Interview

On the Spot: Janina Ramirez

What will future generations judge us most harshly for? Failure to write on vellum.

Janina Ramirez | Published in History Today Volume 73 Issue 10 October 2023

A portrait of the Venerable Bede in a 14th century Germany homilary. Walters Art Museum. Public Domain.
A portrait of the Venerable Bede in a 14th century Germany homilary. Walters Art Museum. Public Domain.

Why are you a historian of women’s history?

Because I’m always looking for history’s underdogs – the people written out or overlooked.

What’s the most important lesson history has taught you?

That battles, disasters and cataclysms are significant, but that there are many aspects of life that tie us together across the millennia.

Which history book has had the greatest influence on you?

Henrietta Leyser’s Medieval Women: A Social History of Women in England 450-1500 (1995).

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