Difficult Damsels

Hypatia was renowned in her own lifetime as a great teacher and a wise counselor in the ancient Egyptian city of Alexandria. She was a prominent thinker, devoting herself to learning and teaching, leading the life of a respected academic at Alexandria's university. Ancient sources routinely depict Hypatia as a woman who was widely known for her generosity, love of learning, and expertise in teachi...

Brunhild reigned as a Queen, Queen Mother and Queen Regent for a son, two grandsons and a great grandson for forty years. She attained a level of power in Medieval Frankia that few people—male or female—would ever achieve after her. In our epic conclusion of Brunhild’s story, we come to the end of the bloody rivalry between Brunhild and Fredegund. But that wasn’t the end of Brunhild yet! She had t...

While most Medieval Queens were generally expected to step aside for their young sons and disappear into obscurity within convent walls, Brunhild would prove to be the exception to the rule. Even after her son came of age to rule on his own, Brunhild still held an iron grip over the throne of Austrasia—much to the chagrin of the men around her. In this episode, Brunhild faces off against threats b...

You’ve heard the story from the murderess, Fredegund’s side. Now it’s time to here the cunning of a woman raised to be queen from birth. When Brunhild’s sister was murdered in the Kingdom of Neustria, it sparked one of the bloodiest rivalries to ever plague Europe. The early years of Brunhild were filled with tragedy, with the deaths of two husbands, scheming in convents, fighting the patriarchy—l...

When we last left off, Fredegund’s husband had just been murdered and she’s fled to Paris with an unnamed baby at her breast and an uncertain fate ahead of her. But this is Fredegund, and she’s not about to let that stop her from clawing, poisoning, stabbing, and climbing her way back to the top. In this episode, the rivalry between Fredegund and Brunhild escalates and we also learn what happens w...

It’s a choose your own adventure episode and Kat chose murder! Queen Fredegund is quite possibly one of the most ruthless, vicious and downright villainous queens you have never heard of! From kitchen slave to concubine to queen, Fredegund’s rise to power earned her the enmity of another powerful queen in Frankia and stoke a rivalry that eventually devastated Western Europe for 40 years. In one of...

We’re back! And we’re taking a trip in the Rewind Time Machine to talk about two of the oldest goddesses in recorded history. Astarte and Ishtar both emerged out of Mesopotamia as goddesses of war, love, sex and fertility. Their influence would spread from the ancient Middle East to the Mediterranean and into Egypt, serving as the blueprint for several Greek, Roman and Egyptian gods. These ancient...

Idolator. Sorceress. Harlot. As far as wicked women go, Jezebel set the standard for which all women would be judged for thousands of years following her death. Her story is immortalized in the Bible, serving as a cautionary tale for those who would turn their back on God. In this episode, we examine the historical figure behind the tale. Jezebel was a Phoenician princess, married to King Ahab of...

To become Queen of Jérusalem, Sibylla had to endure the deaths of her father, brother and nine year old son. When she inherited the throne, her Kingdom was on the brink of civil war, slowly being chipped away by the unstoppable and ruthless Saladin. No pressure or anything. Sibylla’s first act of true autonomy would also be her last. By crowning her obnoxious husband (some guy named Guy), Sibylla...

Sibylla was never supposed to be queen. Hers is a story of tragedy. To take power, she had to step over the bodies of several important men in her life. From the day her brother was diagnosed with leprosy, her Queenship was no longer a question of “if” but “when.” In the ten years Sibylla’s brother, Baldwin IV, reigned, the Kingdom of Jérusalem was faced with two challenges: find Sibylla a suitabl...

Ruthless and calculating, Zumurrud Khatan was another unique woman of the Crusader era that rose to power in the city of Damascus as the men around her perished. Amidst a chaotic environment where assassination attempts were just another Tuesday and bad blood led to intrigue and infighting, Zumurrud brought stability to Medieval Damascus with her own cutthroat method of dealing with her sadistic,...

Younger sister to the formidable and dominating Queen Melisende of Jerusalem, Alice is often overlooked in the pages of history. Alice was everything the Medieval chroniclers vilified in a woman: ambitious, hotheaded and rebellious in spirit. Obviously we love her for it! Married to the prince of Antioch at sixteen and widowed by twenty, Alice was determined to capitalize on the unique opportunity...

