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Femina
- A New History of the Middle Ages, Through the Women Written Out of It
- Narrated by: Janina Ramirez
- Length: 11 hrs and 55 mins
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Publisher's summary
A groundbreaking reappraisal of medieval femininity, revealing why women have been written out of history and why it matters
The Middle Ages are seen as a bloodthirsty time of Vikings, saints and kings; a patriarchal society that oppressed and excluded women. But when we dig a little deeper into the truth, we can see that the “Dark” Ages were anything but.
Oxford and BBC historian Janina Ramirez has uncovered countless influential women’s names struck out of historical records, with the word FEMINA annotated beside them. As gatekeepers of the past ordered books to be burned, artworks to be destroyed, and new versions of myths, legends and historical documents to be produced, our view of history has been manipulated.
Only now, through a careful examination of the artifacts, writings and possessions they left behind, are the influential and multifaceted lives of women emerging. Femina goes beyond the official records to uncover the true impact of women, such as:
- Jadwiga, the only female king in Europe
- Margery Kempe, who exploited her image and story to ensure her notoriety
- Loftus Princess, whose existence gives us clues about the beginnings of Christianity in England
In Femina, Ramirez invites us to see the medieval world with fresh eyes and discover why these remarkable women were removed from our collective memories.
Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook.
PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
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A fascinating new portrait of Medieval Britain that brings together the everyday and the extraordinary. Using wide-ranging evidence, Martyn Whittock shines a light on Britain in the Middle Ages, bringing it vividly to life. Thus we glimpse 11th century rural society through a conversation between a ploughman and his master. The life of Dick Whittington illuminates the rise of the urban elite.
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Really good book
- By Claire on 11-11-18
By: Martyn Whittock
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Introducing the Ancient Greeks
- From Bronze Age Seafarers to Navigators of the Western Mind
- By: Edith Hall
- Narrated by: Sian Thomas
- Length: 12 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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Acclaimed classics scholar Edith Hall's Introducing the Ancient Greeks is the first book to offer a synthesis of the entire ancient Greek experience, from the rise of the Mycenaean kingdoms of the sixteenth century BC to the final victory of Christianity over paganism in AD 391. Each of the ten chapters visits a different Greek community at a different moment during the twenty centuries of ancient Greek history.
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Surveying the Greeks
- By Jolene on 05-31-18
By: Edith Hall
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The Story We Carry in Our Bones
- Irish History for Americans
- By: Juilene Osborne-McKnight
- Narrated by: Juilene Osborne-McKnight
- Length: 8 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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More than 40 million people consider themselves Irish American, and yet most of them do not truly understand the rich cultural history of their ancestors. From prehistoric times to the emigration of the Irish to Amerikay, this broad, yet comprehensive, history gives a general overview of the deep history of Irish Americans.
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Blown away
- By Bob on 01-27-22
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Istanbul: A Tale of Three Cities
- By: Bettany Hughes
- Narrated by: Bettany Hughes
- Length: 24 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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From the Koran to Shakespeare, this city with three names - Byzantium, Constantinople, Istanbul - resonates as an idea and a place, real and imagined. Standing as the gateway between East and West, North and South, it has been the capital city of the Roman, Byzantine, and Ottoman Empires. For much of its history it was the very center of the world, known simply as "The City", but, as Bettany Hughes reveals, Istanbul is not just a city but a global story.
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A daunting undertaking pulled off superlatively
- By SGS on 12-24-17
By: Bettany Hughes
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The Anglo-Saxons
- A History of the Beginnings of England: 400 - 1066
- By: Marc Morris
- Narrated by: Roy McMillan
- Length: 13 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Sixteen hundred years ago Britain left the Roman Empire and swiftly fell into ruin. Grand cities and luxurious villas were deserted and left to crumble, and civil society collapsed into chaos. Into this violent and unstable world came foreign invaders from across the sea, and established themselves as its new masters. The Anglo-Saxons traces the turbulent history of these people across the next six centuries. It explains how their earliest rulers fought relentlessly against each other for glory and supremacy, and then were almost destroyed by the onslaught of the vikings.
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"Pretty Good"
- By Stephen on 05-30-21
By: Marc Morris
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The Age of the Vikings
- By: Anders Winroth
- Narrated by: Eric Jason Martin
- Length: 10 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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The Vikings maintain their grip on our imagination, but their image is too often distorted by medieval and modern myth. It is true that they pillaged, looted, and enslaved. But they also settled peacefully and developed a vast trading network. They traveled far from their homelands in swift and sturdy ships, not only to raid, but also to explore. Despite their fearsome reputation, the Vikings didn’t wear horned helmets, and even the infamous berserkers were far from invincible.
