Beginning the March – a Woman’s History Month endeavour

History is like a wide, sweeping river, it’s source lost in a past so distant we know very little about it. Humankind rose on two legs in that long-ago past, hesitantly peering out over the endless expanses around them. The river of history was as yet a trickle, and these our ancestors have left scant traces: a solidified footstep, some bones.

Years, decades, centuries passed. That trickle was now a burbling stream, and we have vibrant cave paintings, implements and graves that tell us of people who, in some ways are so like us. They live, they dream, they die, a steady sequence of generations that flow from one age to the next.

As history expands from stream to river, individuals emerge from the depths. Most of these are men—blame it on patriarchal societies or predominantly male chroniclers. But just because we cannot list as many female as male historical figures does not mean there weren’t any. History wouldn’t exist without woman. Herstory would not exist without man. Our history is the result of all the men and women who came before us.

Central to human survival is the mother. No mother, no children. No children, no future generations. But women, in difference to most other mammals, are not fertile throughout their lives. It has been posited that the menopause has been fundamental to our species’ survival. When older women could no longer procreate, they could instead help their daughters ensure the survival of their children. An evolutionary quirk that likely also reflects the fact that human babies need many years before they can stand on their own two legs.

History is full of protective, strong mothers. Some, we don’t know much about, like Olympia. Mother to Alexander the Great. Others, we know a LOT about – take Livia and her determined machinations to ensure her Tiberius became Emperor, or Eleanor of Aquitaine and her life-long support of her favourite son, Richard Lionheart. There is Helena, mother of Constantine the Great. It is said she influenced her son to embrace Christianity – she was also a trusted advisor. In medieval Castile, Berengaria became queen after her young brother died after being hit by a tile. Berengaria abdicated in favour of her son, future saint and mighty conqueror, Fernando III. Berengaria’s sister, Blanca, was the mother of St Louis (imagine that: two sisters, mothers to two saints)

We have those female lionesses, Margaret Beaufort and Catherine de Medici who did whatever it took to protect their offspring. There’s the ambitious Hurrem Sultan who rose from preferred concubine to wife of Suleiman the magnificent, giving him the son that would one day succeed him, Selim II.

Throughout the ages, mothers, sisters, wives and daughters have walked side by side with fathers, brothers, husbands and sons. And as March is Women’s History Month, for the coming four weeks this blog will be dedicated to celebrating all those women. I have invited fifteen writers to share a post about a historical woman—one post a day throughout March. We start on Monday, when Nancy Jardine takes us right back to Britain in the first century. Come and join us—I think you’ll enjoy the ride!