Medieval Lives: Damsel

Her parents can’t wait to oblige the bishop with their daughter’s ...well, I would say hand, but that’s not quite what the wicked Ranulf has in mind.

The Medieval damsel is nowadays seen as a beautiful, but helpless woman, forever in need of a knight in shining armor to rescue her. But were damsels really such passive females, or are the stories we think we know about them, simply not true?