What makes for the ideal woman? How should she look love and be? In this vibrant
high-spirited history medievalist Eleanor Janega turns to the Middle Ages the era that
bridged the ancient world and modern society to unfurl its suppositions about women and reveal
what's shifted over time-and what hasn't. Enshrined medieval thinkers almost always male
subscribed to a blend of classical Greek and Roman philosophy and Christian theology for their
concepts of the sexes. For the height of female attractiveness they chose the mythical Helen
of Troy whose imagined pear shape small breasts and golden hair served as beauty's epitome.
Casting Eve's shadow over medieval women they derided them as oversexed sinners inherently
lustful insatiable and weak. And unless a nun a woman was to be the embodiment of perfect
motherhood. In contrast drawing on accounts of remarkable and subversive medieval women like
Eleanor of Aquitaine and Hildegard of Bingen along with others hidden in documents and court
cases Janega shows us how real women of the era lived. While often mothers they were
industrious farmers brewers textile workers artists and artisans and paved the way for new
ideas about women's nature intellect and ability. In The Once and Future Sex Janega
unravels the restricting expectations on medieval women and the ones on women today. She boldly
questions why if our ideas of women have changed drastically over time we cannot reimagine
them now to create a more equitable future.