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Interesting history. Narrator could be better
- By Castle51 on 07-09-15
By: Anders Winroth
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The Vikings
- A History
- By: Robert Ferguson
- Narrated by: Michael Page
- Length: 14 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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From Robert Ferguson comes a comprehensive and thrilling history, based on the latest scholarship, that offers the definitive portrait of the Vikings.
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Good Historical Overview
- By Elizabeth Ciminelli on 04-25-12
By: Robert Ferguson
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The Vikings
- A New History
- By: Neil Oliver
- Narrated by: James A. Gillies
- Length: 11 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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Drawing on the latest discoveries that have only recently come to light, Scottish archaeologist Neil Oliver goes on the trail of the real Vikings. Where did they emerge from? How did they really live? And just what drove them to embark on such extraordinary voyages of discovery over 1,000 years ago? The Vikings: A New History explores many of those questions for the first time in an epic story of one of the world's great empires of conquest.
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Intriguing for a broad audience.
- By Grant on 08-07-18
By: Neil Oliver
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Powers and Thrones
- A New History of the Middle Ages
- By: Dan Jones
- Narrated by: Dan Jones
- Length: 24 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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When the once-mighty city of Rome was sacked by barbarians in 410 and lay in ruins, it signaled the end of an era—and the beginning of a thousand years of profound transformation. In a gripping narrative bursting with big names—from St Augustine and Attila the Hun to the Prophet Muhammad and Eleanor of Aquitaine—Dan Jones charges through the history of the Middle Ages. Powers and Thrones takes listeners on a journey through an emerging Europe, the great capitals of late Antiquity, as well as the influential cities of the Islamic West.
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Hard to take a break from it!
- By Mariano's Music on 12-09-21
By: Dan Jones
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Fifth Sun
- A New History of the Aztecs
- By: Camilla Townsend
- Narrated by: Christina Delaine
- Length: 12 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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For the first time, in Fifth Sun, the history of the Aztecs is offered in all its complexity based solely on the texts written by the indigenous people themselves. Camilla Townsend presents an accessible and humanized depiction of these native Mexicans, rather than seeing them as the exotic, bloody figures of European stereotypes.
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Ethnocentric ethnohistory
- By Jeffrey D on 03-24-21
By: Camilla Townsend
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Babylon
- Mesopotamia and the Birth of Civilization
- By: Paul Kriwaczek
- Narrated by: Derek Perkins
- Length: 12 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Civilization was born 8,000 years ago, between the floodplains of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, when migrants from the surrounding mountains and deserts began to create increasingly sophisticated urban societies. In the cities that they built, half of human history took place. In Babylon, Paul Kriwaczek tells the story of Mesopotamia from the earliest settlements seven thousand years ago to the eclipse of Babylon in the sixth century BCE. Bringing the people of this land to life in vibrant detail, the author chronicles the rise and fall of power during this period.
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Solid overview 3000 years of history
- By Alsor2000 on 07-19-20
By: Paul Kriwaczek
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Mother Tongue is a historical investigation of feminist language and thought, from the dawn of Old English to the present day. Dr. Jenni Nuttall guides readers through the evolution of words that we have used to describe female bodies, menstruation, women’s sexuality, the consequences of male violence, childbirth, women’s paid and unpaid work, and gender. Along the way, she challenges our modern language’s ability to insightfully articulate women’s shared experiences by examining the long-forgotten words once used in English for female sexual and reproductive organs.
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The word medieval conjures images of the “Dark Ages”. But the myth of darkness obscures the truth; this was a remarkable period in human history. The Bright Ages recasts the European Middle Ages for what it was, capturing this 1,000-year era in all its complexity and fundamental humanity, bringing to light both its beauty and its horrors. The Bright Ages takes us through 10 centuries and crisscrosses Europe and the Mediterranean, Asia, and Africa, revisiting familiar people and events with new light cast upon them.
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The Battle of Hastings and its aftermath nearly wiped out the leading families of Anglo-Saxon England—so what happened to the children this conflict left behind? Conquered offers a fresh take on the Norman Conquest by exploring the lives of those children, who found themselves uprooted by the dramatic events of 1066. Among them were the children of Harold Godwineson and his brothers, survivors of a family shattered by violence who were led by their courageous grandmother Gytha to start again elsewhere.
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Did you know that there are more penises than women in the Bayeux Tapestry? That the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381 was started and propelled by women who were protesting a tax on women? Or that Charles Darwin believed not just that women were naturally inferior to men, but that they’d evolve to become ever more inferior? These are just a few of the startling findings you will learn from listening to Philippa Gregory’s Normal Women. In this ambitious book, she tells the story of England over 900 years, for the very first time placing women—some fifty per cent of the population—center stage.
