There’s enough documented cases where we KNOW this is the case to think this is likely true for a very large proportion of them. Dick Francis is a major case in point; his wife wrote most of “his” books.
There’s enough documented cases where we KNOW this is the case to think this is likely true for a very large proportion of them. Dick Francis is a major case in point; his wife wrote most of “his” books.
I’ve heard so many of these stories. It’s so scandalous, yet not enough has changed today.Edit: I lazily did not check what sub I was in when commenting. Apologies, I wouldn’t intentionally intrude on a women-only space.
Well back then they had to, right? Were women even allowed to publish art/writing? In like…medieval days.
Nope.
There was no blanket proscription on women writing and/or being published. There were restrictions on women’s activities, including writing activities, yes, but no proscription. Here are some restriction examples:
And naturally, like the pharaoh I outlined in my Kick-Ass Women from History series, there was an awful lot of outright erasure of women’s contributions using tactics like destruction (common, since the printing press wasn’t available to make mass publication a thing) and reattribution to a man.
This didn’t stop women from writing works that got published however. Marguerite Porete published the mystical treatise The Mirror of Simple Souls. (It was found to be heretical and she was burned at the stake and her works destroyed.) Perpetua of Carthage’s prison diary from the 3rd century was published and is one of the oldest extent works written by Christian women. Hrotsvit of Gandersheim wrote plays, poems and historical works in the 10th century. Hildegard of Bingen wrote extensive works of theology, music, and even medicine in the 11th and 12th centuries. In fact here’s a list in rough chronological order of women who wrote famous works that were circulated during medieval times onward: