasants? Yeah, I mean, because for them, they're just like, I'm a farmer. That's what that means. And then that's what they do, right? And so, you know, you get up in the morning and you're plow on the fields and you're taking care of the animals and you're taking care of the animals and, you're

all of the regular old farmy chores. And there isn't anything that male peasants were doing that female peasants weren't doing. Because you point out women blacksmith. Oh, yeah. So it's like when you get to... I didn't know that. Yeah, when you get to the trades,

women are doing every single trade as well. Like, even to the point where we have examples of women mercenary soldiers or like women city guards. Fuck off. Yeah. So it's like women just like get around places. And we had...

Women mercenary guards? Yeah. Girl, I'm just trying to get paid. They were just cool. What? But like, you know, like when you're hiring a bunch of mercenary which people are doing, like, you don't really care as long as they can swing a sword, who cares? That is true, isn't it?

So I was like, you know, there's always been sword lesbians, right? It's representation, that's what matters. So basically, we know that at the Tower of London, there are several specific women blacksmiths. So, like, right? You never hear about that. And you never hear about it. And it happens for a couple of reasons, right? Because the first of all is that, like, when you're a woman and you're married,

most of the time you're doing the same trade that your husband does. Okay. And then you also do the books for him, because it's like, like that's feminized work is the bookkeeping. But it's expected that when you get married, you probably do the same trade that your husband does and that you are like a help meet. So if you are getting married,

it's really likely also that you're going to marry someone who has the same trade as your dad because you will have been brought up knowing all about how to do that. And then that makes you a really good marriage prospect for other people. So we don't really hear about it though because of covature,

which is like the process by which when a woman gets married, it's kind of like Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Smith or whatever and then it's like well we don't even know her name We just know that like she was here right and it's really difficult to kind of like it get people excited sometimes when you don't even know anybody's name or anything like that So there's this kind of process of losing the women who are doing all these interesting trades that just kind of happens as a result of the way Records are recorded. What was the most unusual profession that you found? I mean I know that you're well-versed knowledge stuff so it take a lot to shock you But was there anything that you would just like, oh my God, a medieval female traffic warden? I was really impressed by like the city guards stuff because like mercenaries, I was like,

okay, well, that kind of makes sense because it's like, well, who really cares when it's like lads on parade, you know, or whatever? But city guards is really quite interesting because that's like, oh, well, you're in your local community and everybody understands that she's doing this and, you know, they're willing to train her up along with the lads. So it says a lot more about connection to your community and then trusting you with kind of like having this level of physical capacity and being able to like meet out physical violence. Whereas, you know, with mercenaries, all you got to do is like being cut off from people's kind of the point of it, isn't it?

We've got to talk about nuns because that is a profession. It is. And like people forget about it. It's a calling, but it is a profession. It's also a punishment. We forget that. That's where the naughty girls went as well. Yeah.

You can get sent off to be a nun if you're a naughty girl. But the thing about being a nun is that you're not just like hanging out and praying. The entire point of kind of like being a monk or nun is this thing they call it aura et labor. So praying and working. Orra et laborer. Yeah. Prayers and work. And the work that you do is a couple of different things. Like there's the work to just kind of keep the convent running. So like somebody's got to be doing the gardening, someone's got to cook.

But they're also doing all kinds of interesting things like copying manuscripts, making art. So there's a lot of librarian nuns, a lot of library girlies. Okay. That's going off big. But another thing that they do is they also a lot of times do work in their communities. So sometimes they work specifically in hospitals. So for example, at the Hotel Diu in Paris, there is a lot of nuns there who are working in hospitals.

And the first hospitals really are monasteries and nunneries where anyone can just show up and be like, I'm sick, homie. And then they'll be like, oh, yeah, here's your bed. And then you kind of get taken care of. Right, okay. But this is kind of a double-edged sword because sometimes nuns are working in hospitals. And sometimes it's like, I don't really know

if you can let nuns work with sick people because they're women, so they're so horny, that they're going to like shag their patients. Because it goes, oh, you know, like, I love it. I love it when he's got the pox, you know, or something. I don't know. The plague is so sexy. Yeah, and so, like, there is this kind of worry about it.

