I’ve always been a history nerd, but it wasn’t until I started working at The Conversation that I really caught the medieval bug. Inspired by our academic experts, I’ve read books, trawled online archives, and when I worked on an article about the Book of Kells earlier this year, I had to travel to Dublin to see it for myself.
And so it is that this week I found myself booking tickets to London to visit Medieval Women: In Their Own Words at the British Library, an exhibition our reviewer, expert in medieval women’s writing Diane Watt, described as “unmissable”.
I’m particularly excited to see the way that some of the earliest works by women to have been written in English are brought to life in a scent installation. Julian of Norwich’s satanic torments, for example, are conjured up by the stink of sulphur, while Margery Kempe’s angels are evoked by notes of honey, strawberry and caramel.
