sister_raphael | Entries tagged with history

Hey Book Lovers! Big special for the next 2 weeks!! You can score yourself a Kindle Copy of my book for a measly $2.99 and add it to your digital, treeless library!

The Very Secret Sex Lives of Medieval Women is a non-fiction book and was released by Mango Publishing a few years ago but continues to surprise new readers. Available in several languages and in the Braille Lending Library of Australia, you too can peek behind the image presented in Hollywood movies and mainstream medieval history.

Single medieval women in the form of new widows were often in a position to travel. In fact, one particular widow was told by her husband on his deathbed that as soon as he dies, she was to make all haste and not wait, and visit five shrines in holy places for the good of his soul. He not only named the places she was to go, but pre-paid her expenses for all the trips.

Our widow was instructed to not wait at home and observe the usual grieving practices, she was to leave right away! He felt that he hadn't made amends for his sins at these places personally, and so it was very urgent that his widow was to go post haste.

What could she do but pack her bags and comply? ... and here she was, a newly single woman out seeing the world and not a person could censure her for it. It was her husband's wish. She absolutely could not refuse.

Medieval ampulla like this one from my collection, which you can see here in The Gilbert Collection, were favourite pilgrimage souvenirs. They contained water blessed from shrines and it was hoped that the water would have protective qualities and cure sickness for those at home who could not travel to the shrines themselves.

In the case that a widow loved her husband dearly, forced travel at the time when she would have preferred to be at home surrounded by her loved ones and family, would perhaps have been just awful. In the case that it was an arranged marriage or the husband had not been a kind man, perhaps a trip away might have saved her the effort of pretending to grieve.

False grieving was commented on by clergymen who wrote that some widows force pretend tears at the funeral whilst at the same time looking for a new husband before the old is in the ground or, and this is a double edged sword here, wailing extensively because the husband has died and the widow and children have no source of income and no means to live without him.

Honestly, this is a legitimate concern, but was interpreted by some as being selfish. Thoughts should be firmly directed on the deceased, not on herself, was the feeling.

Without a doubt, one of the most famous of single medieval women who travelled is our literary Prioress, a creation of 14th century writer, Chaucer. An illumination of her can be seen here.

Her character inspired by a actual historical person, and the description of her lavish personal accoutrements and love of the finer things in life, and we find her in visiting dioces records where the nuns are furiously complaining about Eglentyne.

Whilst Chaucer's Madame Eglantine was a composite figure of some of the best and worst things associated with nuns at this time, our Eglentyne, the third daughter of a well-to-do person, became a nun at the tender age of fifteen and lived a reasonably civil life for ten years or so before being promoted to Prioress.

And this is where she got unruly.

The nuns under her were very unhappy. She was selling wood to outsiders, selling off the best silver spoons, dressing like a secular women, wearing far too much jewellery and taking so many trips outside their cloistered walls, that it was sending the establishment broke.

For more information about single medieval women who travelled, there's a chapter in my book, the Secret Lives of Single Medieval Women, out in most countries now or available directly from Mango Publishing in the USA.

Found this week in England and shared with me by a friend!

This beautiful lead ampulla which comes from a shrine where pilgrims could purchase a little holy water to take home with them. The raised motif on the front can still be seen.

Photo used with permission of the owner.

Thank you Karen and Michael, my local Stones Corner bookshop for having me as their Author On The Sidewalk today! A big THANK YOU to everyone who stopped for a chat or bought books or both!

Books@Stones supports Australian authors and stocks a bunch of other cool things (the native animal puppets are so cute), games, and funky book related merch.

See you again here for a Book Event Night in the coming months!

In the Middle Ages, many men had many feelings about things that really were none of their business, like girls laughing. Guibert de Nogent was just one of many who felt young ladies should be ashamed about feeling good about themselves.

This Saturday come down to Books at Stones at Stones Corner and say hi!!

Mother's Day is Next Sunday in Australia and it's OUT NOW!

I made a Museum treasure hunt!

A few weeks ago I had my official book launch for The Secret Lives of Single Medieval Women at the Abbey Museum of Art & Archaeology, and we had a short speech, lots of scrumptious food and I made this fun Scavenger Hunt for the Museum and Art Gallery for guests to really have a closer look at the displays!

While not all items are medieval, they are all things associated with the life of a single woman!

Here's our item card that I made! Obviously, you can't collect them. It was a find-and-photograph and first one back won a prize!

