I WTB an English 14th C. Woman of ludicrous wantonness

[Old Bones]

I wanna be Agnes Hotot of House Dudley …

Agnes Hotot Late 14th C. (born 1380ish) Northamptonshire

… or an English 14th C. mounted female personae - equally as scandalous and roughly fits this description:

A 1348 British chronicle tells of women 'free from matrimonial restraints' whose behavior startled the public: When the tournaments were held, in every place a company of ladies appeared in the diverse and marvelous dress of a man, to the number sometimes of about forty, sometimes fifty, ladies from the more handsome and more beautiful, but not the better ones of the entire kingdom; in divided tunics, with small hoods, even having across their stomachs, below the middle, knives which they vulgarly called daggers placed in pouches from above. Thus they came on excellent chargers or other horses splendidly adorned, to the place of tournament. And in such manner they spent and wasted their riches and injured their bodies with abuses with ludicrous wantonness.'
Taken from: http://www.lothene.demon.co.uk/others/women14.html

Looking for research leads and other help. Many thanks!

Old Bones

[Robert of Canterbury]

NB
Lets keep this one on track if we can.

First question, do we know enough about these women to look at them as a unified group, or are they a collection of abberrations? (Historic not psychological)

Documentation to back up the claims?

Or should we be fishing in the Historic research forum?

In this one instance I think I have to agree with Chef and Bascot et al.
You will need a horse.

Robert the Wary of odditties.

[Old Bones]

I understand the peril involved here, but the documentation (if any) would be greatly appreciated. Thank you for putting the thread up, I smiled over the title

Old Bones

p.s. Got horse? Yes, and got 4 years into full contact jousting as well. Confident I can pull it off.

[Rittmeister Frye]

Greetings, Bones!

While there can be some danger in snipping out unusual facets of history and focusing on them, one has to admit that this is what most of us in fact do (totally horseless Tournaments weren't exactly common affairs in the Middle Ages I suspect, nor was Administrative Office by Right of Combat the normal way of running things, but it did happen on occasion.)

That being said, your quote does sound very interesting and brings up a lot of questions (a lot more than it answers, needless to say...) Was this something quite fantastic and one-of-a-kind? Or was it, or rather similar but less impressive shows of feminine bravado not uncommon, so unremarkable? Only research will tell... But I certainly hope that you and others will delve deeper into this, as it would certainly add a greater (and more flamboyant) dimension to things, wouldn't it?

But the BIG question is, are you up to portraying Ludicrous Wantoness?

Cheers!

Gordon

[Old Bones]

But the BIG question is, are you up to portraying Ludicrous Wantoness?

Greetings Rittmeister.

Ludicrous Wantoness is my middle name, you did not think it was d' did you?

Now, in all seriousness. Researching my emerging persona has not benefitted from equal opportunity historians, so snippets are all I have for leads. Portraying a jousting female today is most likely as rare as it was back then. We have a few ladies who do it but the scene is male dominated. Still, there are these intriguing snippets that bring this up and it pricks my ears to the possibility that I may not have to joust in drag after all.

OB

[Jehan de Pelham]

The first thing we have to answer is which chronicle?

John
Jehan de Pelham, esquire and servant of Sir Vitus
www.mron.org

[T. Finkas]

I am always suspicious of such accounts. After all, was not Joan of Arc ultimately sentenced to death for wearing men's clothing? That incident was not so long after the period you are mentioning.

Makes one wonder...

[Old Bones]

I do not wonder much - the answers are fairly obvious and probably hashed and rehashed out on this board. My character is living in and for the days she can compete. She is not living for her punishment and ultimate death.

To keep the thread on track it would be helpful to focus on valid documentation for such events, if possible. I thought maybe somebody may have stumbled upon similar accountings while digging about on their own searches.

Jehan I am looking about in the bibliography of these articles.

Many thanks! OB

[chef de chambre]

Hi Old Bones,

Firstly, I think that is a reference for women dressed in mens clothing who are upper class prostitues, and is in no way, shape, or form a referance to them participating in a tournament by tilting.

THe reference to their condition makes them 'free of all men', and hence by definition, prostitutes. Other than their horses, and their clothing, there is not a single reference to them wearing armour, wielding weapons (and just about everybody carried a short blade back then, the dagger does not cut it), or actually participating in jousting.

Knock yourself out with the jousting stuff, I think it's great, my wife and I are members of the IJA, and I applaud you.

Please do not, however, go and use this little complaint from a mid 14th centurysermon (I am pretty sure that is the reference John) about the moral degredation of society by having female prostitutes ape men (which is the preists complaint), as documentation for the practise of female knights jousting. It is emphatically not, and if I were to hear it at a public presentation, I would take issue with it, actively. It is a complaint about the loosness of morals, and to a then vouge fad of men of station being attracted to whores who are dressing up to look like young men (and thus treading dangerously close to Sodomy in spirit, if not deed).

[Mord]

After a quick search, I found this:

Bullough, V.L. "Transvestites in the Middle Ages." "The American Journal of Sociology (periodical)" Vol. 79, #6 (May, 1974), pp 1381-1394.

There were lots of listings about cross-dressing in Shakespeare when I did the search (on JSTOR), but this is not a surprise.

Mord.

[Corwin Giollapadhreag]

"And in such manner they spent and wasted their riches..."

That doesn't sound to me like they were being paid, unless that is a more esoteric reference, i.e. their riches in heaven.

Corwin

[Old Bones]

One would imagine that if Agnes picked up the lance in her fathers place and bested her opponent, then the joust was not new to her. Pure speculation of course! However, I do realize the danger of opening this up to assuming what women did.

Knock yourself out with the jousting stuff, I think it's great, my wife and I are members of the IJA, and I applaud you.

Hi Bob (correct?)

I am an SCA and IJA Member. The research is to document my IJA female jouster persona (which is quickly becoming a pipe dream ). As an SCA jouster, it has not been necessary to delve in as deep, but I would still like to carry the character over.

Transvestites and whores. Oh dear . Maybe I will just go back to dressing in drag.

Cheers! OB

[Blaine de Navarre]

Try here...http://www.swordmaiden.com/history/overview.php

[chef de chambre]

This is the key phrase

'free from matrimonial restraints'

Which tells us their 'condition'. IN Medieval legal parlance, woem free of such restraints are also listed as 'common to all men' - i.e. prostitues.

Some prostitutes were very well paid. THese probably were, that doesn't alter what they were.

I have a problem with a lot of the internet websites people use to "document" 'women warriors' - firstly, they throw in examples like these - to add to their "case", with a complete misunderstanding of the context (or worse yet, ignoring it). Secondly, they rarely if ever provide the source itself, a proper footnote, etc. Thirdly, the primary motivation seems to be modern politics, poor scholarship is the general rule - because the intent is to push an agenda, not to study history. At least that seems to be the case to me. I have e-mailed some of these website owners in the past, asking politiely for some proper references, and have been ignored - to me, that indicates their interest is a personal or political agenda, and not history.

If you want an example of a 14th century female 'man at arms', there is one genuine reference that is undisputed - that would be found in a letter from Petrarch, describing a woman he had known prior to her taking up arms, and afterward. It is documentation for a woman soldier though - not for a female jouster. At least it is a genuine reference, instead of an insupportable reach.

You cannot evade transvestitisim in regards to the topic, because in the medieval examples we have, including your courtesans in male dress at tournaments you began the topic with, when they undertake these sorts of endevours, they are in male dress. Hence, they are practising transvestite behaviour by definition. It is absolutely no reflection on their sexuality, but merely examples of women wearing male dress, in a society with strictly defined boundaries of dress, wearing it to break the bonds of 'normal' female behaviour - like women in Dijon from respectable families donning male dress as disguise, to be able to gamble in taverns where no respectable woman could go - to be there would mark you as a prostitute if you were a woman in normal dress, so they disguised themselves as men to break the social constraints to indulge their "wickedness", hopefully without discovery and condemnation. The cases we know of in this instance failed, because they are court cases of women being charged with misbehaviour.

[earnest carruthers]

"I have a problem with a lot of the internet websites people use to "document" 'women warriors' - firstly, they throw in examples like these - to add to their "case", with a complete misunderstanding of the context (or worse yet, ignoring it). Secondly, they rarely if ever provide the source itself, a proper footnote, etc. Thirdly, the primary motivation seems to be modern politics, poor scholarship is the general rule - because the intent is to push an agenda, not to study history. At least that seems to be the case to me. I have e-mailed some of these website owners in the past, asking politiely for some proper references, and have been ignored - to me, that indicates their interest is a personal or political agenda, and not history. "

Lothene being a prime offender in pretty much all particulars, I roll my eyes whenever it is cited as a central and reliabel source for this topic, namely by modern reenactors who want to justify women fighting as women on the battlefield or dressed as men - the latter I don't have any major issues with.

