Sally Fox (1929–2006)

Apparently 2020 is a plague year, so maybe my mother getting me this Medieval-styled day journal for Christmas last is rather fitting… But I’m not one for actual journalling, so I’ll probably give it back to her to fill out now that I’ve explored the illustrations. The theme of the book is working Medieval women in illustration, attempting to prove a thesis that women were far more than just housewives and nuns even during a time of relatively restrictive rules for women overall. Most of the roles played by women show them doing household tasks, selling things, and working the fields, which don’t seem that surprising, considering that these are all expected roles for European women at the time, but I was interested to see a handful where the women were defending castles, at the forge, and other more male occupations. The illustrations are taken from a variety of contemporary Medieval sources, so in theory they represent an accurate depiction of contemporary women, but I do question how many of the illustrations have been fictionalized or at least exaggerated. The authors provide little in the way of explanation or discussion of the source material, and considering that most of the sources are religious texts, I wonder how many liberties were taken or if the illustrations are depicting the same exceptional woman in many circumstances. Of course, there have always been women who march to the beat of their own drum, so I don’t want to question the validity of the images too much, but I do wish that there was more discussion about them. Knowing more about the illustrators, the accompanying stories, or even the biographies of the women depicted would have made for a much more interesting book - even if the point is that they’re meant to simply be decoration to accompany the reader’s journaling.… (meer)