England's Earliest Woman Writer and Other Studies on Dark-Age Christianity

Book excerpt: Was Whitby in Yorkshire the home of the earliest English woman writer? Did Roman Britain see Christians martyred at Leicester? Was St Patrick born in Somerset, not far from Bath? How in the age of Arthur did a saint rid Cornwall of a troublesome dragon? How were a Dark-Age Scottish queen and her lover saved from ignominy by a ring, miraculously found in the belly of a fish? These and other questions are answered in this book. Breaking spectacular new ground on Christianity in early Britain and beyond, it will be essential reading for both historians and the general reader concerned with writing by women, as its demonstration of an eighth-century life of Pope Gregory as the work of an unidentified nun underlines the perennial difficulties of female writers in a world dominated by men.