[Theodore]

Not sure if these women were specifically prostitutes, since it does mentions them spending away their fortunes. TO me the story seems more about willing participants trying to ignore their specified lot in life and have a good time. Wearing mens clothes would have involved showing more body, legs and such than women's clothing. I see it not as crossdressing perse but more as an attempt to wear shocking fashions to catch the eye. The same is done today.
I have more of an image of 14th century Paris Hiltons than I do of outright prostitutes, though how long their money lasted could surely change that. I can also see a groupie type mentality toward the wealthy squires and knights and possibly these girls were aspiring mistresses.

[chef de chambre]

Theodore,

You can only come to your conclusion by looking at it from the perspective of a 21st century person, and imposing the societal values and customs of the late 20th & early 21st century on the 14th century.

Ludicrous wantoness is most definitely a reference to prostitution, as is the term 'free from martial restraint' - European women were in essence owned and controlled by their families, unless and until they reached the state of widowhood, and escaped the pressure to remarry. They were comodities in the marriage market - especially at the level of social class you are assuming these women to be. A woman was controlled by her family in many aspects of her life, until she was married, and then she was controlled in these same aspects by her husband. That sounds really ugly to modern ears, but it is a fact - unvarished and as true as a proper 90 degree angle, and to ignore the condition of women in society is a terrible disservice to that condition (and feminisim as it exists today), and a terrible disservice to history. Only two avenues of not being in this condition existed, that is to be in a religious order of sorts (which is why the beguines - an order in which a large number of women are allowed to be lay members) were so tremendously popular, and ultimately partially why they were persecuted, and the state of prostitution, which many otherwise respectable women would be assumed to be in a state of, which would be ridiculous in our eyes - for instance younger women married to much older men treated to chivarries and gang-rapes when their protectors were not around in late medieval continental Europe.

I would recommend to you two decent books to start off with, so ytou can have a foundation of understanding of the subject, the first is titled "The Fourth Estate", and is about the achivevements of medieval women and their lives despite the societal restraints they lived under, and "Medieval Prostitution - I shall try to supply you with ISBN numbers later,

Do you have anything but your emotions and feelings to document your personal belief regarding this incident, or is it just these 'gut instincts' you are working under?

[chef de chambre]

Oh yes, before I forget to mention - they are clearly depicted as being dressed in mens clothes. You equate this to outrageous modern behaviour, and cutting edge fashion - in the society they lived in this was clearly transvestiteisim, and was considered criminal behaviour. It was this behaviour, taken up despite her promise to no longer do so, that the English and their puppet clerics burned Joan for (it was a "clear" sign of her recanting - she may have been left no other clothes, or put them on as a defense against rape, and so her death was probably engineered).

This isn't titilating behaviour to late medieval people - it is a outrage against what they considered the natural order, a behaviour associated to prostitutes, and a behaviour for which women faced severe criminal punishment, and potentially was a capitol offence.

[chef de chambre]

Old Bones,

I owe this explanation to you..

I believe that extrodinary women through the ages have indeed been soldiers - the primary documentation we have for them is from the late 17th century onward, but I believe that is due to the amount of surviving source material, not to a sudden rise in the phenomenon (these women are extremely rare, even with increased docuemtnation).

I find the topic of interest, and I am a supporter of sound historical research into locating earlier examples. The websites cited here are more hurtful than helpful to the historian, or the sincere student - they hrow every vauge reference, and many of them completely out of context, without the barest understanding of the context, like I believe this reference is a misunderstanding of what is actually occuring.

These people putting these websites together in the fashion they have, without soundly documenting or understanding their souces only hurt the research,m they don't help it.

I gave you a very sound reference in Petrarchs letter, showing the one 14th century example of a woman soldier (not a noblewoman defending her castle or lands, but an actual female soldier) to help you in your qwuest - not to dismiss the notion entirely.

[Blaine de Navarre]

In general, I tend to agree with Chef that most "research" available on the web is, at best, questionable. This problem is not, by the way, limited to Medieval history; try early Taoism or psychology of religion some time.

