Born around 1474, during the reign of Henry VII, and married first to a Merchant of the Staple, a traditional and lucrative wool trader, in her second marriage to Sir (later Saint) Thomas More put Lady Alice at the centre of Renaissance learning.

That wasn't her skill set, but she managed the "school" that Sir Thomas's children and grandchildren attended, dealt with European intellectual star Erasmus (sharply), was a matriarch of the family through its rise and fall.

The story of her life is also an explanation of how running a prosperous household in these times -- and for much of history - has been a serious professional job. I also look into what that entailed, from people to menagerie management, candlemaking to preserving.

No one said "just a housewife" in Lady Alice's time, and they certainly would not have said it to her face.

Stranger in the Shogun's City: A Japanese Woman and Her World by Jane Stevenson

Frenchwoman Jeanne Baret, the first woman to circumnavigate the world (And honoured with a Google home page graphic this year on the 280th anniversary of her birth.)

Sir (later Saint) Thomas More - Lord High Chancellor to Henry VIII but refused to acknowledge the King as head of the church, which led to his execution, author of Utopia, declared the patron saint of statesmen and politicians in 2000.

Margaret (Meg) More then Roper - writer and translator, oldest child of Sir Thomas

Desiderius Erasmus, Dutch philosopher of wide European fame. His most famous work, The Praise of Folly, has been continuously in print since its publication in 1511. Associated with the Reformation, but he generally stayed out of doctrinal issues

Hans Holbein the Younger - artist, including a portrait of the More family known from several versions

(If you're going to buy one, please use an independent bookseller - Hive is a good one in the UK, not the Great Parasite that is Amazon!)

There's not really a good treatment of Lady Alice's life available.

Utopia, Thomas More - really a good read

And I have to mention Hillary Mantel's Wolf Hall (fiction), part of her triology covering the rise and fall of Thomas Cromwell.

I also mention in the podcast C.J. Sansom's Shardlake series of historical crime fiction

Jeanne Baret

The Discovery of Jeanne Baret: A Story of Science, the High Seas, and the First Woman to Circumnavigate the Globe, Glynis Ridley 

(Children's book) The Secret of Jeanne Baret, Helen Strahinich  

Le travesti de l'etoile, Jeanne Baret, premiere femme a avoir fait le tour du monde, Verneret Hubert

Japanese women

Have to mention The Pillowbook of Sei Shonagon, a wonderful diary/memoir detailing 11th-century court life. Just because I love it. Wonderfully acid wit; probably a nightmare of a character in real life.

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