'I am told very bad things about you. I hear it said you are a very wicked woman.'

A spectacular, vivid and ground-breaking work of history that takes us into the minds and lives of medieval women.

Few medieval women had the luxury of writing down their thoughts and feelings – but there are at least four who did: Marie de France, a poet; Julian of Norwich, a mystic and anchoress; Christine de Pizan, a widow and court writer; and Margery Kempe, a no-good wife.

Four women, writing hundreds of years ago, long before feminism existed – yet in their own ways these four, very different writers pushed back against the misogyny of the period.

In Poet, Mystic, Widow, Wife Hetta Howes uncovers these women’s stories to paint a spectacular portrait of the world in which they lived, and the ways their lives speak to us in the present.

What was life really like for women in the medieval period? How did they think about sex, death and God? Could they live independent lives? And how can we hear the stories of women from this period? All this and more is answered in this extraordinary book of research and revelation from one of the most exciting up-and-coming voices in popular history writing.