LOOKING FOR WOMEN

Janina Ramirez's Femina tries to right the wrongs of history by resurrecting the medieval women who were erased from it

- Amrita Narayanan

FEMINA A New History of the Middle Ages, Through the Women Written Out of It by Janina Ramirez W.H. ALLEN ₹1,299; 464 pages

For relief from contemporary feminist fatigue and energy for the struggle forth, Oxford historian Janina Ramirez asks that we look backward. It’s easy to feel sceptical—I was too—that the seventh century can hold role models. But Ramirez’s method is persuasive: she meticulously mines archaeological records for women, while simultaneously re-reading the Ecclesiastical History of the English People written by the medieval monk-scholar Bede.