I fear Chef paints with too broad a brush, however, when he discourages any and all use of the web for research. The specific web site I noted above was chosen for 4 reasons:

A) Unlike most, they actually cite their sources
B) They actually tracked down the origin of the passage originally quoted by Old Bones, and also question its veracity
C) They have a translation of the Petrarch letter noted by Chef
D) They have a bibliography, so even if you question their conclusions, you have a starting point for further research

As an example of the right way to use the web for research, I was recently looking for information on early Taoism. One of the sites I got from Google was the worst kind of New Age "spirituality lite" drivel, complete with a java applet to give you an I Ching reading on line. It did, however, have a reference to a primary source that I was previously unaware of. I then went to Amazon, found a good English translation of the text, ordered it, and used it to write my paper. Moral of the story, even a questionable web site can point you in the direction of good sources.

[Rod Walker]

Do we get a real name Old Bones?

[Old Bones]

Thank you for the information, thoughts and references chef - and thank you to others for your thoughts on this topic. Surely it is not an easy one due to the social temperament of the time.

The scuttle on Agnes Hotot did prick my ears and I never heard any mention of her being punished for her actions. For what she did, she surely would have seen repercussions?

There is so little known of Agnes and in what little research I have done, I cannot find anything on else on openly female jousters. A few references to women dying or being injured in the joust and their sex being discovered after the fact. This is mentioned here and there. But women always they disguised themselves. Understandably so.

Cheers! OB

[Rod Walker]

Not sure if this helps or hinders.

I have seen a manuscript depiction of women in harness, they may have even been jousting. It was a while ago that I came across it. I will search for it again and if I can find it I will post it here. I think it was early 14thC

[chef de chambre]

Hi Blaine,

No, I am not painting with too 'broad a brush' in regards to those particular websites. Their "citations" are the (mostly coffee table) books they drew a vauge reference from, and not a actual citation of the primary documentation - in point of fact, most often they do not cite what the original document is, or where it is found, and there is absolutely no way to check to see if they have made a citation correctly or not, or a translation correctly or not. It is sloppy high-school scholarship at best - gets you an A+ in the 9th grade, but should be understood to be thoroughly inadequate as serious documentation or research outside of such a setting.

They are pushing a modern political agenda, and it taints nearly everything they present, and so damages serious scholarship, not only in my eyes, but in the eyes of most people who are trained to the discipline.

Rod, you have to be careful with artwork, usually pictures you are talking about are specifically illustrating allegorical stories like 'Roman de la Rose', or illustrationg the female counterparts of the 'nine worthies'. This is why context is so important.

Let me put it this way - in the 21st century, nobody is going to give you serious grief for wanting to be a woman jousting. That is not liscence to misrepresent historical fact, or fudge "documentation" - just to satisfy a personal conciet. It is dishonest in the extreme to try to rewrite history to ones personal satisfaction or political dogma, and in this particular case it does a disservice to the women of the past, and their accomplishments to date. By refusing to acknowledge the difficulties and social barriers women faced, and trying to paint a false picture of past society, the advances women have made today will not be truely understood.

[Blaine de Navarre]

Chef,

I don't think we are fundamentally in disagreement. The point I tried to make, though I don't think I made it very well, is that even a highly questionable modern source is sometimes the only available starting point. If they have any references at all, you have someplace to go. Maybe tose references themselves turn out to be unsatisfactory, but hopefully they in turn have more references, so you go back another generation. Eventually, you can get to the real stuff this way

In real life, medieval history is not my specialty, and I make no claim to have verified any of the specific references on the Swordmaiden site or any of the other lady fighter sites. I do, however, actually study a fairly obscure field. psychology of religion, and have been successful with exactly the sort of working backwards research method I describe above. Take it for what it's worth.

[chef de chambre]

Thank you for the information, thoughts and references chef - and thank you to others for your thoughts on this topic. Surely it is not an easy one due to the social temperament of the time.

The scuttle on Agnes Hotot did prick my ears and I never heard any mention of her being punished for her actions. For what she did, she surely would have seen repercussions?

There is so little known of Agnes and in what little research I have done, I cannot find anything on else on openly female jousters. A few references to women dying or being injured in the joust and their sex being discovered after the fact. This is mentioned here and there. But women always they disguised themselves. Understandably so.

Cheers! OB

Hi Old Bones,

I wish you luck in your quest - it will be a difficult one, but the more research you do, the better it will be for the study of the subject. I would not be daunted despite potential difficulties, I myself chose a particularly difficult area to study being primarily an anglophone.

What you will be facing is this - principly, the women who are mentioned in chronicles and histories are either noblewomen - and in the case of taking up arms, usually in the defence of their homes, or the inheritances of their husbands, selves, or children, or oddities that people found unusual at the time.

