The Anarchy: Disruptive Women

How was folklore woven into the everyday life of medieval Icelanders? How did they make sense of the darkness of their world?During Iceland's endless nights, tales of trolls, ghosts, elves, hidden people and restless spirits were far more than entertainment: they explained an unp ...  Show more

What if “High King” in medieval Ireland was less a fixed office than a fiercely contested prize, won through ritual, lineage, and force? On the Hill of Tara, a would-be ruler climbs toward the Stone of Destiny, hoping for the legendary cry that marks him as chosen.Matt Lewis and ...  Show more

The Anarchy – a 12th-century civil war for the English crown that pitted Empress Matilda against Stephen of Blois – is remembered as one of the most turbulent episodes of the Middle Ages. It was said to be a time when “Christ and his saints slept”. Medieval historian Matt Lewis a ...  Show more

In 17th-century England, women weren’t asked what they believed, they were generally told to obey. But amid civil war, revolution, and religious upheaval, a remarkable group of women risked everything to speak out. They preached, prophesied and published their defiance, surviving ...  Show more

From aristocratic rebels to Civil Rights activists, tens of thousands of people travelled to Spain during the Civil War - and not all of them were men...Whether they were fighting, nursing or reporting, in this episode of Betwixt the Sheets we are going to meet a few of the women ...  Show more

From the notorious thief Mary Frith in the seventeenth century to industrialist and LGBT trailblazer Anne Lister in the nineteenth, these heroines redefined what a woman could be and what she could do in pre-twentieth-century Britain.

Holly Kyte, author and literary ...