So sometimes you'll have groups of nuns that work with the public and then they'll be retracted. And it can kind of vary place to place. But it's quite an interesting one because actually women are doing a lot of kind of medical work in the middle of the old period more generally. So it would make sense for nuns to be doing it, but there's just this kind of worry because the whole point

is that you're not supposed to have sex when you're none, obviously. That doesn't always happen. So they would be there in the day, and then they'd have to say, I'm sorry, I'm not on the night shift because I might try and shag you. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, and then it's like the monks take over. But that everyone feels much safer now. Yeah, exactly, right.

And it's like, you know, because if they're that apocalyptic-horny, when they just like shag the patient during the day. Yeah, you don't need to do... Did that ever happen? I mean, I don't know. I can't say it didn't, to be fair, right? A thousand years of history. Like, somebody did.

A nun list of Shakta Pacea. Somebody did. And then nuns get up to some stuff in the middle ages. Like, one of my favorite nuns ever, a Joan of Leeds. Lead. Yeah, woo, shout out. She ran off from being a nun. And, like, she does this, like, a huge ruse where she, like, makes a dummy of herself and puts it in bed.

And everyone goes, oh, Joan is dead. And, like, she, like, lights out. And, like, takes off with some guy. And they're, like, oh, this is a. the dummy, oh hell, like, and then there's like an APB put out. They're like, everyone go find Joan, and the bishop is all she has left her nunnery to pursue the way of carnal lust. Go, Joan. And they never found her, I don't think. I bet she went to Headingley. Yeah. Because the weather spruits there. I bet that's what she is. That's it. That's she's still there.

To this day. Still went on the WKD, two for one deal. We've all been there, you know. Talk to me about education. Oh yeah, okay. So this is quite an interesting one because women are excluded from some forms of education in the medieval period. Like a woman can't really attend university. Can't really or just can't? Wow, this is the thing. So in theory, they cannot because all members of the university have to be members of the clergy. And this is kind of like their way of keeping the lads out of trouble. So when they do something like run out on their tavern bill and don't pay it, instead of calling the cops because they're members of the church, you just tell the bishop and the bishop goes, lads, don't do it again.

So women can't then go to university because they can't become clerics, essentially. So, like, that takes you out. However, you'll see examples of these women who pop up, and they are kind of, like, teaching at the university. So, like, there's women, we have on the records, like, teaching at Salerno, and you're like, how did you get there? Like, how are you a professor? And they never explain it. They're just like, yeah, just her. What?

We don't know how to do that. No, we don't know how to do that. No. So it's like, I can't say that she didn't go to university, but, like, you're not supposed to. What was he teaching? She was teaching medicine. And a lot of the time with this, like, medicine is this kind of, like, specifically feminine thing. Because the medical worker that you're probably going to see the most in your life if you're the average person in the middle ages is a midwife.

And so, like, midwives do, of course, help with labor and, you know, pregnancy and things like that. But they also just kind of see to everything. So it's like, you know, if you are in Headingley, you probably see the midwife when you have a cold. Yeah. And then she'll be like, okay, yeah, like, I dug out some Ella campaign roots and, like, here's your tincture or whatever. you are probably not going to see a physician who's been like trained at Salerno or something like that because that's for rich people. Right, yep. They will, like, they're going to show up at courts and they will maybe be working in like Paris or big cities like that.

You're not going to see one of those in your country town. No. But there becomes this interesting thing over the middle ages where in the later period to be a physician, you then have to have gone to university, which you didn't necessarily have to do before that. And then someone is like, we've got to sort all this out. Okay, like now you actually have to have like a degree in order to be a physician. Which is why, you know, whenever anyone pulls that stupid thing about, like, oh, PhDs aren't real doctors. MDs are, uh, baby, no, PhDs as doctors was invented first.

