The nun, however, has Susanna go to a pool in her husband's orchard, to cool herself on a hot day, using a verb that suggests not full disrobing, but possibly no more than splashing herself with water. Her chastity and goodness is held up as a model, possibly to other nuns, and when she is attacked "there is a torrent of metaphors: she is like a dove, or perhaps a swan, or a tender lamb in the mouth of a wolf". And even before Daniel's intervention, she is surrounded by a group of supporters inclined to trust her. She is then compared to a virgin martyr when she is taken before her judges, including her would-be assailants. The nun wrote:

"They have ordered the clothes stripped from her soft body,
And they violate with their gaze the secret parts of Susanna,
So that thereby a depraved mentality may be satiated by the sight:
Oh how wickedly perverse men become worse after the worst!"

Then, while Petrus de Riga has Susanna stumbling and falling silent before her accusers, Willetrudis makes a long and moving speech declaring her faith and trust in God. She then goes unflinchingly towards a martyrs death. And when Daniel intervenes, he is acting not for himself but as an agent of God - almost of her own prayer.

I think Stevenson is right; this is a woman telling a woman's story.

These are voices that must become better known, incorporated into the much better explored arena of women's writing in their vernacular languages. I've sought wherever possible in this review to provide links to internet resources about the writers mentioned; their scarcity tells its own story. This is a book whose important should be proclaimed from the rooftops - or at least should find a prominent place in the sources of any scholar of European women's history.

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Stevenson wrote about her book in The Guardian. She's also been on Woman's Hour.

Tags: Women, History, Poetry, Latin.