History: Women, Queenship and Power in Medieval England

This talk explores attitudes towards women in the Middle Ages, especially to women as rulers. In medieval England, just one woman – the Empress Matilda, daughter of King Henry I – inherited a claim to the throne in her own right. Yet, on her father’s death, her cousin, Stephen of Blois, seized control of England, so that Matilda was never crowned as queen. For many medieval people, the idea of a woman ruling in her own right was foreign to contemporary minds. Drawing on 25 years of writing about medieval women, Louise Wilkinson will share the fruits of her research. We will look at why there were concerns about women exercising power as rulers, drawing upon ideas inherited from the ancient world and religious role models for women. We will then look at the vibrant roles played, instead, by Anglo-Norman and Plantagenet queens consort, such as Matilda of Flanders (wife of William the Conqueror), Matilda of Scotland (wife of Henry I), Matilda of Boulogne (wife of Stephen), Eleanor of Aquitaine (wife of Henry II), and Eleanor of Provence (wife of Henry III, and the first queen to summon Parliament), in the political, diplomatic and cultural affairs of the kingdom.