The Most Powerful Women in the Middle Ages, Part 1: Queens, Empresses, and Viking Slayers

The Most Powerful Women in the Middle Ages, Part 1: Queens, Empresses, and Viking Slayers

The idea of a powerful woman in the Middle Ages seems like an oxymoron. Females in this time are imagined to be damsels in distress, trapped in a high tower, and waiting for knights to rescue them, all while wearing traffic-cones for a hat. After rescue, their lives improved little. Their career choices were to be either a docile queen, housewife, or be burned at the stake for witchcraft.

But what if this image of medieval women is a complete fiction?

It turns out that it is. Powerful female rulers fill the Middle Ages. Anglo-Saxon queen Aethelflaed personally led armies into direct combat with Vikings in the 900s and saved England from foreign invasion. Byzantine Empress Theodora kept the empire from falling apart during the Nika Revolts and stopped her husband Justinian from fleeing Constantinople. Catherine of Siena almost single-handedly restored the papacy to Rome in the 1300s and navigated the brutal and male-dominated world of Italian politics.

In this episode, part 1 of a 3-part series, I look at the lives of three extraordinarily powerful women in the Middle Ages. In particular I look at the lives of Empress Theodora of Byzantium, Aethelflaed of the Mercians (a proto-English kingdom), and Eleanor of Aquitaine, the most powerful landholder in Europe in the 12th century.

We will explore how they managed to ascend the throne, what made their accomplishments so notable, and the impact they had on their respective societies after their deaths.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Denne episoden er hentet fra en åpen RSS-feed og er ikke publisert av Podme. Den kan derfor inneholde annonser.

Episoder(1106)

Every 2 Weeks a Language Dies: Whether By Assimilation or Targeted Extinction

Every 2 Weeks a Language Dies: Whether By Assimilation or Targeted Extinction

When the 7.8 magnitude earthquake tore through southeastern Turkey in 2023, the government posted that it would provide translation support in seven languages: Turkish, Arabic, Persian, English, Russi...

28 Jul 59min

The Boston Tea Party Was a Protest Against the East India Company Being Too Big to Fail

The Boston Tea Party Was a Protest Against the East India Company Being Too Big to Fail

The Boston Tea Party is the most misunderstood event in American history. Every schoolchild learns it was an antitax protest, proof that Americans have always hated paying taxes. But the Tea Act of 17...

23 Jul 48min

The 1873 Global Financial Meltdown that Cause 20 Years of Deflation and Destroyed 2 Empires

The 1873 Global Financial Meltdown that Cause 20 Years of Deflation and Destroyed 2 Empires

On May 9, 1873, as the Vienna Stock Exchange collapsed and thousands of speculators were wiped out in a single afternoon, young Salbert von Rothschild and two colleagues from the Schey and Goldschmidt...

21 Jul 44min

Johnny Appleseed's Trees Were for Booze, Not Pies, and He Dressed Like a Hobo for Marketing Purposes

Johnny Appleseed's Trees Were for Booze, Not Pies, and He Dressed Like a Hobo for Marketing Purposes

The Disney version of Johnny Appleseed has a cheerful barefoot man in a tin pot hat scattering apple seeds for grateful pioneers to bake into pies. The real John Chapman collected his seeds for free f...

16 Jul 53min

All the World’s Empires Became Nations in Less Than 100 Years, and What That Means for the Next 100

All the World’s Empires Became Nations in Less Than 100 Years, and What That Means for the Next 100

For the last 5,000 years, empires ruled the world — Rome administered hundreds of languages across three continents, and the Ottomans governed Christians, Jews, and Muslims under a single legal canopy...

14 Jul 49min

Five Cambridge Graduates Became Soviet Spies and Built Stalin’s Empire

Five Cambridge Graduates Became Soviet Spies and Built Stalin’s Empire

The Cambridge Five did more damage to the Western Bloc than any other intelligence outfit of the Cold War. They were five Cambridge graduates who drank gin at the right clubs, moved through the right ...

9 Jul 58min

Washington’s Power Went Beyond President or General – He Was a Full-Fledged Patriarch

Washington’s Power Went Beyond President or General – He Was a Full-Fledged Patriarch

Washington was the perfect man for an impossible moment — aristocratic enough to command the respect of erudite founders like Hamilton and Jefferson, yet only a mid-level Virginia planter who understo...

7 Jul 54min

Abigail Adams Beat Warren Buffet’s Rate of Return and Ben Franklin Loved Debt: Personal Finance Lessons From Colonial America

Abigail Adams Beat Warren Buffet’s Rate of Return and Ben Franklin Loved Debt: Personal Finance Lessons From Colonial America

Many so-called timeless beliefs about money pitched by financial advisors today (compound interest, real estate, index funds, retiring early) are not timeless pieces of wisdom, but a set of ideas inve...

2 Jul 54min

Populært innen Samfunn

rss-spartsklubben
giver-og-gjengen-vg
aftenpodden
konspirasjonspodden
popradet
rss-nesten-hele-uka-med-lepperod
rss-henlagt-andy-larsgaard
alt-fortalt
wolfgang-wee-uncut
grenselos
aftenpodden-usa
rss-dette-ma-aldri-skje-igjen
bokmerket-2
fladseth
lydartikler-fra-aftenposten
rss-siktet
198-land-med-einar-trnquist
rss-frekvens-med-anine-olsen
rss-herrepanelet
relasjonspodden-med-dora-thorhallsdottir-kjersti-idem