Medieval Women

Paris, 1393. A masquerade ball at the palace ends in tragedy, with four revelers burned to death. Was it an accident...or did someone deliberately hurl a flaming torch at the dancers? Convinced it was an act of murder and that the king himself was the real target, Queen Isabeau has asked Christine de Pizan to spend time at court in an attempt to uncover the identity of the would-be assassin.

Seventh-century England is a hodgepodge of warring Anglo-Saxon states filled with shifting alliances and treacherous grabs for royal power. Kings rise and fall, depending on Woden's luck. Northumbria, the damp kingdom north of the river Humber, is a state riven with rivalries and kings determined to expand at any cost. Women have no obvious role in a warrior society, but by using their wits, four women - two queens and two abbesses - make monumental changes. Based on true events and people, this is the story of Northumbria through the eyes of the most important women of their time.

Catherine, wife of one-handed Edgar, daughter of a Jewish merchant, and mother of two small children, is a Christian convert. Agnes, her estranged sister, has returned to Paris with the news that she is to marry a German lord. She wants no part of her Jewish family, except the sizable dowry her father can provide.

An original recording of one of Oscar Wilde's comedic classics and a precise satire of Britain's upper classes. At a gathering at Hunstanton Chase, the young Gerald Arbuthnot has been given a rare opportunity to make something of himself by the cavalier Lord Illingworth, but a chance meeting between his mother Mrs. Arbuthnot and Lord Illingworth reveals that there's more behind the offer than Gerald knows.

A Woman of No Importance takes place in a 24-hour period during a house party hosted by Lady Hunstanton at her country estate. The upper echelons of English society mix, mingle and flirt, including Lady Caroline Pontefract (who is on her fourth husband), the witty and ironic Mrs. Allonby and the dandyish Lord Illingworth. Wilde balances these worldly characters with a visiting young American woman, Hester Worsley.

This is the story of Joan de Geneville, wife to one of England's most infamous traitors: Roger Mortimer. After the death of her father in 1292, Joan becomes one of the greatest English heiresses of her generation. In a time when women are subservient, she is raised by her mother to command. Educated by her tutors, she becomes a formidable woman in her own right. When Joan is married her husband's lust for power knows no bounds. She is forced to choose between her duty to her King and her loyalty to her husband.

Als Nachfahre der mächtigen Söhne des MacAlpin weigert sich Iain MacKinnon, sich der englischen Krone zu beugen. Doch als sein kleiner Sohn entführt wird, schwört der standhafte schottische Clanführer, nicht eher zu ruhen, bis er die Rückkehr seines Sohnes sichergestellt hat. Im Gegenzug raubt er die Tochter seines Feindes, um sich auf einen Handel mit dem Teufel einzulassen.

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 docile queens, housewives, 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.

Hildegard von Bingen was never meant to be remembered by history. The 10th child of one of the Graf von Sponheim’s knights, she was given to Disibodenberg monastery partly out of gratitude to God, but also partly because her visions made her too odd to make a suitable wife. When she succeeded Jutta von Sponheim as magistra and prioress of Disibodenberg monastery, she found herself unable to keep her visions secret any longer. What happened next led her to revolutionize not only monastic life for women, but the whole world too.

Catherine de Valois, am besten bekannt, als die Braut Henry des V. aus Shakespeares "Henry V.", war eine außergewöhnliche Frau, voller Glauben, Mut und Überzeugung, in einem Zeitalter politisch mächtiger Frauen.