All women on occassion, regardless of station would take up arms to defend themselves and their homes, at need, Two great 15th century examoples are the women of Neuss 1474-75, who helped defend their walls (at the same time, the Burgundian camp women were organised into a engineering corps, who were employed to try to divert a river through a newly dug canal. That they were taken seriously or of importance is underscored by the fact that Charles the Bold gave them their own banner and trumpets - the significance of these symbols is very great in Low Countries society, to be fully appreaciated one needs to read Preveniers "The Promised Land", or other texts dealing with symbolisim and society in the politics of the Low Countries and the Dukes of Burgundy), and the women of a Somme town (Beauvaise) that repelled Charles the Bolds army in 1472 (where the tale of Jeannne le hachette comes from).

A great literary example is the lament of a border woman who has just had all her cattle and horses stollen, where she describes a guest 'keeping the back door wii a spear' while she kept the front door wi' a lance. Margaret Paston was prepared to defend a manor house with her servants, with bill, crossbows and handguns, during the Moleyns-Paston feud over the Fastolf inheritance (she was actually put out of the house though, despite her efforts).

We know about these open examples, because the women are falling into a socially acceptable pattern of behaviour. Finding the oddities is more difficult, and it can be difficult to discern wheather something is solid evidence of a practise, or an apocryphal tale told by a priest in a serom lamenting the decline of public morals.

Were any women to joust, they would have to do so incognito, so as a rule it is going tom be a case of women being discoverd - those passing mentions you have refered to are going to be your strongest lead. What you need to do is find out the actual primary references to these women you have mentioned - this can involve looking to the footnotes or the bibliography, and then going to either published primary sources, or even using the PRO to continue your search. Your efforts will make for a strong case, better than broadcasting for poor evidence, going instead for less numerous, but more solid references. The process can be very rewarding in itself.

Again, I wish you luck in your endevour!

[Strongbow]

Hi Bob,

I wanted to take a moment to thank you for some of the tidbits here on the history of medieval women in combat. I think that the true and truley remarkable history of women is so often muddled by well-intentioned but poorly researched efforts to elevate women above the "madonna or whore" status that women are so often forced into by the other end of the spectrum. As is often the case, I think the truth is so much more interesting than the fiction.

[chef de chambre]

Yeah, they are interesting, and they deserve to be better known. The Beauvaise example anf the siege of Neuss arre most thoroughly documented in French and German respectivavly, unfortunately.

At Neuss, there are complaints from Burgundian officers of their 'ill-use', due to the women of the town dumping waste upon them from the walls. It bruised their dignity quite a bit, shall we say.

Beauvaise was in a desperate situation, some of the women were fighting in hand to hand combat at the head of the wall to repell the Burgundian forces (hence Jeanne le hachet) - this is perhaps the best documented due to Louis XI granting them a tax exemption for a brief time, and 'allowing the women to dress as they will, and to preceed the men of Beauvaise in any procession'). Some people take this as a grant to 'wear the pants in the family, so to speak, but It is most likely from the wording really a repealing of any sumptuary laws for Beauvaise in specific, allowing the women to wear whatever luxury textiles and furs they could afford, regardless of their station. The custom eventually dissapeared in the next century.

[Joust Junkie]

Great thread, Bones, old girl. Woman after my own heart as you well know...

I'm wondering if a call to a womens studies department at one of our better universities would be useful for both of us. I can't imagine we are are the only ones to be asking the questions about Agnes Hotot etc. I suspect someone has written a treatise or thesis somewhere....

Anyone got any idea how to tap into scholastic documentation like this?

your friend & sistah in jouster drag

[Rittmeister Frye]

Junkie;

Most university libraries have access to lists of published theses and dissertations. Try one of the larger universities in your area, you might find some good info in the bowels of said institution. Make nice-nice with one of the librarians at your favorite U, and ask them to help you out.

Personally I would take anything out of any of the Women's Studies departments in any university with a lot of caution, though. They definitely tend to go at their chosen field with an agenda in mind (but then so do most History departments as well, when you get down to it). But I would think that you would be guided towards the sources you are seeking. At the very least, they would show you where the dead ends are.

At the moment my Daughter is delving into the details of the Haarlem Militia's women's company which fought the Spanish Army of Flanders in 1572. They had a woman captain, their own banner, were armed as men, and took full part in defending the walls of their town against a later Duke of Burgundy (who also happened to be King of Spain.) There seems to be some tradition of women fighting in defense of their towns and cities in the Low Countries, at the very least, so that might be a place to start digging, too.

