The historian celebrates the superstar seventh-century Abbess of Whitby. Hild is one of the most significant figures in the history of English Christianity. As the Abbess of Whitby – a monastery for both men and women – she led one of the most important religious centres in the Anglo-Saxon world and was an influential mentor and patron to bishops, poets and kings alike. The 664 AD Synod of Whitby brought together the Roman and Celtic churches and definitively set the date of Easter.
Janina Ramirez is Research Fellow in History of Art at Harris Manchester College, Oxford, and a celebrated broadcaster and bestselling writer, whose books include Femina – A New History of the Middle Ages, Through the Women Written Out of It, Legenda – The Real Women Behind the Myths that Shape Europe, and The Private Lives of the Saints: Power, Passion and Politics in Anglo-Saxon England.