Julian of Norwich (ca. 1342-1413) was a solitary woman of faith who taught herself to read and write, and published two books about her "Revelations."

The weighty Norton Anthology of Literature by Women contains 2,452 pages. Only 36 pages contain women's writings from Old English through the Renaissance — roughly 500 years.

Why, for women authors, did the Dark Ages last into the 18th century? We can briefly point to four factors.

1. In the infancy of English, serious literature was written in Latin, while one had also to know Greek and Italian fairly well to read what was considered important. Women then were barred from formal education and hindered by prejudice and housework from self-education. If they wrote it was in English, and English writing was not taken seriously. This obscurity discouraged would-be women writers.

2. Some in the Catholic church taught that women were inferior beings with weak minds and a propensity to evil. Learned clergymen wrote essays debating whether or not women had souls. These attitudes, which both supported and were supported by popular fears and prejudices, created a climate that stifled women's creativity.

This image is from the window of Julian of Norwich's cell in St. Julian's Church. A mystic, she wrote her revelations down, writing the first book in English authored by a woman.

3. Women had no literary communities to encourage their artistic efforts. This may be why some of the earliest surviving writing by women came from the court of Elizabeth. That Queen, herself a writer and respected thinker, provided both a model and an accepting atmosphere. Generally, though, isolation was another discouragement.

4. Living conditions for English women during the Medieval and Renaissance periods made creative work nearly impossible. Girls usually passed from father to husband starting at the age of 12. Women could not legally own property. Childbearing began early and ended late, while housework consumed most waking hours.

It's not surprising then that the first English woman of letters was a religious recluse, Julian of Norwich (1342-1413?). Women who were attached to the church (as nuns) or to the royal court (as wives of courtiers) had a little bit of freedom to write. Some women seized this opportunity.

In her classic long essay, A Room of One's Own, 20th century novelist Virginia Woolf explains why a woman born a genius during Shakespeare's day, Woolf names her "Shakespeare's sister," could not have lived as a genius. "Any woman born with a great gift in the 16th century would certainly have gone crazed, shot herself, or ended her days in some lonely cottage outside the village, half witch, half wizard, feared and mocked by all."

Medieval poet Christine de Pisan, is shown here submitting her book of poetry to her patroness.

Of course, every Medieval and Renaissance village, if not every family, probably had at least one woman gifted in the art of telling stories, creating folk songs, and adding verses to the Old English ballads passed down from her grandmothers. And Anon (anonymous), who wrote so many unsigned poems, was often a woman.

When English replaced Latin as the language of serious literature, and conditions improved slightly, women began to make up for lost time. A new form would arise perfectly suited to their talents, or did their talents evoke the new form? Either way, the 18th century novel became the means by which women writers could overcome obscurity, face fear, root out internalized oppression, and end their isolation. Many of them even started to sign their own names.

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