God's Own Gentlewoman: The Life of Margaret Paston

Margaret Paston married into a family of Norfolk gentry around 1440. A private individual writing letters in a personal capacity, many of which are among those of the surviving Paston corpus, it is precisely because she was not writing for a public audience that her letters tell us so much about her and her era.

In some respects Margaret was very much the epitome of her sex, class and era: she married young, was the mother of seven surviving children and ran the family estates during the frequent lengthy absences of her husband, a lawyer, in London. Her letters span the course of many years, so we get to know her personally as bride, wife, mother and, eventually, widow. Watt is far too pragmatic to claim to have discovered the ‘real’ show more woman behind the pen. Rather, she lets the evidence speak for itself and, like Howes, uses her subject’s life and writings as the basis for an examination of medieval women’s experiences in a wider context.

Watt presents a carefully selected set of letters from Margaret’s collection, written between the 1440s and the 1480s. They enlighten the reader on subjects of national, local and personal interest: the Wars of the Roses, religious practices, hawking, legal disputes, clandestine marriages, the progress of Margaret’s latest pregnancy and the efficacy (or not) of treacle as a treatment for bubonic plague. The greatest danger for this book was always going to be that Watt’s abundant scholarly expertise would overwhelm a narrative aimed at a general audience, but happily this is not the case. The reading experience is pleasingly like watching a play: Watt steps forward to explain the context and provide a framing device before retreating to the wings to leave Margaret in the limelight as she speaks in her own vibrant voice. The book is, incidentally, a cracking tourist guide to Norfolk.

Read the rest of the review at https://www.historytoday.com/archive/review/poet-mystic-widow-wife-and-gods-own-...

Catherine Hanley’s latest book is 1217: The Battles That Saved England (Osprey, 2024). show less