Lifelong Learning
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Olga of Kiev: Brutal Saint and Revenge-Seeker
I recently finished listening to an audiobook version of Lars Brownworth’s The Sea Wolves: A History of the Vikings. Ever since I fell in love with Uhtred of Bebbanburg (to the point where I made a pilgrimage to Bamburgh in Northumberland, which is the inspiration for Bebbanburg) I’ve wanted to learn more about the Viking age. Lars Brownworth has some great medieval-era podcasts, and when I saw the book pop on up Scribd, I suspected it would be a good short history. And it didn’t disappoint. One of the characters I learned about, though, was Olga of Kiev (890-969). This woman showed that brutality during this period wasn’t just a…
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Not nuns but close…
I’ve often thought that the life of an average medieval woman would have been really awful. Legally being the property of first your father then your husband, no reliable birth control, dying in childbirth, and all the hard work in between. No thanks. But I recently came across a group of women who actually did have agency in their lives, and choices to marry or not. In his book “Edge of the World, a cultural history of the North Sea and the transformation of Europe,” Michael Pyle has a chapter devoted to the Beguines. Beguines lived in semi-monastic communities, but did not take any kind of religious vows. They promised…
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Olga of Kiev: Brutal Saint and Revenge-Seeker
