Uppity Women of Medieval Times

Meet "Serfer Girls", "Battle Axes", "Amazons in Shining Armor", and a host of other women who made history during the Middle AgesOnce again, Vicki Leon makes history sizzle with insightful and witty portraits and accounts of women notorious, courageous, and unusual who both defined and defied their times. During the Middle Ages, Vicki Leon tells us, "a dashing number of more-than-fair damsels used their wits (and other weaponry from courage to guile and garden-variety impudence) to make their names around the world".Brainy females like educator and convent-founder Hilda of Whitby and poet and passionate nature-lover Maysun of Syria became great role models in European and Islamic societies. Viking leader Aud the Deep-Minded colonized Iceland, while in Asia, women like astronomy-smitten queen Sonduk gained rulership by succession, and Wu Zhao of China (the notorious Empress Wu) concubined, connived, murdered, and manipulated her way to a 50-year reign. In Africa, Nzinga Mbande, the warrior queen of early Angola, got rid of the Portuguese -- by eating them. In addition, there were those ambitious women who realized that some of the world's most critical work goes on behind the scenes -- and the thrones.These are just some of the women introduced to readers in this tantalizing book. Exceptionally researched and irresistibly entertaining, Uppity Women of Medieval Times gives a feminist -- and humorous -- perspective on little-known great women of history.