You may be thinking we’ve already heard this story before, but not like this. Eleanor of Aquitaine was one of the most notorious women in history, and her story was so insane that we decided we had to tell it twice. Join us for Eleanor of Aquitaine: the early years. Duchess by the age of thirteen, Queen by fifteen and Crusader by twenty-five, Eleanor was a woman that defied all convention and dete...

Following the untimely death of her husband, Melisende found herself in a unique position of power independent of any man’s influence. But of course it didn’t last for long. When Melisende’s son, Baldwin III, came of age, he decided he was not content to Co-Rule Jerusalem with his formidable and overbearing mother. Turns out the apple didn’t fall too far from the tree and her son attempted to set...

Melisende would go on to become one of the most powerful and formidable Queens of the Medieval era. The eldest of four daughters with no brothers in sight, Melisende’s father did the unthinkable: he named her as heir and then actually trained her to rule. Melisende’s rise to power has some familiar tropes: a husband that schemed to exclude her from power (he failed miserably), a potential lover th...

Aries chaos faces off against Virgo scrupulousness in this “relaxed” episode. WE HAVE THE NOTES! Rachel and Kat discuss their favorite goddesses and the nuance of light and darkness and why we love these nocturnal/darker goddesses. Stay tuned for an original goddess story from Rachel and what to expect if Kat ever ascends into godhood.

They say that behind every great man is an even greater woman, and Alexander the Great’s mother was no exception. Like all fun historical characters from Ancient Greece, Olympias claimed descent from the Gods and was determined to forge a legacy for her son worthy of his heritage. But her story is a worthy tale completely on its own. From bewitching the King of Macedonia in a mysterious cult initi...

"There were once women in Denmark who dressed themselves to look like men and spent almost every minute cultivating soldiers' skills; they did not want the sinews of their valour to lose tautness and be infected by self-indulgence . . . As if they were forgetful of their true selves they put toughness before allure, aimed at conflicts instead of kisses, tasted blood, not lips, sought the clash of...

Strange things were said to happen around Darya Saltykova’s estate. Tales of torture and abuse slowly trickled out of the Russian noblewoman’s lands where screams were said to be heard long into the night and young girls were said to disappear. In a tale reminiscent of the Hungarian Blood Countess, Elizabeth Bathory some 200 years earlier, comes a tale of a woman with ties to the highest echelon o...

When Elizabeth first came to the English throne, no one believed a woman could rule on her own without a husband to guide her. Queen Elizabeth proved time and again that she would always be the exception to the preposterous rule, much to the chagrin of those who wished to see her fail. The final years of her long reign saw an end to the Mary, Queen of Scots debacle, the defeat of the Spanish Armad...

As Elizabeth settled into her reign as queen, she quickly learned to master the art of traversing the treacherous world of courtly politics at home in England as well as France and Spain. Despite this carefully crafted persona, her throne was never completely safe. As religious strife escalated across Europe between Catholics and Protestants, the conflict hit closer to home when a certain Scottish...

Upon ascending the throne of England, Elizabeth was faced with two very pressing issues: reverting England back to Protestantism and getting herself a husband. Finding herself in the very unique position of having her pick of suitors, Elizabeth frustrated her counselors by refusing to marry or name an heir. Thus, the Virgin Queen is born – though we learn the moniker is a bit deceptive. As it turn...

Elizabeth Tudor was never supposed to be Queen. The daughter of Henry VIII and his second and most notorious wife, Anne Boleyn, Elizabeth was born amidst religious and political turmoil in England. Join us for the origin story of Elizabeth I. Before she was the Virgin Queen and Gloriana, she’d been an illegitimate princess used as a pawn to prop up the ambitions of the unscrupulous men around her....

It is said that whenever a Targaryen is born the gods flip a coin and the world waits to see how it will land: the side of greatness or the side of madness. In this episode, we discuss the upcoming show, House of the Dragon, and the many new difficult damsels we are looking forward to meeting. At the center of the drama is Rhaenyra Targaryen – a woman whose coin teeters on the edge of greatness an...

Mary is one of the more notorious monarchs on record, due in large part to her relentless persecution of Protestants earning her the moniker of “Bloody Mary.” But was this reputation earned? Mary’s brutality was not unique to the 16th century, but the lens of history loves to vilify women for doing the same things their male counterparts do. Mary’s reign is chalk full of religious upheaval and ref...