The Nine Worthy Women in England and Scotland: A Pre-Modern Concept of Heroines

The canon of the nine worthies embodied the medieval conception of the hero. Nine men, from different periods divided into triads based on religion, each embodying the characteristics of a valiant knight: these served as role models for chivalric society. While the male worthies are well-known, their female counterparts, the Nine Worthy Women (NWW), have featured much less in scholarship.

My thesis will demonstrate how the original French concept was received in the literature of medieval England and Scotland, and how this tradition was then harnessed in the early modern period to reflect the significant political change of female monarchy (Mary Tudor, Elizabeth I, and Mary, Queen of Scots). A central research question will be: what were the qualities that led a woman to be regarded as worthy?

The NWW form their own distinct canon in medieval and early modern literature, art, and culture. This canon is not as fixed as the male version since the NWW vary somewhat according to language, period, and country of origin. Generally, there is one early and one late canon.

The early canon first appears as such in Saluzzo's Chevalier errant (14th century) and names the following nine women, many of them members of the Amazons: Deyphille, Synoppe, Yppollite, Menalyppe, Semiramis, Lampheto, Thamaris, Theuca, and Pentezille. The later canon, most famously represented in Hans Burgkmair's woodcuts (1519), mirrors the male triads and displays Judith, Esther, Jael (Judaism); Lucretia, Veturia, Virginia (Paganism); St.

Elizabeth of Hungary, St. Bridget of Sweden, and St. Helen (Christianity).