This series of 24 fascinating lectures draws on the latest modern scholarship to explore the lives of four medieval women who still shimmer in the modern imagination: Heloise, the abbess and mistress of Abelard; the prophet Hildegard of Bingen; Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine; and Joan of Arc.These lectures exemplify today's golden age of medieval scholarship, in which the role women played in medieval life is being clarified for the first time. You examine both old legends and new facts to address several provocative questions, such as: Were Hildegard's visions the result of migraines? How did Joan conduct herself in battle and react to its bloody reality? What does Eleanor's life tell us about a woman's role in the Crusades? As you journey through a past we are only now beginning to understand fully, you learn how these remarkable heroines have been both understood and misunderstood throughout history, and you'll better understand how history passes judgment on both women and the Middle Ages.