This is me.

However you’ve come to this blog, whether I bugged you about it til you gave in or found it through some random, medieval/queens/genealogy/social history web search, hi! This is just to lay out a few things about me so you know who’s doing this crazy project.

The first thing to say is I am not a historian. That these women are all historic is kind of a coincidence. I’m a librarian working in an archive, which means I know where to find the information I need, but how I view it record it, assimilate it, that’s all amateur hour! I’m not doing this for a book or an assignment, it’s purely for me, but I feel like there’s a freedom in that, and hopefully you’ll see that enthusiasm and passion, and won’t worry about my lack of referencing or making assumptions about their personalities.

I’m doing this for a lot of reasons. Any kind of research keeps my brain working: I’ve worked on a BA and a post-grad diploma and I miss the structure and sense of achievement from learning and discovering. And whereas my qualifications were important and useful, I was still studying questions someone else set. This question, this quest, is all mine.

There’s an emotional component too. I wasn’t expecting it but I’ve found that having researched a queen, found out what I can about her life, her personality, her choices, arriving at her tomb is a very emotional experience. There is a very real sense that they are there with me, that I am visiting a real person. Granted, they aren’t always there: Eleanor of Aquitaine’s bones were cast into a river during the French Revolution. But this is the space, and at some point in time they were there too. For a moment we share that space, we are together. And when it’s time to leave, I feel a pull, a wish to stay, to keep them company and reassure them they aren’t forgotten.

This project will be the work of years: it already has been because for a long time I was pretty lazy about it! So these posts may not be regular, but having put so much work into them, expended so much time (and tears!), it seems a shame not to share it. Enjoy!