Cheers, and Happy Hunting!

Gordon

[Tibbie Croser]

Fascinating subject.

When women did defend their homes or towns, what weapons did they use? Women didn't get any real training in any arms, right? I assume that common women could have used household or farm tools, such as axes, and that noblewomen knew archery for hunting.

Are any of them known to have used even simple armor, such as a helmet or padded jack or gambeson?

[Rittmeister Frye]

Kenau Hasselaar is the name of the Militia Captain. From what I can gather (and remember), her female company was one of Shotte, armed with calivers and muskets, and the trained with their firearms regularly, just like their male companions-in-arms. She is pretty famous in Dutch history, and there's a "Kenau Park" in Haarlem named after her.

It's been a couple of years since I did my own research on her, but as my Daughter comes up with more, I'll try to post it.

Cheers!

Gordon

[chef de chambre]

Fascinating subject.

When women did defend their homes or towns, what weapons did they use?

I think it ranged from improvised, to the same weapons as men, depending on the circumstance. Margeret Paston sent a letter to her husband specifically requesting crossbows and bills (and handguns, I think - keep in mind she was specificlally ordering them to outfit the servants of the household. She wasn't injured or killed in the engagement, and I don't think any of her servants were either, but she was put out of the manor with nothing more than her shift), for the defence of that manor I had mentioned.(See "The Paston Letters" for the primary documentation) Jeanne le hachette, was od course armed with an axe, which was probably a normal axe - keep in mind most medieval axes were both tools and weapons. There is one source I have seen mentioning the women and children of a town turning out on the walls in mail with spears, to decieve the enemy as to weather there were fighting men present in the town - I do not believe any fighting occured, and the deception worked. Sorry about the vaugness of this one. Beauvaise is mentioned in several 15th century accounts, amongst them de Commynes, which has a so-so English translation available.

Women didn't get any real training in any arms, right? I assume that common women could have used household or farm tools, such as axes, and that noblewomen knew archery for hunting.

There are very vauge references to noble women having at least enough training to defend a castle or manor, by overseeing the defense. Noble women often were trained to use a bow or crossbow in hunting. A very few noble women are recorded in armour, leading troops - two fourteenth century examples, one being a Scottish countess, and one being the Dutchess of Britanny exist, that are fairly soundly documented. People like me, looking for women choosing to follow the profession of arms always point out that these are examples in extremise, and aren't women soldiers - one looks to Petrarch for the single known 14th century example for that.

Are any of them known to have used even simple armor, such as a helmet or padded jack or gambeson?

Both the countesses I have mentioned are recorded in full (but probably not made for them, but rather being what happened to be in the armoury at the time - keep in mind mid 14th century armour fit flexibility, with coats of plates and mail) harness. There is no specific record of the 15th century examples I mentioned wearing armour. In the 16th century, Queen Elizabeth paraded before the trained bands at Tillbury (?) Camp, in a 'silver corslette' or breastplate (read, "The First Elizabeth" for an account), and with ostrich plumes in her coiffure, but this sounds like costume rather than serious armour - she was doing what she did for show, to stiffen morale. (on another note, she was apparently a good shot with a crossbow, and practised hunting with one often). Mary of Guise apparently led troops wearing a cuirasse, and she was a bit more of an amazon, although as a general rather than a private soldier.

I hope this helps.

[Tibbie Croser]

Thank you, Chef. When you say Mary of Guise, are you perhaps thinking of her daughter, Mary Queen of Scots, instead? Mary led the Chaseabout Raid against one of her rebellious nobles wearing a steel cap and armed with a pistol, I think. She also knew archery. Mary and her ladies-in-waiting were also said to have gone out and about in Edinburgh disguised as men. This last information appears in two biographies of her in the context of court gossip related by foreign ambassadors at her court. One biography is "Mary Queen of Scots" by Antonia Fraser (1969), and the other is "Queen of Scots" by John Guy (2004).

[chef de chambre]

Lest I forget, we have one known example of a 15th century woman having armour made for her, Joan of Arc. Her first armour was cobbled together bits, and a second one was made specifically to her measurement.

Problem is that she didn't fight, she was in essence an armoured mascot, who took her standard and promptly went to the thick of things where she wanted the troops to attack, but there is no record of her personally engaging in hand to hand combat.

Nope, I mean Mary of Guise, who at one point at least led French troops in some sort of harness - again, she did not engage in personal combat, and acted the role of a general, rather than a mascot.