On the evening of Wednesday, Sept. 17, students and faculty alike assembled in Rockefeller Hall 300 to attend this year’s C. Mildred Thompson Lecture, delivered by Clifford J. Rogers, a Professor of History at the United States Military Academy at West Point. In his lecture, Rogers, a preeminent scholar of medieval military history, challenged the concept that medieval warfare was exclusively a male endeavor.
Rogers explained how traditional scholars have not thoroughly addressed women’s activities either in relation to or involvement in medieval warfare. While popular representations of the Middle Ages tend to highlight knights and kings, Rogers asserted that women engaged in warfare during this time period in important ways just as much as men.
“Too often, the chroniclers who wrote our histories minimized or ignored women’s contributions,” Rogers said. “But the evidence shows that women defended castles, rallied soldiers and, in some cases, even led forces themselves.”
Rogers utilized chronicles and legal documents to illustrate how women blurred boundaries between the homefront and the battlefield. An example he mentioned is Matthew Paris’ 13th-century “Chronica Majora,” which describes women in England defending towns under siege by pouring boiling oil from the battlements and transporting stones to reinforce fortifications. The “Gesta Normannorum Ducum” offers a parallel account of noblewomen defending attacked castles by taking up arms alongside men. Furthermore, legal documents that hold records of property and warfare in France and England mark instances of noblewomen tasked with managing their estates in the absence of their husbands, organizing garrisons, raising troops and negotiating truces during the siege of their castles. These chronicles and legal documents, to Rogers, demonstrate how women took on duties and obligations beyond domestic responsibilities, contrary to much of the scholarship about this time period.
Alongside active fighting, Rogers stressed the essential logistical support women provided during war. They traveled with armies as camp followers, tended to the wounded and helped sustain lengthy military campaigns. “If you think of a medieval army without women,” he stated, “you are not imagining the reality of how those armies survived in the field.”
Professor Nancy Bisaha, Professor of History and Director of Medieval and Renaissance Studies, stated that Rogers’ lecture connected directly to the work of teaching in the department. Bisaha recalled later in an interview with a Miscellany News reporter, “We typically propose speakers whose research and expertise correspond to subjects addressed in our own courses, with the goal of expanding our learning and offering a shared experience to audience members beyond the Department and College. I proposed the idea of inviting Prof. Rogers to coincide with a new intensive course I am teaching called Women Warriors in the Middle Ages and Renaissance (HIST 206).”
The event was sponsored by the Vassar History Department, which brings prominent scholars to campus to enhance students’ learning outside of the classroom. For example, last year, the College presented a retrospective conference on the Vietnam War.
In particular, Rogers’ visit underscores Vassar’s connections with military and strategic history, which have continued to grow in scholarly importance. These connections can be found both in courses like Professor of History Robert Brigham’s “Military, War and Society.” as well as Vassar’s joint initiative with West Point.
For many students, the lecture highlighted how much there is still to be discovered in Middle Age history. “It made me really think about how much we don’t see when textbooks only talk about kings or generals,” said Jane Zhang ’29. “Seeing that women organized defenses or led troops also shows how history looks very different based on whose perspective you center.”
Other students felt that Rogers’ arguments captured the wider relevance of questioning accepted gender narratives. “It made me see how the assumptions we have today about gender roles also influenced how chroniclers recorded history back then,” said Yonghan Chen ’29. “By going back to the sources, you see how women were central to, not peripheral, to medieval warfare.”
In closing, Rogers urged the students to keep examining the assumptions that shape historical memory. “The past is never as simple as the stories we have been told,” he said. “When we examine the evidence we have, we not only get a clearer sense of warfare in the Middle Ages, we also get a clearer sense of how history itself is constructed.”
The lecture ended with a generous round of applause and a gentle hum of conversation as students and faculty chatted quietly in small groups, reflecting on the lecture. Some remained at the podium to speak with Rogers directly, while others stood in the aisles talking about which examples surprised them the most. For many, that evening reinforced the complex nature of medieval history and the need to recover the voices that have been shunted to the outer edge.