Thursday, September 21, 2006

A woman jouster -- Dionisia


Ramon Lull's opposition to the possibility of women knights reminded me of this story:

The 13th century records of the English Hotot family preserve a story of one of their ancestors, Dionisia, who “when a maiden, clad in a tunic, with a hat upon her head and armed only with a hollow shield, about the seventeenth year of King Stephen (1151) …attacked a certain knight, with one blow of her spear bringing him to the ground, and carried off his horse.” Edmund King, ed., A Northamptonshire Miscellany (Northampton, 1983), 8.
This from my Deeds of Arms, p. 3 n. 5.

1 comment:

  1. Interesting story. Not one I've heard before. Too bad the picture doesn't show her holding her spear or doing battle.

    If you enjoy art and stories about women warriors, please go to Werewolfking's Howl blog at www.werewolfking.blogspot.com

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