It was just physician for a really long time. But we are shit in a medical emergency most of the time. Yeah, yeah, that's true. I will faint if you bleed. But anyway, I'll have a go at it, though. All right. Okay. But, like, so this is the thing.

So as that goes on, it kind of, like, shuts down opportunities for a lot of women. Yeah. Because it's like, well, I don't have a university degree, so am I a physician? But then there are still these weird loopholes because women can sort of buy licenses from the city. So like we see in Paris women who are like, yeah, here's my physician license. And they're like, well, yep, all your papers are in order. So there are people sort of know it stupid.

And there are obviously these workarounds. Right, okay. But there's like a lot of women who are doing it. Now, in terms of a regular old education for the average person, though, women are doing a lot of the actual educating. So you see women as teachers all the time. So, like, women will be like teaching maths to a group of young boys. and, you know, women are often the ones who are kind of like teaching rudimentary reading to their children and things like that.

So it's kind of like a standard part of mothering is the basic numeracy if, you know, you can read. Your mom will have kind of like taught you how to do that. So women are involved at kind of the more regular levels of education, but the highest echelons. It's mostly men, except when a woman shows up and no one explains to me how she got there. I read somewhere that when Cleopatra was supposed to seek royal advice, women were allowed to do it, so she put a fake beard on. I don't know if that's true. I like that. But maybe they just turned up in that scene in the life of Brian.

Yeah, and they've just got beards on. And this is the thing because it's interesting because when a woman shows up like that and she's at these really lofty levels of education and no one explains how she got there, it's sort of like, well, it can't have been that weird. It can't have been that weird. Because if it was really weird, they would have been like, here's my massive explanation about what this woman is doing here. But it's like almost nonchalant. It's just barely worth even mentioning. That was just how accepted. God, that's fascinating, isn't it?

It's really frustrating. It's really frustrating. Who were they? How did they get there? Yeah, and I'm like, I just want to know your life story, girl. And were they wearing pretend beard? Yeah. Eleanor, I can't keep talking to you because you have to go and be fabulous on your book launch tour day.

But final question, is there is one thing from your book that you would desperate. for people to get out, what would it be? I know that you want, everyone to know that medieval people washed. That's a big one. That's the hill that you will die on. But like, apart from that one, what kind of myth-busting things? I mean that medieval women existed? Like, half the time when you talk about medieval history,

you could be forgiven for thinking there weren't any because people go, oh, like, well, there's Eleanor Vodafersane. There was four. Yeah. And one was an end. Yeah, and like, no one ever thinks about that. So, you know, there's this whole huge era of history where women existed and they're doing really interesting things and they're doing everything that men are. And, you know, history isn't just about like some douche with a sword who like starts wars.

Like history is every single part of society and how people rub along. And it's kind of women that are making that go forward. And, you know, it's interesting. Absolutely. And if people want to know more about you and your book, where can they find you? Yeah, you can find the book wherever good books are sold. You can check me out on Twitter while it's still a lie. Oh God, don't even.

At Going Medieval. I've got several very good and nice shows to watch on the History Hit Network, including one coming up that we are filming soon about medieval work and women in the Middle Ages, which will be very exciting. And yeah, you can check out my blog, which is going hyphen medieval.com. Thank you so much for talking to me today. This has been so much fun. Thank you so much for having you.

Thank you so much for listening. And thank you to Eleanor for joining me yet again. I really hope that she hurries up and write to you. another book because it's just too much fun talking to her. And if you like what you heard, please don't forget to like, review and subscribe wherever it is that you get your podcasts. And if you have something you'd like us to look into, if there's a history book that's just come out or perhaps it's your favourite one and you want us to interview the author, you can now email us at betwixt at history hit.com. Join me again Betwixt the History of Sex, Scandal and Society,

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