Femina by Janina Ramirez

We review stuff for you, so you can pick the best medieval material.

Here’s our take on Janina Ramirez’s Femina.

Quick facts

• Full title: Femina. A New History of the Middle Ages, Through the Women Written Out of It
• Author: Janina Ramirez, British cultural historian and TV presenter. Ramirez has lectured at the universities of York, Winchester, Warwick, and Oxford.
• First published: 2022
• Publisher: WH Allen, part of Penguin Random House
• Number of pages without notes: 333

Our review

This book has us divided, which is a strong sign that it’s novel and provocative.

Femina tries to do things differently, and it succeeds. With flying colors, Janina Ramirez manages to push women into the limelight that historians often gloss over. The author unearths fascinating stories about captivating women who had an impact on the Middle Ages. As such, it’s a breath of fresh air in a genre that can get stale.

Unfortunately, this choice of perspective also makes Femina more of a collection of short stories than a “true” history book. It’s the book’s strength as well as its weakness. The chapters feel quite disconnected, and at times it seems like Ramirez is shoehorning them into a greater narrative.

Adding to that is a lack of source material on some of the women featured. In those cases, the author spends a great number of pages on the historical background. Only after providing a lot of context does she seem to realize, “Oh, wait a minute. I was writing about this woman.” The story then at last veers toward the subject, which is dealt with shortly. To us, this often felt quite construed or even forced.

But we have to admit that historical science, and medieval history in particular, needs this book badly. For too long, historians have been telling the same stories about the same white, male rulers. (To be honest, we are guilty of this as well but we try our best.)

For that, Femina is a more than welcome addition to the lineup. Given the current public discourse and political climate, this book reads like a 4/5 because of the novelty factor. But in a historiographical sense, it’s “good, not great” and it will probably go down in history as a 3/5. Historians as we are, that’s our final verdict – but it was a hard call to make.

Our verdict

Where to buy

Disclosure: these are affiliate links, meaning – at no additional cost to you – we will earn a small compensation if you click through. With these earnings, we can provide you with more exclusive medieval reports and guides.

• Buy Janina Ramirez’s Femina over at Amazon!