The Dark Queens
The Dark Queens made me more curious about the early medieval world
The Dark Queens is a non-fiction book about medieval history by Shelley Puhak which I received from Netgalley to review. My friend Andrea read this book and told me about it, and I decided I had to read it too. I was not disappointed.
Easy to read and informative, The Dark Queens is my favorite non-fiction book of 2022 so far. The only difficult part to follow was the family tree and keeping all the early medieval names straight. I think the finished version of this book might have a family tree and appendices, but the e-arc did not. I am planning to get a finished copy of this book when it comes out, so we shall see.
Side note: there is genuinely someone in this called Duke Boso. His first name was Guntram. Real people looked down at their precious newborn and thought “yes, he looks like a Guntram.”
From the introduction, Puhak’s writing captivated me – a tall order since the time period discussed here came about 1,300 years before the historical period I am most interested in. I do, however, have a soft spot for learning about maligned and forgotten (read: re-written) historical women, and The Dark Queens is certainly that. I would like to add a warning that this book is not for anyone with a weak stomach: this book includes grisly homicides, suicides, torture, and dead children.
This book follows medieval queens and sisters-in-law Brunhild and Fredegund who lived in and ruled most of what is now France and some of western Germany during the latter half of the 500s and the very early 600s. Puhak has done a great job of sifting through existing primary and secondary sources and presenting a narrative that is easy to understand for a layperson. I also appreciate the acknowledgment that there are gaps in the historical record – there is no trying to gloss over missing or conflicting information. She also makes excellent points about human rights and women’s rights (or lack thereof) and how many of the same unjust themes have carried on into the modern era.
“Women possessed both more value and more rights under Salic law than they had under Roman law, and more than they would in most kingdoms in the Middle Ages and Renaissance. Yet despite the legal code’s seeming progressive bent, a woman’s value was directly linked to her reproductive potential, to her ability to make more warriors or princes.”
In another example, she discusses the contemporary “explanation” for Queen Fredegund’s political savvy: she must be a witch. Obviously, the only way a woman could influence her husband or understand politics is to be a witch, under the tutelage of Satan, himself.
Puhak also combats a sticky and unsavory myth: that the medieval world was just Europe. The medieval world was, in fact, the world.
“[the wedding ring] Chilperic slipped on the new queen’s [Brunhild’s] finger would have contained a garnet, transported all the way from a mine in India. The stones were all the rage and prized even above diamonds. The rest of her new jewelry had traveled just as far. The amber beads now knotted around her neck came from the Baltic, and the lapis lazuli inlaid into her earrings from Afghanistan.”
I learned so much from this book and it has made me more curious about the early medieval world – something I never thought I’d say.