While not all items are medieval, they are all things associated with the life of a single woman! Writing implements, dress accessories, devotional literature and even the much beloved pet, the small white, fluffy dog! What might a woman do with a monk? Why, confess! (although players had lots of fun suggestions of things to do with monks! naughty! Naughty!)

Here's our item card that I made! Obviously, you can't collect them. It was a find-and-photograph and first one back won a prize!

The hunt itself was extremely successful with players racing around the museum and participants helping each other out with wild waving of arms saying "That way! That way!" and even museum staff dropping clues as to which cases to look in! All in all, much merriment was had, with people reporting that it was a lot more fun than they thought it would be.

The absolute funny part is that one of the items, the buckle and chape, was in a case which was out of display due to some water damage from a recent storm, and since people couldn’t see the exact item I had in mind, they were frantically looking for anything which might have been it. Answers included spotting a buckle on a suit or armour, in a painting, and on the clothes they were wearing themselves!

At the conclusion, there were two back at the same time with everything ticked off, so I decided that a runner up prize was in order and everyone left happy!

Book launch photos from "The Secret Lives of Single Medieval Women" on Saturday at the Abbey Museum of Art and Archaeology in the new cafe are now up on social media but here's my favourite one: the obligatory Author At The Book Table snap!

It was an absolutely wonderful event and it was a great opportunity for me to gather family, friends, colleagues and enthusiastic supporters all together for a celebration. Guests enjoyed the delicious catering the Abbey Museum events are well-known for, a short but lively talk about the making of the book and a guided tour of the new Art Gallery by Senior Curator Michael Strong. For the more adventurous, we had a Single Lady Scavenger Hunt within the museum and art gallery itself to find and photograph a number of historical lady items which a single woman might have used in her life!

A huge thank you to everyone who came and especially for the Abbey staff who made this little event so lovely!

Thank you also to Nate at Mango Publishing for getting a few books my way for our special day!

I have books!!!!!

Before you get too excited, I have only 20 books for the official Book Launch event this Saturday, which may not be enough and certainly doesn't cover the order from the museum shop. Just 20 books.

Pretty darn excited about it, though. The cover looks really great!!

It's a crisis. I'm waiting to hear back AGAIN from the publisher who I spoke to less than a week ago...

Original launch date 25th March, which was moved when the Editor in Chief left to pursue her own Publishing Company, but the rest of the team remained the same, so not so much of a big deal, right?

It's now 8 days until the scheduled Book Launch Event in the Art Gallery Cafe at the Abbey Museum of Art & Archaeology, where catering is organised and people have changed their work shifts and other appointments to attend. Later weekends are very crowded and people really may not be able to come, especially since the publisher website now says MAY, which is completely news to me. This may or may not be correct, since the book is at the printer as we speak but they should know.

My options are:

1. Pre Launch Party in 8 days time. I could do pre-sales promo and have some kind of special so that everyone who pays for their pre-order gets a bonus thing? I'm thinking that since the food and staff is organised at this stage, and my sister has changed her Hospital roster to come and my niece and nephew have made space on their work rosters so they can come also, I should just go ahead. People at my work sorted their shifts to come. Organising re-enactors is like herding cats, and a number of them are on the guest list.

2. Delay the whole thing and see what I can wrangle later on about having the same kind of event, but finding a date that works will be a bit hopeless. Not to mention finding a place to have it on short notice. The museum was giving a good price to hire the venue too since I'm a Life Member.

3. Cancel it and don't have a nice launch.

I have already got stuff ready for it at that specific venue. I kinda feel like I'd like to just go ahead and have a Pre launch, but I'm wild that now I'm missing Women's History Month, Markets, AROW, Phoenix Phestival, Mother's Day and likely my Birthday- all times when I would have promo giveaways.

Of course people may feel it's just too stupid to have a launch without actual books.

ARGH!!!!!

Sorry for all the book spam of late, but as release day looms (the original day was 25th March, so any day now) I need to have a few little promotional items for giveaways (and a mug for me to shamelessly use at work) so here's the design for The Secret Lives of Single Medieval Women!

I really wasn't going to put actual me on it, but the lady and squirrel is a bit of a talking point and Scarlet Skwirl deserves some love! You won't be able to buy these; they're promo giveaways only!

I'm only doing 6 of these as they aren't on special to print at the moment, but they're almost identical to my blog footer and web page header, so I'm sticking with the theme!

It's been a busy night last night making new footers and updating things on my author website pages, and just for fun, here are the themed new footers, which I'll use depending on the posts. I'm just posting them here to check the links work and are loading properly.

