Daughters of War: Isabel of Conches

The Anglo-Norman historian Orderic Vitalis noted a feud between Isabel of Conches, wife of Ralph of Tosny and Helwise, Countess of Evreux, in the 1090s. He writes “Both the ladies who stirred up such bitter wars were persuasive, high-spirited, and beautiful; they dominated their husbands an oppressed their vassals, whom they terrorized in various ways. But they were very different in character. Helwise on the one hand was clever and persuasive, but cruel and grasping; whereas Isabel was generous, daring, and gay, and therefore lovable and estimable to those around her. In war she rode armed as a knight among the knights; and she showed no less courage among the knights in hauberks and sergeants-at-arms than did the maid Camilla, the pride of Italy, among the troops of Turnus. She deserved comparison with Lampeto and Marpesia, Hippolyta and Penthesilea and the other warlike Amazon queens…”