Isabel de Conches - Valiant ladyIsabel de Conches (fl.1070-1100s) was the wife of Ralph de Tosny, lo
Isabel de Conches - Valiant ladyIsabel de Conches (fl.1070-1100s) was the wife of Ralph de Tosny, lord of Conches in Normandy. Her story is told in Orderic Vitalis’ Ecclesiastical history. Isabel is described as being joyful, generous, daring and well loved by all. Orderic Vitalis also includes a scene where she sits in the hall of Conches and listens to the knights talking about their dreams. His choice of words strongly suggests that it was customary for her to do this.Isabel had a conflictual relationship with her sister-in-law, Helewise of Evreux, who was “clever and persuasive, cruel and grasping”. The disagreements between the two women caused their husbands to take arms against each other. During the conflict, Isabel donned armor and joined the knights on the battlefield. Orderic Vitalis praises her courage as such:“ In war she rode armed as a knight among the knights; and she showed no less courage among the knights in hauberks and sergeants-at-arms than did the maid Camilla, the pride of Italy, among the troops of Turnus. She deserved comparison with Lampeto and Marpesia, Hippolyta and Penthesilea and the other warlike Amazon queens”He gives no further description of her role in the battle. Isabel may have encouraged the knights or she perhaps fought actively, as the comparisons to these warlike heroines seem to suggest. Isabel ended her life in a nunnery where she “worthily reformed her life” and repented of her “mortal sin of luxury”. Bibliography:Hicks Leonie V., A Short History of the NormansJohns Susan M., Noblewomen, aristocracy and power in the twelfth-century anglo-normal realmMcLaughlin Megan, The woman warrior: Gender, warfare and society in medieval Europe -- source link
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