The rise and fall of a medieval woman from cheese to oat: Matilda de Briouze

The study of medieval women has become quite trendy in the last decades or so. The narrative sources can tell us quite a lot about some women who have been able to escape the rigid and circumscribing expectations of most medieval authors. Perhaps there is no better example than the exceptional figure of Matilda de Briouse (1155-1210), wife of William, o…