Donne indomite nell’Inghilterra medievale: il caso di Æthelflæda, Signora dei Merciani

Abstract

The role of women in medieval English society does not emerge clearly from a reading of the available sources (literary texts, historical works and chronicles, and collections of letters written both in Latin and in the vernacular). Female figures are often overshadowed and not always portrayed in their proper light. Undoubtedly, we have records of powerful women who exercised public functions in the religious and cultural sphere (such as Hild of Whitby), or in secular and political contexts (such as Ælfgifu of Northampton). Even more difficult is the task of identifying strong, rebellious women who challenged the conventions of their age and struggled to find a place in a society that was fundamentally warrior-based and patriarchal. This contribution aims to explore, through the sources of medieval England, the story of a remarkable female figure—Æthelflæd—who succeeded in asserting herself in a world dominated by men and military values, yet remained almost invisible to historians for centuries, only to be rediscovered by scholarship in more recent times.