Aethelflaed and Bertha are two of the figures discussed in the new history of women in the Middle Ages written by Janina Ramirez. Choreographer Shobana Jeyasingh has taken the heroine who fights Tancredi the crusading knight and reframed the story set to the music composed by Monteverdi's Il Combattimento. Cat Jarman is a bioarchaeologist who has tracked the way a Viking ‘Carnelian’ bead travelled to England from 8th-century Baghdad, with all that it tells us about women and power.

They join Shahidha Bari to discuss ideas about women as warriors and power brokers.

Femina: A New History of the Middle Ages, Through the Women Written Out of It by Janina Ramirez is published July 21st 2022

Shobana Jeyasingh's new dance work Clorinda Agonistes premieres on July 13th and 14th at Grange Festival, Hampshire and then can be seen at Sadlers Wells Sept 9th and 10th, Snape Maltings October 8th, the Lowry Oct 18th and 19th, Oxford Playhouse 15th and 16th November.

River Kings: A New History of the Vikings from Scandinavia to the Silk Roads by Cat Jarman is out now.

Producer in Salford: Cecile Wright

You might be interested in another discussion about women fighting hearing from Maaza Mengiste, Christina Lamb, Julie Wheelwright https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000g4bz available on the Free Thinking programme website and to download as an Arts & Ideas podcast our our discussion about Vikings https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0015582

and we have a whole collection called Women in the World https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p084ttwp