by Amy Morgan and Diane Watt

We are delighted to announce that we have been awarded ESRC IAA funding for a new project, Mapping Medieval Women Writers.

Only a handful of medieval women writers are reasonably well-known today—primarily Margery Kempe and Julian of Norwich, both from Norfolk, who are memorialized in their hometowns of King’s Lynn and Norwich; there is already a visitor centre at the Church of St Julian’s in Norwich. Other English medieval women writers do not enjoy this amount of attention.

The Mapping Medieval Women Writers project aims to raise the profile of women writers from across medieval England, including Hild of Whitby, Leoba of Wimborne, Muriel of Barking, Marie de France (who lived in England), Juliana Berners, the anonymous anchoress of Winchester, and Margaret Paston.

This heritage map will identify locations associated with these women and their better-known sisters, and bring their stories to life in written research driven entries, photographs, and podcasts. Each entry will include links to further readings and podcasts and there will be a comments function to enable feedback.

There could not be a more timely moment to launch this impact activity. Medieval women have been receiving a significant amount of attention recently, as is illustrated by the major exhibition Medieval Women: In Their Own Words at the British Library in London. As that exhibition has a global focus, many English women writers are not represented, which is where our research comes in.

This cultural map is the first step in raising their public profile, as it will form the basis from which to establish a heritage trail and build connections with key sites and heritage organizations, tourist boards and public bodies. The activity will encourage heritage and tourism and enable a fuller cultural understanding of these writers within their localities.

This project builds on the international research network, Women’s Literary Culture and the Medieval Canon, and a number of academics involved in the network have kindly joined the advisory panel of this project: Liz Amy Appleford, David Fuller, Herbert McAvoy, Sue Niebrzydowski, Denis Renevey, Michelle M. Sauer, Corinne Saunders, Nancy Bradly Warren, Christiania Whitehead.