I managed to plan my short jaunt to the south so well that I had time to catch Oracles, Omens, and Answers in Oxford, head down to London, check into my hotel, and then pop over to the British Library to see Medieval Women in Their Own Words. I didn’t take nearly as many photos as I did in Oxford, not because it was any less interesting, but because a lot of it was much more familiar to me. Which I suppose means I’m letting my vicarious travelling companions down, but believe me, I’ll make up for it with the Tarot exhibit.
Yet again countering the ‘women just stayed at home and cared for children’ that my students would repeat without fail every semester, thinking all women in the past were like 50s housewives, when of course even women in the 50s weren’t all housewives–and few were happy to be. I can’t blame them; I was equally misinformed before I started this wild journey by reading Beowulf, never knowing the profound effect that book would have on changing my life.
Here’s hoping a lot of lives are similarly uprooted when folks glimpse the reality of amazing figures like Margery Kempe, Julian of Norwich, Hildegard of Bingen and so many many more. Here’s a little gallery.
I might not have the energy to put together a reel, but you can get a nice walk through teaser here: