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"Sisters in Arms: European Woman in Combat in the Late Medieval Period" by Lady Katerin ferch Gwenllian, OW.

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Sisters in Arms: European Woman in Combat in the Late Medieval Period

by Lady Katerin ferch Gwenllian, OW

This paper was written in 2008 or so. There have been many exciting developments in this field since then, which I hope to someday incorporate.

The popular modern view of medieval women is that of a fairy-tale princess waving her scarf to a knight in shining armor as he rides off to battle, then retiring to her solar with a piece of embroidery to passively await his return or news of his death. However, a closer examination of the period shows us that when the battle came to them, or when they had a vested interest in the outcome of it, ladies of all classes did not hesitate to take command of an army or even to personally take up arms in defense or pursuit of their cause. From the beginning of the fourteenth century to the end of the fifteenth, martial women were found throughout Europe, and their reasons for going to battle were as varied as those of the men who fought beside them.

Despite the modern view, popular culture allowed for the possibility of women taking a role in combat situations from the earliest days of the period in question. Certainly it is no coincidence that the most famous swordmaiden of the day, Joan of Arc, identified two of the voices that guided her as belonging to Sts. Margaret and Catherine, both of whom were frequently depicted in hagiographies as carrying swords.¹ One of the resources available to those wishing to develop martial skills was the manuscript now known as I.33, which was created in the late thirteenth century as a guide to techniques for fighting with a sword and buckler. It consists of 32 pages of annotated drawings laying out the correct form for various attacks and defenses, and the text clearly identifies one of the figures in certain images as female, suggesting that formal martial training for women was not unheard of.² Later, Christine de Pizan became a celebrated writer whose commissions included military topics, and who advised women that they must be prepared to command the defense of their homes and lands if it became necessary.³In The Treasury of the City of Ladies, she recommends that a noblewoman "ought to know how to use weapons and be familiar with everything that pertains to them, so that she may be ready to command her men if the need arises. She should know how to launch an attack or defend against one, if the situation calls for it."⁴ A woman of the late medieval period who wished to learn the arts of war might be seen as unusual, but her goal would not be unprecedented, and if successfully achieved could be a source of great renown.

The most common circumstance that would place a woman into a combat situation that was recorded for posterity involved her being the leader of an area under attack from without, be it a country, city, castle, or house. In some cases, the women were acting as agents for a husband or other male representative in denying an invader access to their lands. On the national level, an example of this is Philippa of Hainault, Queen to Edward III of England, who in 1346 led a force of 12,000 soldiers in the latest round of battles against the Scots with such success that David Bruce, the opposing king, was captured.⁵ After the death of King Wenceslas of Bohemia in the early fifteenth century, the widowed Queen Sophia provided a point of leadership against the invading army of John Ziska, which was itself largely composed of women.⁶ In some cases, the role of a female defender against a siege may have been one of symbolic leadership, such as "Black Agnes" Randolph, the Countess of Dunbar, who in 1334 held that castle against the Earl of Salisbury's forces for over five months before he gave up and abandoned the effort. She used her very femininity as a weapon, sending her maids out to flick the dust of battle from the castle walls between attacks in defiance of the English army.⁷

However, she also engaged in a shouted dialogue with her foes in which her threat to destroy a siege engine was promptly followed by effective action, which would seem to suggest that she was the one giving the tactical orders.⁸ In a similar category are accounts of the 1321 confrontation between Queen Isabella of England and Lady Badlesmere of Kent. When in obedience to her husband's instructions the latter denied the Queen the hospitality of Leeds castle, she personally gave her archers the order to fire that resulted in the deaths of six members of the royal party.⁹ On a smaller scale, when Margaret Paston wrote to her husband in 1448 from the property that she was holding in a dispute against a neighbor, she requested "som crosse bowis, and wyndacs to bynd them with, and quarrels…. and also I wold 3e xuld get ij or iij schort pelleaxis to kepe with doris, and als many jakkys, and ye may," but gave no indication whether she would be using these tools herself or simply overseeing those who did.¹⁰

However, many other accounts tell of female leaders not only commanding a defensive action but entering the fray themselves. Perhaps the best-known example was Joan of Flanders, who as Countess of Montfort in the mid-fourteenth century played a major role in her husband's struggle with a rival claimant to the duchy of Brittany. As her opponent's army began attacking the town of Hennebont, in which she had taken refuge with her small son, she "rode about the town on a fiery courser, armed cap à pied" to encourage her troops and townspeople as they took to the walls. She then took to a tower to monitor the progress of the battle, but upon realizing that the attackers had left their camp entirely unguarded, she personally led a force of 500 men to destroy it.¹¹ Later in the same conflict, Countess Joan's English allies took her foe, Charles de Blois, captive; his forces were subsequently led in the field by his own wife, Jeanne de Penthièrre.¹² When a vassal rebelled against the rule of Jacqueline of Bavaria, sovereign Countess of Hainault, Holland, and Zealand, in 1417, she rode with her army to relieve the siege he had placed on the town of Gorkum and personally led the charge that turned the tide of the battle in her favor.¹³ Whether she did so out of a cool consideration for the inspiration it would provide to her soldiers or out of an enthusiasm for the fight can only be speculated on, nearly seven centuries later.

Farther south, Doña Juana de Enriquez, Queen of Aragon, bore a sword in her own defense when she was besieged at La Gironella in 1467; later, her daughter-in-law Isabella of Castile became noted as a military leader as well, although her role may have been more inspirational than practical.¹⁴She is known, however, to have accompanied her troops into the field despite having suffered miscarriages as a result.¹⁵ In Italy, no one would have mistaken Caterina Sforza for anything but a force to be reckoned with. A natural daughter of the Duke of Milan, she was a major player in the politics of papal succession and temporal power in the fifteenth century. Known among her own troops for her ruthless enforcement of discipline, Sforza did not let being seven months pregnant stop her from donning a sword over her gown and taking over the Castel Sant'Angelo, driving out the adherents of an opposing family and holding the fortress with hired soldiers until her husband reached an agreement with the college of cardinals.¹⁶ Again, sixteen years later, she wore armor and fought hand-to-hand in an ultimately unsuccessful defense of the fortress of Ravaldino, refusing to yield for as long as she held even one tower until a French captain who had mingled with her soldiers in the withdrawal took her into custody.¹⁷

It is clear from the remaining evidence that these women who were commanding the defenders of their lands took their roles no less seriously than a man would have in the same circumstance. Papal politics also played a role when Lady Marzia of Uldani (also known as Cia of Ubaldini) accepted from her husband the responsibility for holding Cesana against a much larger army in 1357. Sleeping in her armor and constantly on the move, she refused to surrender without instructions to do so from her husband – presumably not because she was his wife, but because she was acting as his military subordinate.¹⁸ "When her own father begged her to give up the battle, she declared, 'For death and all else but my duty, I care but little,' and continued the defense."¹⁹

While noblewomen sometimes found themselves in command of a besieged town or fortress, the population being defended almost invariably included ordinary women who would have a stake in preventing their home from being overrun by enemy soldiers, out of simple self-preservation if nothing else. The Manesse Codex of the early fourteenth century shows a lady throwing large stones from a city wall onto soldiers below, and another manuscript of the same period shows a female figure employing a crossbow from atop a castle tower.²⁰ In the absence of their menfolk, a company of Catalan women defended the fortress of Gallipoli in the early fourteenth century "in so masterly a manner, it was marvellous," continuing to fight even while wounded.²¹When English troops attacked a convent in Brittany in 1370, a nun by the name of Julienne du Guesdin was among those who took to the walls in their own defense until friendly troops could come to their aid, hurling the would-be invaders from their scaling ladders.²² More than 100 years later, when a Burgundian soldier attempted to plant his lord's flag on the walls of Beauvais during a battle there, a teenager known to history as Jeanne Hachette (for the ax she used) cut it down, inspiring her fellow defenders to rally their forces and defeat their foes.²³

It can be argued, of course, that the women discussed thus far had no option regarding entering into combat situations, being to some degree obligated by their position or simple location to take a role in battles that came to them. However, many other women sought out combat, and for reasons as varied as those of male soldiers – revenge, land, power, or simple love of the martial life. These are the women who truly prove that war was not the exclusive province of the male sex. The best-known example, of course, was Jeanne la Pucelle, better known in the modern era as Saint Joan of Arc. Rising from peasant origins to lead the army of France against the invading English and place Charles VII on the throne of his ancestors, she did not allow her gender or lack of martial upbringing to stand in the way of a rare gift for warfare. Witnesses tell of her personally leading mounted charges and being "one of the first to mount a scaling ladder" at Jargeau, and at the Tourelles she rejoined the battle even after an English arrow had been pulled from her shoulder.²⁴ She also took an active role in determining strategy and tactics for the army that followed her, making the decisions to attack at Troyes and to refrain from a battle at Orleans.²⁵ Joan is set apart from the other women described here by her claims of heavenly inspiration for her martial life; her claims that the voices of saints guided her were likely necessary not for her to simply take the field, as there was ample precedent for women to do so, but she could not have risen from the peasantry to a position of leadership without them. After her death, other girls and women inspired by her example attempted to step into her shoes, some even claiming to be the second coming of Joan herself. One such "false Maid" even won the support of the real Joan's brothers for a time, collecting gifts and praise for her model's past actions before being revealed as an impostor; however, even after that she was allowed to serve as a soldier for a time.²⁶ Another woman, Jeanne des Armoises, won a position of leadership in the French army in part to appeal to the soldiers' memories of the original Joan, but in part through her talent for leadership and diplomacy; it was she who arranged for Spanish warships to support the French action against Poitou and Guienne in the late 1430s. She made no claim to be anyone other than who she was, and in particular did not hide her status as a wife and mother, insisting, "My value is not dependent on virginity." However, when the political tides changed she was arrested, forced to admit to being a Joan impostor, and subjected to public humiliation by members of the clergy.²⁷Even as late as 1452, one Joan of Sarmaize claimed to be the second coming of the Maid, but she was imprisoned and later required to give up men's clothing as a condition of returning to her home.²⁸

Another political cause that inspired several women to take the field was that of Robert Bruce, who fought for the independence of Scotland against Edward III's attempts to impose English dominion. The Bruce's own sisters, Christian, Marjory, and Mary, were known to have taken part in battles for his cause.²⁹ Isobel MacDuff, Countess of Buchan, stole the best of her husband's stable when she defied his wishes and went to join the nationalist cause, and some sources claim that, with Christian Bruce, she joined the bodyguard of the Dowager Queen of England after Edward III had broken his mother's regency and put her to flight.³⁰ The list of women who sought political power through conquest does not stop there. In 1342 Margaret Maultasch, the Countess of Tirol, led an uprising against her husband and eventually succeeded in driving him from her lands; later, she spent time in the field with her second husband putting down revolts instigated by certain of her nobles.³¹ In the latter half of the fourteenth century, Eleanora d'Arborea spent two years in an ultimately successful mission to drive the Aragonese from Sardinia with Genoese aid.³² Farther to the north, Margaret of Denmark inherited a war with Sweden and Norway, but her strategy of systematically seizing one city at a time paid handsome dividends when she united all three lands into the Calmar union, making her "the most powerful ruler Scandinavia had ever seen."³³

Returning to Italy in the fifteenth century, Bianca Maria Visconti followed her successful defense of Cremona from a Venetian siege with a naval attack on her foes, eventually putting an end to the Ambrosian Republic and assembling a new duchy from various northern Italian territories.³⁴ By this time, England was torn apart by the Wars of the Roses, with one of the foremost commanders of the Lancastrian forces being Margaret of Anjou, Queen to Henry VI, who led her army to victory on twelve different occasions.³⁵ At York, she personally directed the disposition of her troops,and upon facing defeat at Tewksbury she "cried out for a horse, a sword that she, too, might die as a soldier."³⁶ Even religious women participated in battles when they felt strongly about a cause; in 1477 when Abbess Renée de Bourbon encountered resistance to her project of reforming religious houses, she led an army to Fontevrault and put the brothers and sisters there to flight.³⁷ When certain ladies of Genoa wished to go on Crusade in 1383, the esteem with which Pope Boniface III referred to them in his correspondence makes it likely that they took a form of monastic vows "in the manner of the monk-knights."³⁸

Another common reason for women to go to war was the rescue of their male relatives, or vengeance if rescue was no longer possible. Isabella of Lorraine, Duchess of Anjou and mother of Margaret of Anjou, "became equally renowned in arts and arms" and in 1429 led an army to free her husband from his imprisonment by the duke of Burgundy; she later participated in his war to assume sovereignty over Sicily.³⁹ Margaret of Attenduli laid siege to the castle where her brother was held hostage, and later in the fifteenth century Bona Longabarba of Lombardy, who was accustomed to go to war with her husband, liberated him from an enemy who had captured him.⁴⁰

Under the heading of vengeance, Jeanne de Belleville took over leadership of her husband's knights after he was executed in 1343 and led them in the systematic extermination of all those who supported her enemy, Charles de Blois. A contemporary description of her tells how "with a sword in one hand and a torch in the other, [she] directed all the horrors of war."⁴¹ When James I, King of the Scots, was assassinated in 1437 his Queen, Joan Beaufort, took a wound in her attempt to defend him; her daughter-in-law, Mary of Guelders, acted as a general in the successful siege of Roxburgh after an exploding cannon there killed James II in 1460.⁴² The desire for vengeance on their own behalf led Marguerite de Bressieux and a dozen of her maids who had been raped during an attack on her father's castle to join the army of the Governor of Dauphine in the middle of the fifteenth century. They sought out their attackers in battle and made sure each man knew at whose hand he was dying.⁴³

In discussing women who, by right of birth or through talent and charisma, led troops in time of war, the question must be asked whether they served as inspiring figureheads, made tactical and strategic decisions as generals, or personally entered the fray as combatants, and the answer to that question will surely vary from case to case. As Megan McLaughlin points out, however, "[i]t is important to remember… that the same might be said of many male war-leaders in [the medieval] period, who were nevertheless recognized by their contemporaries as 'warriors.' The decisive test would seem to be whether someone was present at and involved in a battle to a significant degree, not the number of blows she struck.^"44The question is less applicable in the case of women of lower rank, some of whom seem to have taken up arms simply because they loved to fight. A 1343 letter from Petrarch to Cardinal Giovanni Colonna describes in great detail a woman known as Maria of Pozzuoli, which bears quoting at some length:

"Though she is constantly among men, usually soldiers, the general opinion holds that she has never suffered any attaint to her chastity, whether in jest or earnest. Men are put off, they say, more by fear than respect. Her body is military rather than maidenly, her strength is such as any hardened soldier might wish for, her skill and deftness unusual, her age at its prime, her appearance and endeavor that of a strong man. She cares not for charms but for arms; not for arts and crafts but for darts and shafts; her face bears no trace of kisses and lascivious caresses, but is ennobled by wounds and scars. Her first love is for weapons, her soul defies death and the sword. She helps wage an inherited local war, in which many have perished on both sides. Sometimes alone, often with a few companions, she has raided the enemy, always, up to the present, victoriously. First into battle, slow to withdraw, she attacks aggressively, practises skilful feints. She bears with incredible patience hunger, thirst, cold, heat, lack of sleep, weariness; she passes nights in the open, under arms; she sleeps on the ground, counting herself lucky to have a turf or a shield for pillow."⁴⁵

While the tone of admiration in this passage is unmistakable, the fact that Petrarch found her worthy of such extended description indicates that female soldiers were, while not unheard of, rare enough to be figures of some curiosity. In the late 1370s, one Jeanne-Marie de Foix served in the cavalry of Charles V; and in the fifteenth century Onorata Rodiani abandoned her career as a muralist to lead a mercenary band.⁴⁶ These examples demonstrate that, even though it was not usual, women were considered capable of participating in the martial life alongside men if it so suited them. A different approach was taken by the women of the army led by John Ziska, who during his war against Queen Sophia of Bohemia succeeded in blunting a cavalry charge when they scattered their gowns and veils on the field of combat, causing many horses to founder. However, they then proved that their feminine tactics were not all they had to offer when they "drag[ged] the soldiers from their horses… so fiercely that Sophia's professional army was defeated."⁴⁷

Other women of the period sought out the more civilized venue of the tournament field to demonstrate their martial prowess. In the fourteenth century, Agnes Hotot of the Dudley family entered the lists on her father's behalf when he was too ill to carry out a previously arranged challenge. Upon unhorsing her opponent, which requires a certain level of skill that suggests prior training, she exposed herself as a woman to sharpen the sting of his defeat.⁴⁸ Other women entered into honorable combat on their own behalf; the fifteenth-century fencing manual written by Hans Talhoffer lays out the correct form for trial by combat between a man and his wife, with an illustration depicting how the man is to be handicapped by standing in a pit up to his waist.⁴⁹

The warrior women of the late medieval period did not go without honors in their own time. Lady Agnes Randolph's defense of Dunbar castle was immortalized in a popular folksong which attributed to her foe, the Earl of Salisbury, the words, "Came I early, came I late, I found Agnes at the gate," and her fame persisted for centuries, leading Sir Walter Scott to state that "From the record of Scottish heroes, none can presume to erase her."⁵⁰ Jeanne Hachette's spirited defense of the walls of Beauvais gave rise to an annual parade in her honor that lasted to the late nineteenth century, in which women were given the right to march ahead of the men.⁵¹ As we have seen, Petrarch spread the fame of Maria of Pozzuoli, and Agnes Hotot's venture in the tourney lists was immortalized in the Dudley family's heraldic crest, which features, "On an eastern crown, or, a woman's head with a helmet thereon, hair disheveled, throat-latch loosed, all proper."⁵² The ultimate accolade for any combatant, of course, was that of knighthood. While some orders that admitted women as members or auxiliary appear to be purely ceremonial, such as England's Order of the Garter and the papal Golden Rose, there also existed martial orders for women. These included the Order of the Glorious St. Mary, which granted the title of "militissa" from 1261 to 1558, and the orders founded by Catherine Baw and the Hornes sisters in the mid-fifteenth century, in which noblewomen could be created a "chevaliere" or "equitissa." Any of those three terms can be properly translated as "female knight."⁵³

In conclusion, the evidence from the late medieval period clearly demonstrates that women of that time were not barred from combat situations, and in many cases proved to be admirable soldiers and generals. In pursuing their causes, their defense, or simply the martial life for its own sake, women had the opportunity to stand equal to men or even to outshine them in skill and renown and command them on the field as their abilities and circumstances allowed. Our modern view must therefore allow the stereotypical medieval lady to come down from her tower, put away her scarf and embroidery in favor of armor and a sword, and ride at the side of her fellow knight in seeking out their foes. Only then will we be properly honoring the memory of these strong, talented women as they deserve.

Footnotes

1. Mary Gordon, Joan of Arc: A Penguin Life (New York: the Penguin Group, 2000), 26.

2. Dieter Bachmann, I.33, http://freywild.ch/i33/i33en.html.

3. Lisa DiCaprio and Merry E. Weisner, Lives and Voices: Sources in European Women's History (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2001), 164.

4. Megan McLaughlin, "The Woman Warrior: Gender, Warfare, and Society in Medieval Europe," Women's Studies 17 (1990): 203.

5. Jessica Amanda Salmonson, The Encyclopedia of Amazons (New York: Paragon House, 1991), 212.

6. Ibid., 279.

7. Ibid., 34.

8. Michael Packe, King Edward III, ed. L. C. B. Seaman (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1983), 71.

9. Alison Weir, Isabella: She-Wolf of France, Queen of England(London: Jonathan Cape, 2005), 133.

10. Tom Bredehoft, A Brief Excursion Into Middle English for 419 Students, University of Northern Colorado,

http://asstudents.unco.edu/faculty/tbredehoft/UNCclasses/ENG419/ME419.html.

11. Packe, King Edward III, 124-125, and Salmonson, The Encyclopedia of Amazons, 131-132.

12. Salmonson, The Encyclopedia of Amazons, 132.

13. Ibid., 130.

14. E. L. Miron, The Queens of Aragon: Their Lives and Times (Port Washington, New York: Kennikat Press, 1913, reissued 1970), 320.

15. Salmonson, The Encyclopedia of Amazons, 125-126.

16. Ernst Breisach, Caterina Sforza: A Renaissance Virago (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1967), 70-71.

17. Ibid., 231-232.

18. Salmonson, The Encyclopedia of Amazons, 173.

19. Ibid., 257.

20. University of Heidelberg, Große Heidelberger Liederhandschrift (Codex Manesse),

http://digi.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/diglit/cpg848/0454, and Lothene Experimental Archaeology, Women as Warriors in the 14^th Century, http://www.lothene.demon.co.uk/others/women14.html.

21. Helen Nicholson, "Women on the Third Crusade," Journal of Medieval History 23 (1997): 343.

22. Salmonson, The Encyclopedia of Amazons, 136-137.

23. Salmonson, The Encyclopedia of Amazons, 133.

24. Stephen W. Richey, Joan of Arc: The Warrior Saint (Westport, Connecticut: Praeger Publishers, 2003), 41 and 61.

25. Frances Gies, Joan of Arc: The Legend and the Reality (New York: Harper & Row, 1981), 108 and 82.

26. Ibid., 229.

27. Salmonson, The Encyclopedia of Amazons, 133.

28. Gies, Joan of Arc, 299, and Salmonson, The Encyclopedia of Amazons, 135.

29. Salmonson, The Encyclopedia of Amazons, 57.

30. Ibid., 128 and 127.

31. Ibid., 166.

32. Salmonson, The Encyclopedia of Amazons, 80, and J. N. Hillgarth, The Spanish Kingdoms 1250-1516: Volume I, 1250-1410 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1976), 366-368.

33. Salmonson, The Encyclopedia of Amazons, 167.

34. Ibid., 263.

35. Ibid., 166.

36. Philippe Erlanger, Margaret of Anjou, Queen of England (Coral Gables, Florida: University of Miami Press, 1970), 173-175 and 231.

37. Salmonson, The Encyclopedia of Amazons, 222.

38. Ibid., 171.

39. Ibid.,126-127.

40. Ibid., 155 and 167.

41. Ibid., 132.

42. Salmonson, The Encyclopedia of Amazons, 135 and 173; and Anne Crawford and others, ed., The Europa Biographical Dictionary of British Women: Over 1000 Notable Women From Britain's Past (London: Europa Publications Limited, 1983), 37 and 284.

43. Salmonson, The Encyclopedia of Amazons, 168.

44. McLaughlin, "The Woman Warrior," 196.

45. Lothene Experimental Archaeology, Women as Warriors in the 14^th Century.

46. Salmonson, The Encyclopedia of Amazons,132 and 223.

47. Ibid., 279.

48. British Isle Genealogy, The Dudleys of Northamptionshire,

http://www.bigenealogy.com/familychests/dudleys-of-northamptionshire.htm.

49. The Association for Renaissance Martial Arts, Talhoffer XIV: Fight Between a Man and Wife, http://www.thearma.org/talhoffer/talhoffer14.htm, and Arts d'Armes: Le site des

Arts Martiaux Historiques Européens, XIV. Combats entre homme et femme,

htpp://ardamhe.free.fr/biblio/talhoffer/hommes%20et%20femmes%20hergsell.htm.

50. Salmonson, The Encyclopedia of Amazons, 34.

51. Ibid., 133.

52. British Isle Genealogy, The Dudleys of Northamptionshire.

53. Hyginus Eugene Cardinale, Orders of Knighthood, Awards and the Holy See (Gerrards Cross, Buckinghamshire: Van Duren Publishers, 1983), 63 and 173-174.

Bibliography

Arts d'Armes: Le site des Arts Martiaux Historiques Européens. XIV. Combats entre homme et femme.

htpp://ardamhe.free.fr/biblio/talhoffer/hommes%20et%20femmes%20hergsell.htm.

The Association for Renaissance Martial Arts. Talhoffer XIV: Fight Between a Man and Wife. http://www.thearma.org/talhoffer/talhoffer14.htm.

Bachmann, Dieter. I.33. http://freywild.ch/i33/i33en.html.

Bredehoft, Tom. A Brief Excursion Into Middle English for 419 Students. University of Northern Colorado.

http://asstudents.unco.edu/faculty/tbredehoft/UNCclasses/ENG419/ME419.html.

Breisach, Ernst. Caterina Sforza: A Renaissance Virago. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1967.

British Isle Genealogy. The Dudleys of Northamptionshire.

http://www.bigenealogy.com/familychests/dudleys-of-northamptionshire.htm.

Cardinale, Hyginus Eugene. Orders of Knighthood, Awards and the Holy See. Gerrards Cross, Buckinghamshire: Van Duren Publishers, 1983.

Crawford, Anne, Tony Hayter, Ann Hughes, Frank Prochaska, Pauline Stafford, and Elizabeth Vallance, ed. The Europa Biographical Dictionary of British Women: Over 1000 Notable Women From Britain's Past. London: Europa Publications Limited, 1983.

DiCaprio, Lisa and Merry E. Weisner. Lives and Voices: Sources in European Women's History. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2001.

Erlanger, Philippe. Margaret of Anjou, Queen of England. Coral Gables, Florida: University of Miami Press, 1970.

Gies, Frances. Joan of Arc: The Legend and the Reality. New York: Harper & Row, 1981.

Gordon, Mary. Joan of Arc: A Penguin Life. New York: the Penguin Group, 2000.

Hillgarth, J. N. The Spanish Kingdoms 1250-1516: Volume I, 1250-1410. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1976.

Lothene Experimental Archaeology. Women as Warriors in the 14^th Century.

http://www.lothene.demon.co.uk/others/women14.html.

Lothene Experimental Archaeology. Women as Warriors in the 15^th Century.

http://www.lothene.demon.co.uk/others/women15.html.

McLaughlin, Megan. "The Woman Warrior: Gender, warfare, and Society in Medieval Europe," Women's Studies 17 (1990): 193-209.

Miron, E. L. The Queens of Aragon: Their Lives and Times. Port Washington, New York: Kennikat Press, 1913, reissued 1970.

Nicholson, Helen. "Women on the Third Crusade," Journal of Medieval History 23 (1997): 335-349.

Packe, Michael. King Edward III. Edited by L. C. B. Seaman. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1983.

Richey, Stephen W. Joan of Arc: The Warrior Saint. Westport, Connecticut: Praeger Publishers, 2003.

Salmonson, Jessica Amanda. The Encyclopedia of Amazons. New York: Paragon House, 1991.

University of Heidelberg. Große Heidelberger Liederhandschrift (Codex Manesse).

http://digi.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/diglit/cpg848/0454.

Weir, Alison. Isabella: She-Wolf of France, Queen of England. London: Jonathan Cape, 2005.

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Copyright 2008 by Samantha M. Pendleton. <katerinfg at gmail.com>. Permission is granted for republication in SCA-related publications, provided the author is credited. Addresses change, but a reasonable attempt should be made to ensure that the author is notified of the publication and if possible receives a copy.

If this article is reprinted in a publication, please place a notice in the publication that you found this article in the Florilegium. I would also appreciate an email to myself, so that I can track which articles are being reprinted. Thanks. -Stefan.