Medieval studies has a long tradition of important women academics. Women whose research still today forms part of the bedrock of the discipline. So, as a contribution to #readwomen2014, here are a few of them:

Eileen Power | Medieval English Nunneries (1922)

A little outdated now, but still the first go-to book for students of medieval nuns. Itself still an underserved topic.

Marion Gibbs & Jane Lang | Bishops And Reform (1934)

How did the English episcopacy receive the Fourth Lateran Council? Eighty years after publication, students of ecclesiastical history still open this book to find out.

Dorothy Whitelock | English Historical Documents (1955)

I defy anyone to find an English medievalist who has not referred to this essential collection of the key documents of English history.

Caroline Walker Bynum | Holy Feast And Holy Fast (1987)

The historian who made feminist theory acceptable – indeed necessary – to medieval studies.

Jocelyn Wogan-Browne | The Idea Of The Vernacular (1999)

Champion of the non-Latin Middle Ages: Old English, Middle English, Anglo-Norman. If regular people spoke it, so does she. And one of my own extraordinary thesis supervisors.