This one has the new updated cover for Single Medieval Women which is out very soon, but it looks pretty much the same:

This one has all the books on it and is my Author Books one:

and this one is specifically if I'm talking about ordering books and encouraging people to visit the website:

This one just for the Medieval Wisdom book hasn't changed:

and this one for just the Very Secret Sex Live s of Medieval Women book hasn't changed either.

The final cover is released and the book is off to the printer!

I must say I'm extremely pleased with this. The colours are beautiful and autumnal, the single girl and her kitty is sweet, and the back cover text is really wonderful. It accurately reflects the book without over hyping it unnecessarily to generate sales. The review endorsements show that the book is not academic, but a good, interesting read for everyday readers who want to learn more about medieval life and some of the myths associated with medieval women.

I easily could have written forever and there are sections trimmed for word count, but there's an online colour image gallery and online source notes for those of us, like myself, who really do want to know where this information comes from to keep the printing costs and therefore the book price affordable.

Currently, it's available for preorder from many places including Amazon, and for those who wish to skip them entirely, will also be live on the Mango Publishing Online Bookstore very soon also.

If you'd like to read a little more about what the book is actually about, visit my author website here.

Your thought for the week from my Medieval Wisdom series.

With the lovely Edith Cuffe OAM at the Abbey Museum of Art and Archaeology Friends Presentation this afternoon and what a turnout we had! We ran out of chairs and needed to add more at the back as people just kept arriving! There we are with another ten minutes to go and running out of chairs fast!

I think we all went home with new facts to surprise unsuspecting people at parties with!

It's tomorrow! There's a slideshow of great pictures too! Here's what the museum promo says:

This is your friendly reminder to get your tickets to Rosalie Gilbert's upcoming talk, Single Medieval Women: Who Were They and What Did They Do?

The Abbey Hall

Saturday, 22 Feb

2pm - 4pm

Join Rosalie for an in-depth dive into the day-to-day lives of single women in Medieval times. Whether they were unmarried, widowed, divorced, or had taken up a life within the church, learn and explore the different freedoms (or restrictions) women of the Middle Ages lived with. What roles did they hold in society?

Limited tickets remaining - gets yours now so you don't miss out!

TICKETS: Friends Member $10 | Guest $20

https://abbeymuseum.com.au/.../friends-presentation.../

Looking over the interior style proof of "The Secret Lives of Single Medieval Women" which is already available for pre-order! At this stage, the release date 25 March is only 5 weeks away!

You can pre-order HERE.

PRE-ORDERS ARE NOW OPEN! This is a thing I learnt from a person I didn't know messaging me on social media who was very excited to tell be she had just ordered my new book! I had no idea it was out for pre-order, so that came as a lovely surprise! so...

I'm extremely excited to announce that pre-orders for The Secret Lives of Single Medieval Women from Mango Publishing are now live! The release date is listed at 25th February, 2025, but as far as I know, it's 25th March, 2025 so the date may be a typo. The cover looked to be set, but there's movement in the Art Department, so I am terrified it will get swapped out for a horrible one. So far the feedback I've seen when someone shared my post was just as I hoped.

Comments of "I like that the lady on the cover has a cat!" and "I will be disappointed if the author doesn't have a cat!" have really made my day! Anyway, cross your fingers for me. it's not final until it's in print. If it's too awful, I'll be printing dust jackets like I did last time.

Anyway, it's all a bit exciting, and I'll be posting more about this book which looks at the options of the unmarried medieval woman in the Middle Ages!

PRE-ORDER ON AMAZON HERE.

PREORDER DIRECTLY FROM MANGO link coming soon

Slip into something sexy... do it for yourself!

As always, a reminder that my first book makes a pretty nice present whether you're Valentine's, Gal-entines or treating yourself, because you deserve it!

Available through Mango Publishing, Amazon and ordered in bookshops everywhere!

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Rosalie's Medieval Woman

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Rosalie Gilbert

Author & Medieval History Enthusiast

Entries tagged with history

EOFY Kindle Sale!

Single Medieval Widows Travelled

Ampulla. The Medieval Souvenier.

Book Signing at Sones Corner

Guibert de Nogent has feelings.

Book signing!

Mother's Day

Museum Treasure Hunt!

The Big Day: Book Launch!

An unexpected arrival!

Attempted launch woes

Getting all the promo together

Busy day making new footers!

Official cover of The Secret Lives of Single Medieval Women

Beware of flatterers.

Museum Friend Presentation

Single Medieval Women at the Abbey Museum

Single Medieval Women Proofing complete

This week's big surprise...

Surprise someone!