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Everyday Life in Medieval London
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Our capital city has always been a thriving and colorful place, full of diverse and determined individuals developing trade and finance, exchanging gossip and doing business. Abandoned by the Romans, rebuilt by the Saxons, occupied by the Vikings and reconstructed by the Normans, London would become the largest trade and financial center, dominating the world in later centuries. London has always been a brilliant, vibrant, and eclectic place.
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Interesting
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The Nuns of Sant'Ambrogio
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In 1858 a German princess who had been recently inducted into the convent of Sant'Ambrogio in Rome wrote a frantic letter to her cousin, a confidant of the Pope, claiming that she was being abused and that she feared for her life. What the subsequent investigation by the Church's Inquisition uncovered were the extraordinary secrets of Sant'Ambrogio and the illicit behavior of the convent's beautiful, young mistress, Maria Luisa.
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OMG so boring
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What listeners say about Femina
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- C. McDowell
- 03-31-24
Reimagining the lives of medieval women
Being invited into the discoveries in each chapter and appreciating the bookend reimagined narratives of warrior princess that begins the book and transgender people in London that ends this queer feminist history marking it’s time in the present
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- kevin
- 10-28-24
It’s mostly about the wealthy and powerful
I was hoping for more about the lives of ordinary women. The last chapter starts to go there but only skims the surface
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- TinkerTaylor
- 06-03-23
interesting, not as feminist as one would fear
I liked this book very much. The title and the blurb made me a bit hesitant, because I don't care for extreme views nor for people with a point to prove. But this is a well-rounded collection of stories of people (yes, of the female variety, but that isn't really the point) that normally fall through the cracks of time. Very informative and well narrated.
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2 people found this helpful
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- Emily Austin
- 01-18-24
Fantastic!
I’ve been interested in medieval history throughout my life, and this is one of the best books I’ve encountered. The author is clearly passionate, and her tone is incredibly engaging. Looking forward to reading more from Ramirez.
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- Amanda
- 04-04-23
Fascinating look at the “silent majority”
I thoroughly enjoyed this book!
I didn’t know how engaged I’d be since I am not a Medieval scholar/enthusiast, but I was hooked. I picked up this book because I wanted to learn more about the lesser told stories of women in history, and it did not disappoint.
Femina was extremely well-written and narrated. The chapters were nicely broken into smaller digestible subsections which really helped in highlighting the author’s points and keeping the reader engaged.
(My only suggestion would be to add the images from the physical copy in the Audible pdf. When I didn’t have the physical copy in front of me, I was having to Google images referenced, ex: Bayeux tapestry)
This book has made me interested in learning more about these fascinating women in Medieval history. I will be going to Normandy this summer and have now added the Bayeux tapestry as a must-see. If I ever find myself in Krakow, I’ll be sure to swing by Jadwiga’s tomb and pay my respects. And as a Swede, I’ll need to add Birka as a stop next time I’m in Stockholm. I’m proud to have these women’s stories brought to my attention.
Thank you, Janina, for sharing this research and reminding us to ask “questions about what stories [we’re] not hearing”.
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5 people found this helpful
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- Diana Prince
- 04-26-23
Must read
This may be the best book I've read all year. I'm a history buff and learned quite a few surprising things from this book. It's well written and narration is perfect.
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2 people found this helpful
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- Ellen Wright
- 05-17-23
Too short
I would love another volume of women’s stories. Responsibly written and thoughtful acknowledgment that there is much left to learn.
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1 person found this helpful
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- myev rees
- 01-08-24
Amazing!
Scholarly but engaging! As a religious studies historian of a different period and place, I was enthralled by the vibrancy of this book, and deeply impressed by its rigorous research. The print book and the audio are a triumph!
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- Stig Mjolsnes
- 06-25-23
Shallow discourse and presentation
The book presents a shallow discussion on old and newer archeological finds, intermingled with free fictional prose of how the author imagines the historic facts fit her agenda Worse, I find several factual errors and misunderstandings. A sincere scientific approach to be expected is replaced with fiction. Concerning the history of influential women she is breaking down open doors.
If you are looking for a serious discourse do not choose this book.
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4 people found this helpful
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Overall
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Performance
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- Diana
- 12-22-23
Maybe the author should read the title notes!
I was expecting a semi-biographical look at medieval women that history has overlooked (based on the title description mind you!) instead we get an author trying to stretch archeological finds and historical chronicles to fit her personal worldview.
The first three chapters are consumed with her contention that "viking" society was gender fluid, based on ambiguous grave goods. By chapter 4 we reach western Europe, only to hear that women joined convents to attain political power and autonomy. Really.
I am sorry to say that the author's evidence for any of her arguments is scanty and truly ambiguous. Her reasoning is circular and biased. This book was an utter waste of my time!
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2 people found this helpful